What neither the Soviets nor anybody else knew at the time was that the Americans had also installed ballistic missiles of their own, similar to the ones the Russians had delivered to Cuba, on Okinawa, just south of Kyushu. There is a very real chance that nuclear war could break out and that we might all be blown to kingdom come.” He added “If you have any letters to write I suggest you write them now. “This is not a drill,” he said solemnly, “I cannot overstate the danger we are facing. would later call this showdown “the most dangerous moment in human history.”Īt the beginning of the standoff, the Elint Center commander, a Navy admiral, had assembled us and we’d all held our breath while he explained the situation. (DEFCON 1 meant that nuclear war was imminent.) Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
It was the highest confirmed DEFCON level ever in the history of the United States. It meant that armed forces had to be ready to deploy and engage within six hours, and that our nuclear-armed B-52 bombers would be on continuous airborne alert around the world. On October 27, after a U-2 was shot down by a Soviet missile crew in Cuba, the Pentagon raised the Strategic Air Command’s Defense Condition (DEFCON) to level two, which was the second to last step to nuclear war. US Navy ships fired warning shots at them. Photo courtesy of Robert WhitingĪ number of Soviet ships tried to run the blockade. But everyone seemed much quieter than usual. Demonstrators outside the base waved banners appealing for peace. The television set in the day room alternated between the US military’s Far East Network and Japan’s state broadcaster NHK, where grim-faced announcers gave round-the-clock updates on the crisis. The people on the base, both American and Japanese, were eerily subdued as they went about their business, transistor radios (made in Japan) held to their ears to catch the latest news. The crisis dominated the news as people in Japan and America and the rest of the world watched and waited. He also had his generals draw up plans to bomb the Cuban missile sites in case that should prove necessary.Īllocation of powers in times of war: Israel’s caseĪn agonizing standoff ensued, the anxiety level moving off the charts, as we monitored Russian and Chinese movements, increasingly convinced that some sort of attack was imminent. Branding Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev an “immoral gangster,” he demanded the removal of the missiles and set up a naval blockade around Cuba. On October 22, US President John F Kennedy told the nation about the discovery of the missiles. We remained on standby during off-duty hours. At Fuchu, we were all confined to base and placed on 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. On October 19, the US military was put on “high alert” and ordered to be ready to invade Cuba at a moment’s notice. A missile launched from Cuba could reach the White House in just 15 minutes.
Their presence placed large swaths of the United States within range of attack. The weapons were SS-4s, 22 meters long and carrying megaton warheads. On October 14 of that year, our U-2 spy plane flights over Cuba discovered that the Soviet Union had installed medium-range atomic missiles there, just 90 miles from Florida. We fully expected a Soviet nuclear warhead to take out our facility. I turned 20 during that time but, along with everyone else in the center, I seriously wondered if I would live to see another birthday. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here and Part 3 follows below:īy far the most stressful time at Fuchu Air Base’s Elint Center was a two-week period in October 1962, during what became known as the Cuban missile crisis. Asia Times earlier published one of those segments and now we’re serializing the other. Then the editors of the English edition, for whatever reason, decided against including his material on espionage. Acclaimed author Robert Whiting is so tightly plugged into Japan that the first edition of his memoir Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys … and Baseball came out in Japanese.
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