“This demand for inspection aims to validate the U.S. presumption that it can violate our right to freely act within our own borders, that it can dictate what we can or cannot do within our own borders. And our line on this is not only a line for today; it is a view that we have always maintained, without exception.

“In the revolutionary government’s reply to the joint resolution of the U.S. government, we said the following: ‘Equally absurd is its threat to launch a direct armed attack should Cuba strengthen itself militarily to a degree the United States takes the liberty to determine…. We have not surrendered nor do we intend to surrender any of our sovereign prerogatives to the Congress of the United States.”

This is the firm reply Fidel Castro, prime minister of Cuba at the time, gave on Oct. 30, 1962, to U Thant, secretary-general of the United Nations. U Thant had come to Cuba to convey a demand by Washington and the UN Security Council that Havana allow two teams of UN snoops: one on the ground and one from the air, to verify that Soviet nuclear missiles that had been installed in Cuba were being removed, as Moscow had already announced to the world it was doing. The Cuban government also rejected the request that Soviet ships carrying the missiles and launch pads be inspected at Cuban ports by the Red Cross.

It is salutary to remember this determined stance in defense of national sovereignty on the 42nd anniversary of what is known as the “Cuban Missile Crisis” of October 1962. Especially at a time when demands for UN “inspections” under the banner of nuclear “nonproliferation” by Washington and its imperialist allies have become the order of the day, all directed against semicolonial countries. And when governments that have succumbed to such imperial pressure—like that of Brazil most recently—face nothing approaching the U.S. naval blockade and threats of war by Washington that Cuba confronted four decades ago.

In October 1962, when U.S. spy planes photographed Soviet missile launch sites under construction in Cuba, the U.S. rulers set on a course that pushed the world to the edge of nuclear war.

Most U.S. commentators treat the events of October 1962 as a Cold War showdown between the two superpowers, in which Cuba was at best a pawn, at worst a raging mute offstage. In that scenario, the people of Cuba do not exist, nor in fact do the tens of thousands of Americans across the country who acted to oppose U.S. imperialism’s preparations for a military assault.

As Tomás Diez Acosta demonstrates in his book October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis As Seen from Cuba, the roots of that crisis lay not in Washington’s Cold War with the Soviet Union, but in the drive by the U.S. government to overthrow the “first free territory of the Americas.” This is what Cuba became after workers and peasants overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship in 1959 and opened the road to socialism in the Americas. The acceptance by U.S. president John F. Kennedy of the offer by Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev to withdraw the missiles—an offer broadcast worldwide over Radio Moscow without even informing the Cuban government—was how the stand-down of the two strategic nuclear powers was announced. But it was the armed mobilization and political clarity of the Cuban people, and the capacities of their revolutionary leadership, that stayed Washington’s hand, saving humanity from the consequences of a nuclear holocaust.

Havana’s unequivocal rejection of UN “inspections” at the end of the October 1962 crisis was consistent with this course. For those interested in delving into the lessons of this experience for today, we highly recommend Diez Acosta’s book—including the transcript of the exchange between Castro and U Thant (see www.pathfinderpress.com).  
 
 
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