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    Re: Cuban Missile crisis: the obvious parallel with Ukraine Archived Message

    Posted by John Monro on June 8, 2023, 4:55 am, in reply to "Cuban Missile crisis: even McGovern(w Napolitano) forgets it was provoked by US not Russia: Italy+Tu"

    Spot on, Jim

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/20720681

    According to this article, following the release of previously secret archived material, in the 1950s the US was wishing to install nuclear intermediate range ballistic missiles threatening Russia in Europe , but whilst NATO members agreed to the idea, only three countries - the UK, Italy and Turkey - went further and agreed to have them on their soil. Turkey was not a first choice however as a number of high-up officials eg General Lauris Norstad, and others in the State Department were very concerned that the installation of such missiles on Russia's very borders would provoke a strong Soviet response. After ignoring several Soviet warning, Turkey went ahead and signed an agreement 25/10/1959 for the installation of these 15 Jupiter missiles. Apparently even then the system was obsolete and unreliable, and did more to promote Ankarar's feeling of self importance than as an effective deterrent. Only the first page of the article is available.

    So there you are, the most serious nuclear threat of the twentieth century, the Cuban missile crisis, precipitated by a Russian response to US and European thoughtless and heedless bellicosity and it's irrational Russophobia . And now we suffer the most serious nuclear threat of this century by a Russian response to exactly the same thing. Do we never learn? (and by we, I mean, so many of our fellow citizens and leaders in the West, not you or I)

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