Word: mig
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...latest Soviet flotilla reached Cienfuegos on Sept. 9. Daily U-2 reconnaissance flights were ordered, and the Cuban reaction to them showed that something unusual was afoot. MiG fighters scrambled after our first flight. A U.S. Navy antisubmarine aircraft was shadowed for 60 miles while a MiG made several strafing passes. I was sufficiently concerned to warn the Soviet Union publicly on Sept. 16 that operating missile-carrying submarines or nuclear weapons from Cuba or servicing them from there would have grave consequences. Since we did not yet have any concrete evidence, I stopped just short of making a direct...
Church's position undeniably emboldened the opposition to SALT. Senator Scoop Jackson, who opposes SALT anyway, charged that the Soviets were building a "fortress Cuba." He noted that Cuba in the past two years has acquired sophisticated MiG-23s theoretically capable of penetrating the southeastern U.S. The military buildup, said Jackson, represents "a major change in what the Soviets and Cubans believe they can get away with in this part of the world." He demanded that the Soviets withdraw not only their combat troops but their planes, and that they promise to provide Cuba with no more submarines...
...Council staff had asked the intelligence community for more information on Cuba. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had speculated that there must have been more Soviet activity on the island than was immediately apparent, primarily because some 40,000 Cuban troops were in Africa and a number of Soviet MiG-23s were based in Cuba. Meanwhile, Senator Richard Stone, a Florida Democrat, began pressing in mid-July for an investigation of the reports of more Soviet troops in Cuba, but his demands received little attention. Washington skeptics noted that he was up for re-election and that he had many...
Shortly after President Carter took office in January 1977, he canceled the SR-71 flights over Cuba as part of a general policy of cutting back intelligence operations. The flights were not resumed until November 1978, when American intelligence began to fear that the Soviet MiG-23s stationed in Cuba might be capable of carrying nuclear weapons. But satellite and SR-71 photos did not clear up the matter. It took HUMINT to do the job. An agent with access to the MiG airfield was sent in to take a snapshot of a friend who just happened to be standing...
...Nixon Administration protested that Moscow was attempting to establish a submarine base at Cienfuegos, and the understanding was enlarged to include the prohibition of a military naval base on the island and the servicing of nuclear submarines. In 1978, the U.S. expressed concern that 20-odd Soviet MiG-23s in Cuba could be modified to carry nuclear weapons, but later accepted Soviet assurances that the planes were defensive only...