In 2007, I was invited to a meeting with participants of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I had always wanted to find someone from those with whom I participated in the defense of the Cuban revolution back in 1962. After 45 years, I met my former commander, Colonel Roman Grigoryevich Danilevich. He strongly advised me to write down my memories of our expedition to Cuba.

So, the year was 1962. At that time, I served as the deputy commander for political affairs of an anti-aircraft missile division at the Kapustin Yar military range, near Volgograd. A division is a small unit. There were about 80 soldiers and sergeants and 17 officers. Sometime in July, upon returning from a business trip, I noticed something unusual happening at the base. Everyone was running around, whispering about something, and I was out of the loop. That’s how most of the summer passed. Not long before, a competent and good officer, Rosenstein, had been appointed as the commander of our division. Suddenly, he was removed and transferred to another position, and I was appointed as the propagandist for the political department of the unit. Typically, this position was assigned to officers with a completed higher education, but I had only two years of university education. All this already indicated that the situation was extraordinary. By the time of my new appointment to the political department of the regiment, I found myself alone. Thus, I had to start working in the new position without any guidance. Most of the regiment had already been sent on this unknown mission. At the end of August, preparations began for the departure of the remaining personnel. The deputy commander of the regiment, Zaikov, was appointed as the head of the echelon, and I was appointed as his deputy for political affairs. My wife asked the regiment’s command to allow her to go on the mission with me, but she was denied. They explained to her that her husband might not return from this mission.

The time of departure arrived. We left late at night from the Kapustin Yar railway station. The last evening at home. The children were asleep, and my wife had a high fever. I sat alone, watching television. Zara Dolukhanova was performing, singing Ave Maria. I listened, spellbound. It was time to leave, but I couldn’t until I heard the end. Later, I listened to this brilliant piece performed by other singers many times, but in my opinion, no one performed it quite like Zara Dolukhanova. Of course, I didn’t believe in God, but it seemed to me that some kind force, a kind spirit, was seeing me off on this difficult mission. At the station, the loading of military equipment was completed, and personnel began to be placed in the wagons. In those years, the valiant Soviet troops were transported by rail in “teplushkas,” that is, in freight wagons. In the wagons, bunks were made from boards, and we slept on them without any bedding. During my service in the Soviet army, I often had to travel this way. It was good if the wagon was four-axled, but if it was two-axled, then it was a disaster. In a two-axled wagon, when you lay on the bunks, the joints of the rails would toss you up by 5-10 cm. Try to sleep. But sleep we did.

Each “teplushka” (heated freight car) accommodated 50-60 people. There were no conveniences. We had to endure until the stops. The journey to the destination, to Feodosia, took seven days. Along the way, I tried to get to know the personnel better. I wanted to establish trust, especially with the officers. On the road, I couldn’t organize lectures and talks for the entire personnel. Therefore, I conducted individual work to better understand the soldiers, sergeants, and officers with whom I had to perform the most challenging task far from the Motherland. As a political officer, I had to be aware of the people’s mood and their moral-political state. I want to say that our people correctly understood the situation, and no one expressed any dissatisfaction. We were always ready to defend the interests of the countries that had embarked on the path of building socialism. There were no complications along the way. Finally, we arrived in Feodosia. We were stationed on the territory of a tank regiment. Here we were to board a ship and set off to perform an international task. We had just settled the personnel in the barracks when the duty officer came running to me and informed me that Colonel Slukhai was calling for me. As I later learned, Colonel Slukhai was a representative of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy. I didn’t understand what I had done to be summoned by such a high-ranking officer. Unfortunately, in our time, if you were called to the commander, it was only to be reprimanded. And I wasn’t particularly wrong. Slukhai started the conversation by saying that I, as the senior political officer of this echelon, was working poorly with the officer corps and therefore, some officers had a low level of moral-political state. I was, as they say now, gobsmacked. I explained to him, or rather, tried to explain, that none of our officers had allowed any unhealthy statements about the mission. And he replied that our Lieutenant Colonel Prokhorov had chickened out and was expressing his dissatisfaction because he had not been told where the mission was and for how long. I had no idea who Lieutenant Colonel Prokhorov was. It turned out that another division had been attached to our regiment in Feodosia, commanded by Prokhorov. But I didn’t know that yet. However, Slukhai was not concerned about that. Your officer, your fault. He immediately issued an order to organize a party investigation and expel Prokhorov from the party. With a heavy heart, I left the colonel. I went to meet and sort things out with Lieutenant Colonel Prokhorov. He explained to me that the division had spent the whole summer at shooting ranges, in camps. The division had not had time to return home when they were ordered to leave for the mission. Upon arriving in Feodosia, the division commander approached Slukhai to find out where the division was being sent. Instead of calmly explaining the situation within permissible limits to the division commander, Slukhai rudely cut him off. Then the division commander said that he would be forced to appeal to a higher authority. Slukhai replied that no one higher up would tell him anything either. And then our lieutenant colonel blurted out that if the Soviet government could not explain to him where and why the division was being sent, he would turn to the UN. The man said this in the heat of the moment. But the bird had flown; he had said it, and that was that. Slukhai immediately reported the division commander’s cowardice to the higher-ups. Literally within a day, the order to remove Prokhorov from his position and the new commander arrived by plane in Feodosia to make it in time for the division’s loading onto the ship. I was tasked with conducting a party investigation and expelling Prokhorov from the party. And that meant that the man would be kicked out of the army without a pension, and it was unlikely that he would be accepted for any decent position in civilian life. It meant destroying a man with my own hands. My state was deplorable. The fact was that if I did not do this, Slukhai would remove me from my position and expel me from the party. And that would have been a disaster for me. For Slukhai, however, the behavior of this officer was a gift of fate. Indeed, he had exposed a coward, a panicker. And who was it? The commander of a combat unit! So, he was not here for nothing, resting on the beaches of Feodosia. Unfortunately, that’s how many political officers built their careers on the bones of supposedly guilty officers. That’s why political officers were disliked, and sometimes even hated, in the officer community.

Following Slukhai’s order, I trudged to the location of this division. I introduced myself to the lieutenant colonel and explained the task Slukhai had set for me. I asked him to write an explanatory note, and I asked the secretary of the party organization to conduct a party investigation. As the senior political officer, I was doing everything formally correct, but somehow I was dragging it out over time. I prayed to God that our loading onto the ship would start sooner. Fortunately, the command came to load onto the ship “Physicist Vavilov,” and once the loading began, I was already out of Slukhai’s reach. I began to deal with the loading of personnel onto the ship. True, Slukhai tried to press me to finish this dirty business, but, excuse me, Comrade Colonel, loading personnel onto the ship is more important than the personal case of a communist. Slukhai had nothing to object to. Many years later, he still took revenge on me for this. Petty, dirty, in a Slukhai-like, Pharisaic manner. But that was later, and for now, the loading onto the ship was underway. There was a lot of trouble. It was necessary to load, secure, and camouflage the combat equipment. To accommodate a personnel of 400 people. Officers were placed in the cabins of the ship’s crew. Soldiers and sergeants were placed in the hold. There, bunks and minimal conveniences were equipped. I was given a room in the cabin of the political officer, or otherwise, the first assistant to the ship’s captain. The new division commander arrived. I liked him very much, although he was somewhere over forty and seemed old to me. We quickly found common ground, and subsequently, in Cuba, I often visited his division near Guantanamo. During the loading process, it was necessary to ensure that none of the personnel ran away. Thank God, everything went well. The loading finished late at night. Around one o’clock in the morning, Marshal of Artillery Zakharov, responsible for our dispatch, gathered us for a meeting. The meeting was attended by the ship’s captain, the first assistant to the captain, the head of the echelon, a KGB representative, and me, the deputy head of the echelon for political affairs. Marshal Zakharov thanked us for the well-organized loading.

Addressing the ship’s captain, the marshal said that we would go far. But where, he did not know. The package indicating the port of destination was to be opened after passing Gibraltar. The ship was to travel in a radio silence zone. The ship’s captain was to steer the ship on a course where there was the least likelihood of encountering other ships. In case of an attack on the ship, we could use the machine guns and grenade launchers on board for defense. And the most terrible thing that was said was, “in case of a threat of capture, the cargo must not be surrendered to the enemy.” And we, 400 people, were the cargo. This meant that the captain was to open the kingstons and gently, tenderly lower us to the bottom of the ocean, to feed the sharks. That was the task set before the ship’s captain. Furthermore, the marshal separately tasked us with preventing the possibility of conscripted personnel leaving the ship during the passage through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. It turns out there had already been such a case. Returning from the meeting, we instructed the officer corps on what and how to do. People were very tired. We appointed a night shift and dispersed to rest.

I woke up in the morning already far from the borders of the USSR. Today, this is quite a common occurrence, but at that time, an ordinary mortal wouldn’t even dare to dream about it. The very sensation of being abroad stirred a storm of some incomprehensible feelings within me. I quickly found common ground with the first assistant to the ship’s captain. In his cabin was a complete collection of the large Soviet Encyclopedia published in 1954. Of course, we all understood that we were heading to Cuba. Therefore, I decided to see what information the encyclopedia provided about Cuba. Indeed, there was a lot of interesting information. After that, I gathered the unit commanders and their political deputies, detailed everything I had learned about Cuba, and tasked them with conducting political sessions with the personnel about Cuba. I descended into the hold. Behind the hold’s wall, the engine was working. In the conditions in which the personnel were, conducting any sessions was very difficult. The fact was that on the ship, we had all changed into civilian clothes. Being in civilian clothes, some military personnel decided that there was no longer any military subordination, and they could treat an officer as an equal. This could not be allowed. Organizing sessions was one of the forms of maintaining order among the personnel.

Meanwhile, the military-political situation in the world was becoming increasingly tense. Provocative actions by American aviation and the navy against our civilian ships became more frequent. Flights of American planes along the border of the Soviet Union increased. I regularly listened to the radio and informed the officer staff about the military-political situation in the world. And the situation was becoming more acute every day. On September 10th, we passed Gibraltar. Radio Moscow broadcasted a decree of the Soviet Government “On bringing the Armed Forces of the USSR to the highest combat readiness.” The document set tasks for each branch of the USSR Armed Forces to prepare for the start of combat operations. And it was about the beginning of a thermonuclear war. And we, in this extremely heated political atmosphere, entered the Atlantic Ocean in a zone of radio silence. The Atlantic Ocean - the realm of American aviation and the navy. And we had on board 400 soldiers and 40 officers of the Soviet army with combat equipment. It was very worrisome, but we tried not to show it outwardly. It is worth noting the warm and respectful attitude of the ship’s personnel and command towards us. I was amazed by the vastness of the oceanic expanses. But I did not want to end up at the bottom of this beautiful ocean. For that, I was too young. By the way, on September 15th, I turned 32 years old. The ship’s command arranged a luxurious dinner for me, to which officers and the ship’s command were invited. For the soldiers and sergeants, they made a pool. They set up four posts and threw a waterproof tarpaulin over the top. This device was filled with water from the ocean. Thank God, there was plenty of water. Of course, swimming in the pool had a very positive effect on the mood of the soldiers and sergeants, which is important when there are 400 people, and uncertainty lies ahead. The ship’s captain organized a tour of the ship’s engine room for the officers. For the first time in my life, I saw this huge machine that moved the ship. It was practically a three-story factory. We then went down to where the shaft was spinning. It was a very interesting sight. So we went through the Atlantic, without any incidents, and were already approaching Cuba. On September 19th, we, the officers, as usual, sat on the deck under the awning and talked in the evening. It was very quiet, and only the duty lights were on. And suddenly, in this silence and darkness, the deck lit up, and a deafening roar sounded…

To be continued…