New weapons detail reveals true depth of 'Cuban Missile Crisis'

New weapons detail reveals true depth of 'Cuban Missile Crisis'
Big News Network (ANI) Saturday 13th October, 2012

The Cuban Missile Crisis transpired 50 years ago this October, when
Soviet leaders and US pulled back from the very brink of nuclear war.

This was the closest the world has come to nuclear war, but exactly how
close has been a matter of some speculation.

The conflict, itself, has been analyzed and interpreted, but the number
and types of nuclear weapons that were operational have not.

According to fresh analysis made available on Saturday in the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, senior experts calculate
the nature of weapons capabilities on both sides, and write that the
situation was even more perilous than history has previously acknowledged.

In their latest issue of "Nuclear Notebook", Robert S. Norris, senior
fellow with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington,
DC, and Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the FAS's Nuclear
Information Project, revisit key information that was available to
military and civilian officials in both the United States and the Soviet
Union at the height of the crisis, during October and November of 1962.

Several types of US and Soviet nuclear weapons were operational, some on
high levels of alert and readily available to use.

In terms of local forces and unknown to the United States, 158 Soviet
nuclear warheads of five types were already in Cuba by the time the
military blockade was imposed on October 24th.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff considered using nuclear weapons during a Cuban
invasion, but by October 31st had decided against this.

In Europe, the United States had approximately 500 nuclear weapons at
its disposal to attack targets in the western Soviet Union.

With its 550 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union had a slightly larger
arsenal to hit European targets, the analysis said. (ANI)

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