The Soviet View: An Interview with Sergo Mikoyan

Until recently, historical research on the Cuban missile crisis has been a one-sided matter. Many studies were published about American crisis management, but scholars could only speculate about the Soviet record. Archives in Moscow were closed, decision makers refused interviews, and the available memoirs turned out to be suspect sources, offering a great deal of poorly substantiated and often false information.

Last but not least, Soviet historians ignored the subject.1 This picture has undergone startling changes, however, with Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of “openness.” New evidence on controversial episodes of Soviet history has come to light, and Soviet historians are offering their Western colleagues working relationships unheard of in the past. One of the most successful exchanges to date was a conference on the Cuban missile crisis held in October 1987 at Harvard University's Center for Science and International Affairs. Three Soviets accepted the invitation to a dialogue with scholars and former members of John F.

Kennedy's Executive Committee (ExComm): Fyodor Burlatsky, one of Nikita Khrushchev's speechwriters, now a playwright and political commentator; Sergo Mikoyan, son of Anastas Mikoyan and today editor of a journal on Latin American affairs (Latinskaya Amerika); and Georgi Shaknazarov, presently a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.2