Soviet Union Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan.

Day 2,883, 08:08 • Published in Russia Georgia • by Rodica Bostanica

The Armenian, who played a key role in preventing a global nuclear war, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis was a 13-day (October 16–28, 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.
Born as Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan Anastas, on 25 November 1895 - 21 October 1978 died at the age of 82 Anastas Mikoyan was the second most powerful Soviet leader of his time. He was an Old Bolshevik and Soviet statesman during the mandates of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. Anastas Mikoyan was the only Soviet politician who managed to remain at the highest levels of power within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as that power shifterd between the Central Committee and the Politburo, from the latter days of Lenin's rule, throughout the eras of Stalin and Khrushchev, until his retirement after the first months of Brezhnev's rule.


Soviet Union Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan (left) and Fidel Castro shake hands in Havana.

Mikoyan made several key trips to communist Cuba and to the United States, acquiring an important stature on the international diplomatic scene, especially with his skill in exercising soft power to further Soviet interests.

After the Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro's pro-socialist rebels in 1959, the Soviet government realized that there could be a potential Soviet ally in the Caribbean and sent Mikoyan as one of their top diplomats in Latin America. The Soviet Premier Khrushchev, told Mikoyan about his idea of shipping Soviet missiles to Cuba of which Mikoyan was opposed. He felt that this was a bad idea and an even worse one was to give Cuba control over Soviet missiles. Nonetheless Cuba received the Soviet nuclear missiles.


Cover of TIME Magazine, Anastas Mikoyan | Sep. 16, 1957

In November of the year 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis reached its height and the Soviet government sent Mikoyan to Havana to persuade Castro to cooperate in the removal of the nuclear missiles and bombers. Khrushchev “repaid me for my opposition [to placing Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba] by sending me to tell [Fidel] Castro that the missiles had to be removed,” Mikoyan once said jokingly.

Just before the negotiations started with Castro, Mikoyan received news that his wife, Ashkhen, died in Moscow. Mikoyan however did not return for the funeral and stayed to help resolve the Missile Crisis and sent his son Sergo instead. Castro was adamant that the missiles remain but Mikoyan, seeking to avoid a full-fledged confrontation with the United States, attempted to convince him otherwise. Castro balked at the idea of further concessions, namely the removal of the Il-28 bombers and tactical nuclear weapons still left in Cuba. But after several tense and grueling weeks of negotiations, he finally relented and the missiles and the bombers were removed in December of that year.


A lighter moment during the talks.


Ernesto "Che" Guevara with Anastas Mikoyan