Cuba came close to owning 100 N-bombs after 1962 crisis

The Soviet Union had secretly planned to leave over 100 nuclear weapons in Cuba after the end of the Cuban missile crisis but were so scared by Fidel Castro's instability that they made up a law to retrieve them, according to a report.

Documents released by the US National Security Archive disclose how close Cuba came in 1962 to becoming Latin America's first nuclear power, and had planned to train Cubans how to use the nuclear weapons.

According to the documents, minutes after a meeting with Anastas Mikoyan, the then Soviet deputy prime minister, Castro was furious at the USSR ending the crisis by agreeing to remove its strategic missiles.

"What do you think we are? A zero on the Left, a dirty rag. We tried to help the Soviet Union to get out of a difficult situation," the Telegraph newspaper quoted Castro, as saying.

Mikoyan was concerned at Castro's erratic behaviour during a diplomatic visit that he wrote back to Moscow that they must urgently take back the remaining bombs, and tried to cite a non-existent Soviet law that bans the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to other countries, the paper said.

The documents, which came from the archives of Mikoyan's late son, feature in a new book titled The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis, it added.