The Associated Press
                                   Havana
                                   AP
                                   The Miami Herald
                                   La Nueva Cuba
 
 
 

                                   Protagonists in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis discovered that events at the height
                                   of that Cold War drama may have brought them closer to nuclear war than they
                                   originally believed.

                                   Newly declassified U.S., Cuban and Soviet documents discussed during a
                                   three-day conference that began Friday underscore the danger of a nuclear attack
                                   — either accidental or deliberate — that existed during those tense October days.

                                   ``A real war will begin, in which millions of Americans and Russians will die,''
                                   Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, quoted then-U.S.
                                   Attorney General Robert Kennedy as telling him in a top secret memo, now
                                   declassified, on Oct. 27, 1962.

                                   ``The situation may get out of control, with irreversible consequences,'' Robert
                                   Kennedy warned after an American spy plane was shot down over Cuba and
                                   President Kennedy was pressured to order pilots to return fire if fired upon.

                                   Also on Oct. 27, 1962, the most dangerous day of the crisis, notes from the U.S.
                                   Joint Chiefs of Staff detail a series of alarming events in addition to the shooting
                                   down of the U-2 spy plane.

                                   There was a Joint Chiefs' recommendation for an air strike and invasion of Cuba,
                                   and reports that Cuban anti-aircraft units were given authority to open fire against
                                   ``enemy aircraft'' starting on Nov. 18.

                                   Some of the notes were taken from transcripts of Joint Chiefs meetings in
                                   October-November 1962 dealing with the Cuban missile crisis. The documents
                                   were declassified under the Freedom of Information Act.

                                   Many documents studied during the conference were collected by the National
                                   Security Archive, a nonprofit research group at George Washington University in
                                   Washington. Archive researchers were also participating in the conference.

                                   Cuban President Fidel Castro was participating in the conference's closed door
                                   sessions, as were former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and other key
                                   advisers in the Kennedy administration.

                                   As events began spinning out of control in late October 1962, Castro began
                                   expecting a U.S. airstrike on Soviet facilities on the island and was prepared to
                                   shoot down American combat aircraft if they invaded Cuba, according to a top
                                   secret military directive to Gen. Issa A. Pliyev, head of Soviet forces in Havana.

                                   The Soviets were prepared as well.

                                   ``In case of a strike on our facilities by American aircraft it has been decided to use
                                   all available air defense forces,'' the directive said.

                                   A portion of the documents, made available to The Associated Press in
                                   Washington, demonstrate that the crisis did not end on Oct. 29, 1962, with the
                                   Soviet Union's agreement to remove the offensive weapons, as is widely believed.

                                   Weeks after the Soviet Union agreed to pull the missiles from Cuba, Khrushchev
                                   worried that an ``irrational'' Castro would renew tensions with the United States —
                                   perhaps even provoke war.

                                   Cuba ``wants practically to drag us behind it with a leash, and wants to pull us into
                                   a war with America by its actions,'' Khrushchev said in a Nov. 16, 1962, letter to
                                   diplomatic aides in Cuba.

                                   During conference sessions on Friday, participants also looked at American covert
                                   actions following the disastrous CIA-backed invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs in April
                                   1961 and how they intensified Cuban fears of a U.S. military attack.

                                   The conference took on special relevance as President Bush now ponders a
                                   pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

                                   The missile crisis began in mid-October 1962 when President Kennedy learned
                                   that Cuba had Soviet nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States. The
                                   crisis was defused two weeks later when the Soviet Union agreed to remove the
                                   missiles.

                                   Former Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Richard Goodwin and Ted Sorensen
                                   are attending the conference, as well as former CIA analyst Dino Brugioni, who
                                   interpreted American spy photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

                                   Conference participants on Sunday will travel to sites related to the crisis, including
                                   a missile silo in the western province of Pinar del Rio.