Castro: Khrushchev Partially to Blame for Missile Crisis

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 10, 2002

Castro: Khrushchev Partially to Blame for Missile Crisis

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Cuban President Fidel Castro said on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev helped create the conflict by misleading President Kennedy -- indicating that there were no nuclear weapons on the communist island.

Castro's comments, which came in an interview with ABC's 20/20 program, coincided with a conference in Havana bringing together Cubans and Americans who played roles during the real life Cold War drama. ABC, which will broadcast the interview Friday, made the transcript public Wednesday.

"He believed what Khrushchev told him," Castro said during the interview, conducted this week in Havana. "Therefore, Kennedy was misled. That was a very big mistake on the part of Khrushchev ... one that we opposed vehemently."

The crisis began in mid-October 1962 as Kennedy became convinced that there were Soviet nuclear warheads on the island just 90 miles south of the Florida coast. Their discovery brought the world to the edge of nuclear conflict.

As President Bush musters support to oust Saddam Hussein, former members of the Kennedy administration are heading to the Cuba conference to revisit that earlier standoff.

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and former special aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. are among those expected at the conference, aimed at showing a lesser known view of the crisis: Cuba's. Castro is also expected.

In his ABC interview with Barbara Walters, Castro said his country did not agree to accept the missiles out of fear, and "we would have rather not had them in order to preserve the prestige" of Cuba.

He also said officials on the communist-run island did not like being considered "the Soviet base in the Caribbean."

The crisis, marking the Cold War's tensest moments, was defused when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba.

Most Americans invited to the conference, including McNamara, Schlesinger, former Kennedy speechwriters Richard Goodwin and Ted Sorensen and ex-CIA analyst Dino Brugioni, will arrive Thursday.

Also attending are several Kennedy family members, including Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother who was attorney general and a key player in the crisis.

Along with the gathering, Cuba will release some formerly classified documents about the days known here as the Crisis of October.

The nonprofit National Security Archive at George Washington University will also release newly declassified American documents about the crisis.

The missile crisis conference will feature seminars on Friday and Saturday. Participants will visit crisis-related sites, including a former missile silo in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

Source: Agencies

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