During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis I was not the only military person at Bainbridge Naval Training Center, Maryland that was becoming considerably irritated with the unpatriotic grumbling. But there was little I could do about it until another WAVE came into the Bainbridge Mainsheet newspaper office. With her she had brought a letter she had just received from her husband. He was an enlisted sailor aboard one of those ships that were attempting, under extreme gunfire that the public was assured did not exist, to hold the blockade.
Good-bye My Darling, For Ever
The letter she handed to me, with tears in her young eyes, was a good-bye letter from her husband of less than two months. His ship, like the others in the blockade, was struggling under heavy shelling. He did not expect to return, or to hold his wife in his arms ever again. But this wife and WAVE had an idea I agreed with. Even though it could create considerable backlash if carried out, we believed it could possibly quite the upheaval of the restrictions placed on persons attached to our base.
A Plan Approved
The base commander approved our plan and, in the following day's issue of the base newspaper, with names disguised the letter was printed. And oh what an upheaval it created! As expected, the upheaval fell directly upon my own head. I was told by friend, and foe, that I had no right to "make-up" such a story and print it. The following day the base commander made an announcement. The announcement gave authority and authenticity to the WAVE's farewell letter from her husband.
The End of a Crisis
The girl's husband did, however, return unharmed from Cuba. On October 28, 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles he'd had placed on Cuba. President Kennedy, complying with one of Khrushchev's demands, ordered the fifteen Jupiter missiles near Izmir, Turkey to be removed.
Previous: Farewell Husbands and Lovers: The 1962 Naval Blockade of Cuban
Sources:
Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 3. Crowell-Collier Educational Corp., 1968.
Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, Vol. 5. Funk & Wagnalls, Inc.
Lewis, Joh E., Editor. The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness America: The History of the World's Most Powerful Nation. Kennedy, Robert F. "Cuban Missile Crisis: JFK Orders Naval Blockade, 22-23 October 1962." Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 2003.
