Annotations for Speakers: Renata Keller

Thanks for having me.

Go Longhorns.

That is also one of my favorite songs that he wrote. And no surprise, right? Because they studied the crisis. But I think he actually expresses a lot of what a lot of people in Latin America were feeling, this, this outrage that that the United States was even contemplating nuclear war without consulting them, with risking their lives for what a lot of people argued was capitalist gain. There were congressional debates in Chile where people were saying these exact same things, that this is all about capitalism and US imperialism, and that if there is a war, there's there's not going to be any winners, we're all going to lose a nuclear war.

Yes, that was one of my main initial findings when I started this project, was that there was a huge range of reactions, and that's what drove my curiosity through, you know, a decade of research was finding out all the different ways that people responded. Some people sided enthusiastically with the United States. All the governments of Latin America voted unanimously in the Organization of American States to set up, to set up the quarantine and approve this idea that they didn't want nuclear weapons on Cuba. Pretty much everyone in the governments or in, you know, the executive branches of Latin American governments agreed on that. But when you look beyond that, there was a huge amount of disagreement about whether Cuba should be allowed to have these weapons. A lot of people argued that they were defensive weapons, just like Castro said that Cuba was clearly under attack and should have the right to defend itself, whereas other people said, No, you're increasing the danger for everyone in the hemisphere. This is unacceptable to have these weapons and you so you get divisions among Latin American countries and within Latin American countries, whereas you get huge protests. In contrast to what we see in the United States, there were a couple major peace protests, but in Latin America, they were huge, and they were all over the place, and in some cases, they devolved into riots, like in Bolivia, I was shocked to find out that more Bolivians died as a result of the Cuban missile crisis than Cubans, and that's because they also felt invested in the outcome, and it played the crisis, played into these existing divisions within Latin American societies like Bolivia, and kind of ignited the these conflicts that had been simmering for a long time.

That's a great question. We know more about what the United States was doing based on availability of US records, and they definitely were watching what was going on in Latin America. I read the Kennedy tapes, which was it's a transcription of secret recordings that Kennedy kept during his meetings in the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's an amazing resource. And in these meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council or EXCOM, they were discussing what was going on in Latin America even before they decided to set up the quarantine, they were concerned. How is this going to look in Latin America? Are people going to see this as just the latest episode of US imperialism? Could the missiles in Cuba destabilize the balance of power in the region? Could it give Cuba like equal power as the United States, since they also would then have nuclear weaponry that they could use to kind of throw their weight around. And then during the crisis, they were discussing reactions in Latin America, and they were worried when they saw these riots and these very strong responses among Latin American publics against their own governments. They were worried about stability in Latin America, and worried that this crisis could spin out and destabilize countries like Mexico and Brazil and Bolivia. And so they were very closely following what was going on in Latin America. And then on the Soviet side, we do have evidence that they were also watching what was going on in Latin America, and they were aware of clearly, the OIS vote that had been all over the news. And they also knew which OAS countries were actually participating in the quarantine around Cuba. A lot of countries offered their air bases and their naval bases. Some countries, like Argentina and Venezuela even sent destroyers to participate in the quarantine. And the Soviets knew that a lot of countries were participating and were uniting against Cuba.

Mm-hmm, that's a good point. I would say that, yes, I do differ a little bit from that conventional view, while I do also recognize that we came very close to nuclear war, and I'm grateful that Kennedy and Khrushchev decided to step back from the brink. I do see it as not as much of a clear victory, if when you look at the results for Latin America of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it brought a lot of death and destruction for decades to come. I mentioned Argentina earlier. That's an example of a country that, as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, became a lot closer to the United States, especially in terms of military relations. And there was one military leader in particular, Juan Carlos Ongania, who came to the attention of the United States during the missile crisis. He was the head of the Army, and he very enthusiastically supported the United States during the crisis, he organized a 3000 man unit that could be deployed in case of a land invasion. And then after the crisis, the United States was appreciative and especially trained him. Paid a lot of attention to Ondania, but also the United States signed a military assistance approach, military assistance program with Argentina, and Argentina was the final country in the Americas to really become much more closely aligned militarily with the United States. And then, four years after the missile crisis, Juan Carlos Ongania staged a coup in Argentina, a military coup that would usher in more than a decade of other military coups that brought a death 10s of 1000s of people, mostly civilians, were killed or disappeared during Argentina's dirty war. And you can trace some of the roots of that back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. And so, yes, I would say the idea that this was a victory or or a near escape is not true when you look beyond the United States.

Yes, that's a great point. So a lot of this builds on preexisting trends, but I do think the missile crisis was an important turning point because it was a moment where everyone shared danger, and it was this moment where everyone had to decide between these kinds of conflicting values and conflicting priorities.

Yes, so the crisis, like I said, forced everyone to realize that they were living in a nuclear age and that they were living in the Cold War, that the Cold War wasn't just, you know, a faraway conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union that they could ignore. And so this experience of really being at the center of nuclear conflict revealed to a lot of Latin Americans their vulnerability. Their countries were unlikely to get nuclear weapons, except for places like Argentina and Brazil. And so a lot of countries within Latin America said, We don't want another missile crisis this, this was too close. And so Brazil and a number of other countries have been pushing before the missile crisis for a nuclear-free zone or some kind of agreement. And then Brazil came out of the crisis in not with a great relationship with the United States, to put it, to put it mildly. And so Mexico actually stepped into the breach and picked up where the Brazilians had left off. And the Mexicans did come out of the crisis with a very strong hemispheric position and relations with the United States. And so they started pushing for a nuclear weapons free zone, and it took about five years, but they were able to get another country, enough other countries, to sign on to establish the Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1967 like you mentioned, and that made Latin America the first nuclear weapons free zone in the world, and that set a precedent for other regions of the world to set up regional nuclear weapons free zones. And I think it was that experience of coming so close to nuclear war during the missile crisis, and this feeling of powerlessness that made a lot of people in Latin America willing to change their position and take action.

I think there's a lot of parallels between our current moment and the Cuban Missile Crisis. One that jumps out to me is it's kind of the danger of saber rattling, right when we look at the causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think that one of the main reasons that Khrushchev offered nuclear weapons to Castro in the first place was this clear sense that Cuba was under attack. You have the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 you have Cuba being kicked out of the Organization of American States. You have Operation Mongoose, in which the United States is organizing all these covert activities against Cuba. And that sends a very clear message that the United States and the rest of the countries of Latin America do not intend to put up with Castro's government, and they want to undermine it and get Castro out of Cuba. And so I think we can see parallels today in Venezuela, where we are taking all these steps to undermine Maduro's government. I think, just like Castro, he is, he is incredibly unpopular in the Inter American community. And you know, we're building up this sense of threat. And what I wonder is this, how is Maduro going to react? How are countries like Russia and China is how are they going to react? And could this escalate into, I'm guessing, probably not, another nuclear conflict, but it could be a very drawn out war if the United States decides to actually. We militarily intervene in Venezuela, and the fact that we still live in a nuclear era means that any major conflict, even if it doesn't appear to be a nuclear one on on the face or at first, could potentially escalate into one.

I think one of the lessons for everyday people is that their their voices matter during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a lot of people in the United States kind of followed their government leadership. There was a lot of this sense of, we need to stand united as a country. We need to support Kennedy's position, support the quarantine. There wasn't a lot of criticism in the media. There wasn't, you don't see the same kind of huge protests that I mentioned in Latin America. But I think in Latin America, it's a completely different story. And people did feel empowered, and they did feel like they were participating in the crisis. And so you see not only these big protests, but you see people debating in the media. You see people in the other wings of the government, in senates, kind of debating their country's positions, and I think that that really mattered. It didn't necessarily help decide the question of whether there would be missiles in Cuba or not, but it did help influence their own country's political future, and I think that is an important message that that we can participate, and we can take steps in our own lives to shape what's going on in our own countries, and then that that connects to the rest of the world. I think another important lesson is that we're not isolated, you know, even even places that are islands are connected very closely to the rest of the world and the rest of the region, and so we can use those connections to our advantage.

I agree completely. I think there's a long history of the United States overestimating, overestimating its abilities to to determine other countries, political regimes, to target specific leaders. You know, in the case of Kasher, they tried so many ways to get him out of power, up to an including assassination and and invasion, and none of it works. And Cuba is a much smaller place than Venezuela, and so I would say there have been very few instances of success in that regard in Latin America. And then there's a question of, what happens next. So even if you do manage to remove a specific leader or change a specific government, like in the case of Chile, what happens next is, is the result or the conclusion any better? I would say, in most cases, know that the consequences have been extremely harmful for Latin Americans and for Inter American relations.

That's a great question. I don't think it's unfair at all. I think these are the kind of questions that people should be asking. My opinion is that we should work within regional organizations, like the Organization of American States. I think that's one of the overlooked lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis, was that by working with regional allies, Kennedy was able to find to set the world on a path toward a peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis by taking multilateral action instead of unilateral action. And so that would be my first recommendation was to would be to work with regional partners like. I said Maduro is extremely unpopular within the region, but by taking unilateral action, we are turning potential allies like Colombia against us, instead of working with them against Maduro,

Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.