1962 Soviet Department of Geodesy and Cartography Map of Cuba

This is a 1962 Soviet Department of Geodesy and Cartography map of Cuba published the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis - thus one of the few published maps to capture this ephemeral moment from the Soviet perspective. Printed in the Soviet Union and with all text in Russian, a political and topographic map occupies the majority of the sheet. Cities and towns appear throughout the island, including Havana, Matanzas, Cardenas, and Santiago. Roads and railroads are illustrated, along with rivers, mangroves, and swamps. Anchors mark ports and dashed lines connect them and distances between them are noted. An inset in the upper right quadrant details Cuba economically and highlights Cuban industries, including metalworking, oil refining, and textiles. Special attention is paid to mining activities, which extract iron ore, oil, copper, chromium, nickel, and cobalt, among other metals. A second inset of the Caribbean region, depicting from the southern United States to northern South America, occupies the lower left corner and situates Cuba regionally.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted for thirteen days in October 1962, from the 16th through the 28th. A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, this two-week span is considered the closest the two superpowers ever came to a full-scale nuclear war. The Crisis was ignited Soviet ambitions to deploy ballistic missiles in Cuba, which were spurred by American deployments of Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey and the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. American U-2 spy planes confirmed Soviet preparations in Cuba and American President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States would not tolerate offensive weapons in Cuba and ordered a naval blockade of the island. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came to an agreement after several days of negotiations. The Soviets agreed to remove all their offensive weapons in Cuba (which would be verified by the United Nations) and the U.S. publicly declared that they would never again attempt an invasion of the island. In secret, the U.S. agreed to dismantle the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and it is speculated that the missiles in Italy were also included in the agreement. The negotiations also resulted in the creation of the Moscow-Washington hotline.

Publication History and Census

This map was created by the Main Department of Geodesy and Cartography of the Ministry of Geology and Protection of Minerals of the U.S.S.R. and was published by the State Publishing House of Geographic Literature in Moscow in 1962. An example is cataloged in OCLC and is part of the collection at the Library of Congress.