Conclusion

Abstract

The Cuban missile crisis reinforced British attitudes to security in the Cold War, while helping create conditions for limited East-West détente. Relaxation of tension brought the opportunity to agree the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, in the negotiation of which the British government played a significant role. European security, and in particular what Lord Home called the ‘tacit moratorium’ on Berlin,2 was preserved and enhanced. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, Ormsby-Gore suggested explicitly linking the security of Berlin with that of Cuba3 (and raised the idea in Washington4). Macmillan and Home, together with other senior diplomats, were sceptical.5 The Prime Minister explained to the Foreign Secretary that he did not think that these two places are of equal value to us and I fear that to make an explicit link between them might even encourage Mr Khrushchev to feel that he might take Berlin at the risk not of nuclear war but only of the loss of Cuba. It seems to me that the protection of West Berlin must continue to be assured by the full weight of Western and above all of United States power rather than just by the Cuban hostage. Apart from other considerations it is surely possible that Senor Castro may one day be overthrown by a spontaneous revolution, and we should not get ourselves into a position in which such a development might seem to justify the Russians in seizing Berlin.6 KeywordsNuclear WeaponSpecial RelationshipBritish GovernmentEuropean SecurityCuban Missile CrisisThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.