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On 12 November 1962, a combined naval task force of the Organization of American States (OAS) set forth on an operational mission in defense of the Western Hemisphere. When combined Task Force 137 sortied from the U. S. naval base at Chaguaramas, Trinidad, that morning, it represented 11 warships volunteered by six OAS nations in support of the naval quarantine in Cuba. In addition, eight other OAS members offered the use of port facilities and/or airfields.
Task Force 137’s evolution and operations have heretofore escaped notice. White House historians of the era obscured data concerning the OAS force along with a great deal of information concerning the astute diplomatic and military preparations made by the Kennedy administration for the Cuban Missile Crisis. The facts, however, have particular geopolitical relevance to the 1983 Grenada operation and the current ideological struggle in Central America.
Because Cuba had intervened in several countries of the Caribbean basin since the outset of the Castro regime in 1959, the OAS condemned Sino-Soviet intervention in hemispheric affairs at the 1960 Bogota Conference. Wide popularity for the Castro revolution throughout Latin America at that time, however, precluded any specific political action directly against Cuba. However, on 16 April 1961, the day prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fidel Castro openly declared his revolution as socialistic. He further stated on 1 December 1961, “I am a Marxist- Leninist and will be a Marxist-Leninist until the last day of my life.”
These two announcements and continuing Cuban intervention led to the Punta del Este Conference of Foreign
One day in October 1962, Admiral Tyree (wearing leather jacket) was welcoming the Peruvian ASW flotilla commander on board his flagship, the Mullinnix, as part of Unitas III exercises. The next, he was on his way to command U. S., Argentine, and Venezuelan warships of Quarantine Task Force 137, seen departing, below, on their historic first patrol. TF 137 signalled to the world that OAS nations stood united against the Soviets basing strategic missiles in Cuba.
Ministers, the OAS Organ of Consultation, in January *962, initiated by the governments of Peru and Colombia. This conference excluded the Castro Government, but not Cuba, from participation in all OAS activities. The foreign ministers further resolved that its members should “take those steps they may consider appropriate for their individual or collective self-defense.”
The latter resolution constituted sanctioning of U. S. ClA-flown U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance over Cuba. These flights ultimately confirmed the presence of SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile (SAM) installations in Cuba on 29 August 1962, and strategic missile installations in central Cuba on 26 and 29 September.
By mid-August 1962, CIA Director John McCone had hypothesized that SAMs in Cuba could only mean the eventual installation of strategic missiles. While Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara derogated such a possibility, the President apparently agreed sufficiently with the possibility contained in McCone’s analysis. As a result, the National Security Council promulgated National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) No. 181 on 23 August 1962. This dealt almost exclusively with contingency planning for the eventuality of Soviet strategic missile emplacements in Cuba.
With NSAM 181 as guidance, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy directed his Justice Department legal counsel, Norbert Schlei, to prepare a brief for the President on how the United States might legally force the removal of Soviet strategic missiles from Cuba. By the end of August, Schlei recommended, among other actions, a “search-and-sei- zure blockade” sanctioned by the OAS under the 1947
Rio Treaty. Schlei also provided Kennedy with a “straw- man” draft. From this, the President warned the Soviet Union on 4 September that the presence of strategic weapon systems in Cuba “would cause the gravest issues to arise.”
The following day, Secretary Rusk met with the Latin American ambassadors to the United States and the OAS to discuss the President’s warning. He also requested at that time that the OAS foreign ministers meet informally in the United States in late September or early October to further discuss the Cuban situation.
Accordingly, the OAS foreign ministers met at the State Department on 2-3 October in closed sessions explicitly to discuss and update events surrounding the Cuban problem since Punta del Este, but without formal agenda, voting, resolutions, or official minutes.
No evidence exists as to what Secretary Rusk presented or discussed beyond the official communique issued when the meetings terminated. It did alert OAS members to “stand in readiness to consider the matter promptly if the situation requires measures beyond those already sanctioned ... in light of new developments taking place in Cuba.” The communique also warned the meeting participants to intensify surveillance “in order to prevent the secret accumulation ... of arms that can be used for offensive purposes against the hemisphere.”
The Secretary of State presumably presented updated intelligence evidence about strategic missiles in Cuba stemming from the 26 and 29 September U-2 flights. He also probably proposed solutions to the problem as soon as more definitive proof became available. One can further presume that Secretary Rusk requested that the attendees consult with their respective governments individually and collectively on the contingency actions he proposed when absolute proof of the Soviet missiles in Cuba became available. Very quick decisions could then be made with respect to defense of the hemisphere.
President Kennedy and Secretary McNamara did not delay after the late September U-2 flights. They directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 1 October to implement previously approved contingency plans for air strikes against and an invasion of Cuba. Two additional CIA-flown U-2 flights over central Cuba on 5 and 7 October probably confirmed missile site construction activity, if not missiles and erectors, at Sagua la Grande and Remedios. To date, the results of these four late September-early October flights remain classified.
On 14 October, however, the first Air Force-flown U-2 reconnaissance and the first flight flown over western Cuba since 5 September, brought back photographs of SS-4 Sandal medium-range ballistic missiles and erectors in place at San Cristobal, and preparations for the installation of SS-5 Skean intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Guanajay. These photographs provided the evidence which brought the world, in the rhetoric of historian Barton J. Bernstein, to “the brink of a nuclear apocalypse.”
Analysis of the U-2 intelligence evidence presented to the President the morning of 16 October came as no surprise to him or the administration insiders other than as confirmation of Soviet-Cuban audacity. In fact, the USS
Independence (CVA-62) sailed with her escort destroyers that same morning for a contingency station northwest of the Bahamas, followed by the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) with her escorts on 20 October. Thus, implementation of contingency plans for a blockade, air strikes, and/or an invasion of Cuba had already begun at least three weeks before publication of the threat in the President’s speech to the country on 22 October.
With positive evidence of the missiles finally in hand on 16 October, Kennedy ordered commencement of meetings by an ad hoc committee, later institutionalized as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Ex- Comm). After five days of almost continuous deliberations, the ExComm arrived at a majority consensus for a “defensive quarantine” of Cuba, with OAS authorization if possible. Except for semantics, this solution was almost identical to Schlei’s late-August recommendation; “defensive quarantine” simply replaced “search-and-seizure blockade.”
The evidence suggests that the President probably had this solution in mind as an initial U. S. reaction for seven weeks, since Schlei’s recommendation. Kennedy, however, astutely reached for a broad consensus of the ExComm so as not to make the same mistake as he had in 1961 with his very narrow government consultation prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion.
From his White House office on 22 October, President Kennedy told the world that the Soviets, without question, were basing strategic missiles in Cuba. The following day, with all eyes of the OAS ambassadors upon him, U. S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk sought and gained OAS approval for member nations to take necessary action against the military buildup.
On the evening of 22 October 1962, President John F. Kennedy pronounced that unmistakable evidence of Soviet strategic missiles in Cuba endangered the Western Hemisphere in “flagrant and deliberate” violation of the 1947 Rio Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. He requested an immediate meeting of the OAS Organ of Consultation (foreign ministers) to invoke Rio Treaty provisions for individual and collective self-defense, and to support a naval quarantine of all offensive military equipment to Cuba. The participation of OAS naval units in the quarantine evolved from that request.
In Washington the day following Kennedy’s 22 October speech, the OAS ambassadors met at 0900. Rather than wait for their foreign ministers, they constituted themselves as a Provisional Organ of Consultation. By 1635, the OAS Organ had unanimously approved Secretary Rusk’s resolution condemning the Soviet-Cuban action and called upon its member nations to take whatever action necessary to protect the Western Hemisphere.
The prior U. S. consultations with Latin America in early September and October now paid handsome dividends with quick action. The unanimity and celerity of the OAS action, two traits not generally attributed to Latin American political decisions and especially those proposed by the United States, provided ample evidence of prior knowledge of both the threat and the required counteraction. With the OAS backing, the President proclaimed that same evening that the quarantine should become effective at 1000 on 24 October. In fact, all assigned U. S. ships had already arrived at their quarantine stations prior to that time.
The participation of Latin American forces in the quarantine operations is nearly unpublished in the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet passage of the OAS resolution recommending that its members “take all measures, individually and collectively, including the use of armed force” prompted offers of assistance from Argentina, Uruguay, and all countries of the Caribbean basin, except Mexico. In arriving at the unanimous vote, the OAS also indicated that any forces provided by nations other than the United States should operate under an OAS command, although they did not object to a U. S. commander.
For several years, the U. S. Navy had prepared for just such an eventuality as combined operations. Commander in Chief, Atlantic (CinCLant), Admiral Robert L. Dennison, commented that the sensitivity to not having one Latin nation command the forces of another had led to the establishment of Commander, South Atlantic Force (Com- SoLant). Over several years, ComSoLant had established a spirit of cooperation, friendship, and exchange of ideas among the navies of Latin America through a series of annual combined operational exercises culminating in the exercises called Unitas. Now, the groundwork paid off.
As offers began arriving from Latin America for specific assistance in the quarantine, CinCLant ordered Rear Admiral John A. Tyree, Jr., ComSoLant, to establish a combined quarantine task force of U. S. and Latin American navies. Admiral Tyree reported directly to CinCLant to give the command “ a little more stature” because the importance of the force “was more political than military.” Admiral Dennison knew that no significant Soviet bloc shipping was coming from south of Cuba. The primary advantage of such a combined force lay in the demonstration of Free World navies of Latin America joined with the U. S. Navy in combating the Soviet-Cuban communist threat.
As President Kennedy spoke on the evening of 22 October, Admiral Tyree directed a combined force of Chilean, Peruvian, and U. S. ships from his flagship, the USS Mul- linnix (DD-944). They were conducting antisubmarine warfare (ASW) exercises off the northern coast of Chile as a part of Unitas III. On being ordered by CinCLant to establish the combined Latin American-U. S. Quarantine Task Force (TF) 137, Admiral Tyree departed the Unitas operations on 24 October. He flew to his headquarters ashore at the naval base at Chaguaramas, Trinidad. The Mullinnix also proceeded to Trinidad via the Panama Canal.
Offers of assistance soon began arriving from Latin America led by the new military government of Argentina. That country’s navy pledged its single aircraft carrier, ARA Independencia, ex-HMS Warrior, twoex-U. S. Fletcher-class destroyers, an ex-U. S. Balao-class submarine, and a battalion of 600 Marines to the combined force. The two destroyers ARA Rosales and ARA Espora sailed from Puerto Belgrano on 28 October with orders to report at best speed to ComSoLant in Trinidad. This was certainly the most interesting contribution, as Argentina was often at odds with the United States. In fact, the then- civilian government of Argentina had abstained in the vote to exclude the Castro Government from the OAS at Punta del Este only nine months previous.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago officially offered the use of the Chaguaramas Naval Base, under U. S. control at the time, “to warships of an OAS nation for the duration of the quarantine.” The Venezuelan Chief of Naval Operations, Rear Admiral Carlos Sosa Rios, offered the submarine, ARV Carite, ex-USS Tilefish (SS- 317), and two destroyers, ARV Zulia and ARV Nueva, as ready for sea the morning of 2 November. Ultimately, 14 of the 19 Latin American nations offered to participate in the quarantine operations in some way.
The two Argentine destroyers had just returned from extensive Unitas III operations. Most of the two ships’ crews had been on leave, and the ships were undergoing repairs. Nonetheless, the crews reassembled within five days. The ships, under the command of Commander, Second Destroyer Division, Captain C. Arguello, headed for Trinidad, some 4,500 miles to the north, at high speed. They stopped briefly at Rio de Janeiro and Recife to refuel and arrived at the Chaguaramas Naval Base on 8 November. Both ships carried a full war complement. As an indication of Argentine pride, the ships ordered and paid for their first load of fuel on arrival so that they would report to ComSoLant in full ready combat condition.
The combined quarantine task force grew with the arrival of the Venezuelan destroyers, ARV Zulia and ARV Nueva Esparta, under the command of Captain Miguel Benatuil, from their bases at La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, respectively. Their arrival presented Admiral
Tyree with a touchy diplomatic problem because the governments of Venezuela and Argentina had severed diplomatic relations. The admiral met the situation tactfully by suggesting at an arrival reception for the officers of the four destroyers that seamen need not concern themselves with politics but could fight together as free men in defense of the hemisphere.
The Venezuelans had good reason to want to participate *n the quarantine. They feared the Castro regime. On 27 October, four Venezuelan Communist Party members blew up four key Creole (Standard Oil) power substations •n oil-rich Lake Maracaibo as an isolated phase of what they described as a much larger plan to overthrow the government of President Romulo Betancourt. That very same evening, Betancourt declared over radio and television that “even before there was evidence that Cuba had been converted into a base for powerful missiles, placed there by the Soviet Union,” he had already warned of Castro’s “purposes of sapping and destroying regimes of
Sebastian Rodriguez Caceres, I watched Betancourt speak that evening. We discussed the various ramifications of the president’s address. Major Rodriguez strongly recommended an invasion of Cuba by OAS forces without U. S. participation. Although I disputed the logistical difficulties of a Latin invasion of Cuba, the major’s feeling that an invasion was necessary and that Castro must be overthrown coincided with a consensus of Venezuelan officers and civilians with whom I had spoken since President Kennedy’s 22 October speech.
On 15 November, two Dominican Republic frigates, ARD Capitan Pedron Santana, ex-USS Pueblo (PF-13), and ARD Gregorio Luperon, ex-USS Knoxville (PF-64), arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for duty with TF 137. Unfortunately, both ships required extensive engineering repairs before they would be ready for operations. These repairs could not be completed in time for them to participate in the quarantine. Still, CinCLant advised Com- SoLant to complete the repairs before the ships’ return to
Pure democratic origin firmly opposed to converting themSelves into submissive appendages of Moscow.”
Betancourt continued. He invoked that portion of the Venezuelan Constitution which allowed military tribunals to try civilians accused of subversive activities, and he Requested the death penalty be given to those found guilty. *he Venezuelan Constitution does not permit the death Penalty under any other circumstances.
In the home of Venezuelan Guardia Nacional Major
the Dominican Republic because “it is politically and psychologically desirable to place them in as good as or better condition than they were when they reported.”
The Uruguayan Government offered to send one of the two ex-U. S. Bostwick-class destroyer escorts immediately after the 25 November elections; unfortunately, this was too late to participate in the quarantine. Similarly, the Guatemalan Government offered the services of a frigate, ARC Jose Francisco Burrunda as soon as she completed overhaul at a civilian shipyard in Miami, Florida. This was to be about 7 December—also too late to participate in quarantine operations.
In addition to repairs, fuel, and spare parts supplied to the ships of TF 137 without repayment, the U. S. Navy also provided special communication-cryptographic liaison teams on board the non-U. S. ships. The officers and men assigned to such teams spoke Spanish and had previous communications and cryptographic experience. Since the Latin ships had no crypto system common to each other, the Mullinnix, or ComSoLant, the teams took portable crypto systems on board to provide the Argentine and Venezuelan destroyers with a common crypto capability and a means of communicating classified information.
In addition to their ships, three countries provided liaison officers to the ComSoLant staff: Commander Ricardo R. B. Alonzo, Lieutenant Commander Jose Ali Briceno, and Lieutenant Commander Gonzales of the Argentine, Venezuelan, and Dominican navies, respectively. The Venezuelans also sent two officers from the U. S. Naval Mission in Caracas to act as liaison officers on board their ships during the quarantine operations: I was attached to ARV Zulia and Lieutenant Orville R. Whaley to ARV Nueva Esparta.
Admiral Tyree activated TF 137 for operations on 7 November when he promulgated ComSoLant/CTF 137 Operation Order 9-62. The order stated that the force would “conduct naval quarantine operations in the Lesser Antilles passes into the Caribbean Sea in order to intercept designated shipping and prevent the importation of prohibited material into Cuba.” The operation order further stated that the force would “patrol assigned quarantine stations, maintain surveillance, report sightings of surface ships, submarines, and aircraft, and when directed, conduct interception, visit and search, seizure, and diversion of designated shipping.”
ARV Zulia and ARV Nueva Esparta patrolled stations that covered the passage between the Venezuelan mainland and the island of Grenada. ARA Rosales patrolled the passage between the islands of Dominica and Guadeloupe, and ARA Espora had to cover two stations, one in the Guadeloupe Passage and the other off of Montserrat Island. The Mullinnix patrolled the northernmost station, covering the heavily traveled Anegada Passage between the islands of Anegada and Anguilla.
In the nine days that the ships of TF 137 patrolled their stations, they reported 153 ship contacts: the Zulia 40, Nueva Esparta 31, Espora 21, Rosales 6, and the Mullinix 55. Operations ceased on 20 November when President Kennedy ended the quarantine. But ComSoLant did not officially dissolve TF 137 until 24 December when the
Dominican ships completed repairs and returned to their own operational commander.
The U. S Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral George Anderson, “hailed the Latin American participation in the quarantine as an historic milestone.” CinCLant, Admiral Dennison, viewed the operation as successful evidence that proved the worth of previous Unitas exercises in providing the “foundation for immediate and easy cooperation of the various navies.”
Analyst Arnold Horelick concluded that the active participation by the Latin American navies in the quarantine “must have made the Soviet leaders pessimistic about the chances of bringing diplomatic pressure to bear on the United States to lift the quarantine.” Certainly, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev clearly understood the political ramifications, because he reported to the Supreme Soviet on 12 December 1962 that the United States and several Latin countries had set up a joint command and that warships of those countries had participated in the “blockade of Cuba.”
One of the most important benefits gained from this facet of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the diplomatic strength derived from the OAS members working together within the framework of the OAS Charter and the Rio Treaty. The diplomatic process that President Kennedy began early in the crisis ultimately led to the historic participation of the OAS navies in combined operations against communist aggression in the Western Hemisphere. It was a lesson as applicable today as then.
Two subsequent actions have emphasized that lesson. In 1965, the combined OAS military peacekeeping action helped stabilize the political upheaval in the Dominican Republic. The 1983 U. S. military operations in Grenada at the request of the Organization of East Caribbean States (OECS) have reemphasized the Kennedy “doctrine.” The United States must be prepared to defend the hemisphere against any communist infiltration and/or intervention. President Kennedy clearly stated this doctrine unequivocally in his warning to the Soviet Union on 13 September 1962. He stated, “This country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies.”
The quarantine of Cuba underscores the need for geopolitical strength achieved through solidarity in working within the framework of an internationally recognized, hemispheric organization. Surely, this lesson provides diplomatic guidelines for current and future U. S. action in dealing with today’s upheaval in Central America.
Dr. Johns graduated from the Naval Academy in 1951. He was the executive officer in the USS Barbet (AMS-41), USS Roberts (DE-749), and USS Bache (DD-470) and chief staff officer of PhibRon One. He commanded the USS Bobolink (AMS-2), MineDiv 85, and the USS Rowan (DD-782). While serving at the Venezuelan Naval Academy, he sailed in ARV Zulia during the Cuban quarantine. Other shore duty included a tour in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the U. S. Delegation to the Inter-American Defense Board and as Director of Training at FleASWTraCenPac. During the latter tour, he earned an MSEd from Pepperdine University and an EdD from the University of Southern California. He recently completed an MA in history from the University of California at San Diego.