Word: castros
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Cuba. Castro is another topic that will not go away. The Kennedy Administration was stung by charges that it was reacting ineffectively to the Russian military presence in Cuba. New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating claimed that the Soviet's "mediumrange missile sites" remain. South Carolina's Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond declared that upwards of 100 ballistic missiles "with a 1,100-to 2,200-mile range" were stored in "underground facilities" in Cuba. Indiana's Republican Representative Donald C. Bruce said that he had information about some 40 "offensive missiles" still in Cuba...
...rumors and accusations about the massive Soviet buildup in Castro's Cuba had to be answered. New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating vowed to eat his hat if his charges were not right. And it was to force such critics as Keating to a diet of fried fedora that President Kennedy last week ordered Defense Secretary McNamara and CIA Chief John McCone to an unprecedented public report on the state of Cuba's military strength. Never before had a nation displayed in such detail its secrets of intelligence-gathering over an unfriendly country...
...emplacements of Russian ground-to-air missiles, the SA2, with a capability of reaching 80,000 ft. into the sky. There are more than 100 MIG fighters, including at least 42 MIG-21s able to carry atomic weapons for short ranges at speeds of better than 1,000 m.p.h. Castro's Cuba also now has at least twelve "Komar" patrol boats armed with 10-to 15-nautical-mi.-range missiles that can carry atomic warheads...
Beyond these elite combat outfits, the other 12,000 Russians in Cuba man ground-to-air missile sites, service fighter planes, maintain communications, instruct Castro's native troops...
Obviously, it makes any invasion of Cuba a tremendously difficult matter-not only because of the strength it adds to Castro's armament, but because of the possibility that an invasion might involve a major shooting war between U.S. and Russian troops. The Soviet force also frees at least some of Castro's Cubans for subversive and aggressive adventures throughout Latin America...