IMPACT OF THE CUBAN CRISIS ON THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00428A000200040037-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2005
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: October 28, 1962
• Content Type: MF

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i t test of the cub" crisis on
Ass"Ust Directw s carroat
Tatalliselwe
s . Stao- vtst plot AVV&
riat bipr
eftit"d to his pal+ople that the it d autos
f esbo elr a "ears to have suffered the
slit defeat Of his 48"4w. Be ae, is fact,
ld farce his am and aimilow out of
has as .ttad to the world that the i iet Mies
not the * a" military powder!. Millwood M ILO
0"W major i aalhceer pol l* -
bas been little or mud" to
b"Idup aw a boated policy
art bl ip. As for 80 Us
4cal and the atiitary lames
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the likely of lesias e''aayt to CAM*
abobov has elected to salvage his real estate boar..
was c a ly PV to allocate bettor it t staea
itery postern at a time she t the vtoFt - 60 o-
peg 11 11 11 l7. t fly sold it
by Ski 3r
gaily +ss the gwom on "at it m a relatively
fast and inexpensive, way to ioweve the 's all-
2. The policy of Bev *t military b til+ is
eba van quite clearly Initiated and Mato
received oolle tiv i am@ m-1t r the 1111184Utariag
be add in may noticeable Viand their
ition vas not specifically asalmst than Cuban
b dldep but against all k1aft of f*w iga aid.
4. flu, that policy twowd 4'ft& ieomm to have
not a major paro"We is Soviet a
bold in Oda. ly the people th *IV -still
ostlamtod that they Q*WW s ly build a"
will be bias" largely an ha
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personally. This does not appear to be a time
when he can easily muster his scapegoats and
there are many well placed Soviet officials who
will like it this way. Khrushchev has so long
bullied so many of his associates that it is rea-
sonable to assume that there is a sizeable ele-
ment ready to blame his for anything. Further,
Khrushcchev's detractors will have a better bill
of complaints than they have had before, They
will contend that, in one fell swoop, he has put
the Soviet Union on the defensive for some time
to cone, that he has given aid and comfort to the
Chinese Communists, that he has invited new prob-
Iowa in Vastern *ur?pe and that he has disillu-
sioned the neutralist countries throughout the
world.
5. We should expect that these markedly ad-
verse reactions will reach the party presidium
itself. Saes some of Khrushchev's close colleagues
nay well interpret Cuba as a long expected conse-
queace of a one.=tea show. Perhaps the greatest
dissatisfaction will aome fron some of the ambi-
tious younger members of the party hierarchy who
are formally at the top of the pyramid but who
are still not regularly consulted an the execu-
tion of high policy--particularly in foreign af-
fairs.
6. It seems premature, however, to assume
that Khrushchev's dramatic back-down within the
last 48 hours was largely the result of pressures
within the party presidium. Without any real evi-
desce to the contra", it is likely that his de-
oision was dictated by American pressure.
7. Is the highest echelons of the defense
ministry, publication of the decision will prob-
ably be regarded as an embarrassing revelation
of weakness which, in view of its penchant for
saber-rattling, the general staff would have pre-
ferred not to make. Faced with the loss of an
advanced missile base is Cuba, the military plan-
ners can now be expected to argue that they will
be unable to meet defense commitments without the
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establishment on Soviet territory of a missile capa-
bility at least equal to that lost in Cuba. They
will accordingly seek increased budgetary allocations
both for the strategic rocket forces and for conven-
tional arms. At the sane time, ghrushchev's generals
probably still realize that there is no alternative
to acceptance of the G'remlin's dictates, however, dis-
tasteful they may seem to the professional military.
a. To a large extent, this seems to apply to
the leadership as a whole. It is our belief that
ever the past five years thrushchev has been able to
build such an intricate network of control over the
party, armed forces and secret police that no one has
dared to challenge his primacy. At the same tine, he
has not before been faced with a blunder of this mag-
nitude and he may realize that a challenge can no
longer be ruled out. If this is the case, we would
expect him to steal a march on his opponents and make
a dramatic display of authority. For their part, any
sobers of the top leadership who might be disposed
to throw down the gauntlet to Khrushchev would prob-
ably seek to make common cause with the military. Thus
far, however, signs of a crisis in the leadership have
not been forthcoming.
!. Khrushchev may now give increased attention
to domestic affairs as he attempts to divert popular
attention away from the crisis and to focus on the
"full-scale building of communism" at home. Plans
for a major industrial-administrative reform--to be
considered at a central committee plenum sometime
dent month--were under way well before the crisis
and were moving ahead rapidly as of 24 October. Well-
Informed circles in Macaw were stating as late as
27 October that the central committee would convene
in the second half of November to take up "problem
of improving the management of industry."
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