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October 1962: The 'Missile' Crisis as Seen from Cuba
In October 1962, Washington pushed the world to the edge of nuclear war. Here, for the first time, the full story of that historic moment is told from the perspective of the Cuban people, whose determination to defend their sovereignty and their socialist revolution blocked U.S. plans for a military assault and saved humanity from the consequences of a nuclear holocaust. This book is part of a series, The Cuban Revolution in World Politics.
333 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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November 4, 2025
"We possess moral long-range missiles that cannot be dismantled and will never be dismantled. This is our strongest strategic weapon.--Fidel Castro, November 1, 1962.
Tomas Diez Acosta was involved in a small way in these events as a political instructor in a military unit. He retired from active military service in 1998 and joined the Institute of Cuban History. He is the author of several other books. So far as I know, this is the only one available in English. This gives a very different view of events than you will get from any history written in the US. He sees John Kennedy, not Fidel Castro, as the one ready to take the world to the edge of a nuclear calamity.
Fidel had hesitation about accepting the missiles and was extremely upset when the Soviet Union withdrew them without even consulting with Cuba. He was soon to see that the whole thing had been a bad move, but his reason for this had nothing to do with the US opposition. After this Fidel was quite conscious of always opposing any further countries acquiring nuclear weapons, and he gave this advice to North Korea and others.
But this gives you the Cuban point of view--the only way you can understand these events from the standpoint of the number one target of US imperialism, which had shown before and has shown ever since its inability to accept the Cuban Revolution.
Some of the best parts of the book are to be found in the second page of the table of contents, under "Documents of the Cuban government," especially the discussions of Fidel Castro with U Thant, then the secretary-general of the United Nations. Diplomats don't usually have to discuss with people who represent the interests of the world's toilers. Fidel is polite but keeps reminding U Thant about the U.N. role in the Congo, allowing imperialists to murder the legitimate president. All the U.N. claims of "neutrality" were destroyed in the course of that event, which set back the cause of independence of African countries many years. Cuba gave aid to all the countries fighting for genuine independence.
This is from the 'Militant' May 22, 2023:
"Tomás Diez Acosta, author of October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba, published in English by Pathfinder Press, died in Havana April 17 at the age of 76. Diez wrote over a dozen books about U.S.-Cuba relations; but more than a historian he was a soldier of the revolution. He joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1961, and a year later, then 16, participated in the mobilizations of October as the political officer of his military unit in western Cuba. He retired from active military service in 1998 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
"Diez was a leader of the Committee for Defense of the Revolution in his working-class neighborhood in western Havana. He helped organize anniversary celebrations and community fiestas, and he proudly showed friends the basketball court and playground that he and others had cleaned up and made functional.
"Diez spoke frequently at national and international conferences on the October Crisis, most recently at a conference in Havana only six months ago. He loved teaching young people about how the Cuban people had responded to the threats of U.S. invasion in 1962. He often spoke in lecture halls and TV studios, but he much preferred teaching in the open air at the actual missile sites. I remember a slog through the mud with him on a 2-mile trek to a remote missile site. Tomás kept up a soldierly pace, and the students, a half-century younger than him, sometimes struggled to keep up."
Matilde Zimmermann,
New York, New York
Also read Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas.
Tomas Diez Acosta was involved in a small way in these events as a political instructor in a military unit. He retired from active military service in 1998 and joined the Institute of Cuban History. He is the author of several other books. So far as I know, this is the only one available in English. This gives a very different view of events than you will get from any history written in the US. He sees John Kennedy, not Fidel Castro, as the one ready to take the world to the edge of a nuclear calamity.
Fidel had hesitation about accepting the missiles and was extremely upset when the Soviet Union withdrew them without even consulting with Cuba. He was soon to see that the whole thing had been a bad move, but his reason for this had nothing to do with the US opposition. After this Fidel was quite conscious of always opposing any further countries acquiring nuclear weapons, and he gave this advice to North Korea and others.
But this gives you the Cuban point of view--the only way you can understand these events from the standpoint of the number one target of US imperialism, which had shown before and has shown ever since its inability to accept the Cuban Revolution.
Some of the best parts of the book are to be found in the second page of the table of contents, under "Documents of the Cuban government," especially the discussions of Fidel Castro with U Thant, then the secretary-general of the United Nations. Diplomats don't usually have to discuss with people who represent the interests of the world's toilers. Fidel is polite but keeps reminding U Thant about the U.N. role in the Congo, allowing imperialists to murder the legitimate president. All the U.N. claims of "neutrality" were destroyed in the course of that event, which set back the cause of independence of African countries many years. Cuba gave aid to all the countries fighting for genuine independence.
This is from the 'Militant' May 22, 2023:
"Tomás Diez Acosta, author of October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba, published in English by Pathfinder Press, died in Havana April 17 at the age of 76. Diez wrote over a dozen books about U.S.-Cuba relations; but more than a historian he was a soldier of the revolution. He joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1961, and a year later, then 16, participated in the mobilizations of October as the political officer of his military unit in western Cuba. He retired from active military service in 1998 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
"Diez was a leader of the Committee for Defense of the Revolution in his working-class neighborhood in western Havana. He helped organize anniversary celebrations and community fiestas, and he proudly showed friends the basketball court and playground that he and others had cleaned up and made functional.
"Diez spoke frequently at national and international conferences on the October Crisis, most recently at a conference in Havana only six months ago. He loved teaching young people about how the Cuban people had responded to the threats of U.S. invasion in 1962. He often spoke in lecture halls and TV studios, but he much preferred teaching in the open air at the actual missile sites. I remember a slog through the mud with him on a 2-mile trek to a remote missile site. Tomás kept up a soldierly pace, and the students, a half-century younger than him, sometimes struggled to keep up."
Matilde Zimmermann,
New York, New York
Also read Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas.
November 24, 2012
“Draws largely from published US, Soviet, and Cuban primary sources, as well as from interviews with participants in the confrontation.… Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.”—Choice
“Vital to a full understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis … beautifully edited and illustrated … highly appropriate for any course in modern Caribbean politics, cold war history, Cuban history, or military history … a full and sincere look at the often overlooked Cuban perspective.…”—Russell W. Ramsey, Troy State University, in Hispanic American Historical Review
“Vital to a full understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis … beautifully edited and illustrated … highly appropriate for any course in modern Caribbean politics, cold war history, Cuban history, or military history … a full and sincere look at the often overlooked Cuban perspective.…”—Russell W. Ramsey, Troy State University, in Hispanic American Historical Review
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews