Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev had no illusions about the use of power. He had learned at the feet of some of the world's masters, both while serving them, as he had Stalin, and while fighting to keep them from overpowering the Rodina, as with Hitler. Human sacrifice was a small thing compared to remaining in power.

He had been publicly humiliated before the whole world and before his satellite puppet governments, for whom his perceived weakness would inevitably—Party history being the basis for his assumption—give rise to rebellious behaviour. But of more immediate consequence, he had been humiliated before his Politburo brethren and the horde of political vultures who constantly circled, looking for some flaw that would enable them to pick his bones before the last breath of air had left his body.

That silver-spooned, prima donna, Kennedy! He wasn't supposed to have had the guts to stand toe-to-toe in a world crisis. That's what Khrushchev’s political advisers had told him, that's what he had believed, and that's what he had acted upon. The placement of short-range missiles in Cuba, right in the front yard of the Americans, was to have been another communist propaganda victory—one with strong military implications—in this never-ending cold war, essentially a political extension of World War II.

When site preparation and construction for missile installations was prematurely discovered, Fidel Castro had been useless, and the entire effort had left the central communist power as impotent as a castrated bull. Now, in the face of his shameful, and well-publicized defeat, he had to do something if he was to retain any semblance of control within the Kremlin, much less exercise dominance over the Warsaw Pact nations of western Europe. But, all was not lost. Not yet. He would still have time to teach that young upstart in the White House a lesson in global politics. Or so he thought.

He had, of course, no knowledge that the so-called Cuban missile crisis had sounded his political death knell and that in less than eighteen months he would be removed from office, having his powers divided between Brezhnev and Kosygin, ostensibly his allies in the communist hierarchy. He would live out his life in relative obscurity in a small country dacha, however preferable that was to the fate of many of his predecessors. Despite subsequent theorists, thirty years hence, promoting a Soviet conspiracy as the probable cause, he also had no foresight to know that his chief antagonist in the world theatre would succumb to an assassin's bullet.

Eight months before that presidential assassination, as Khrushchev sat at a highly polished conference table, looking around at the small assemblage of loyal followers—if such a title could be applied to any of his “comrades,”—he was determined to do what was necessary to recover his lost status, whatever the cost. This small group, mostly inner-circle KGB officers, had been assigned to develop a plan that would humiliate the Americans and weaken the NATO alliance. Their shocking recommendations, presented in the form of strategic objectives, were bold, perhaps more hazardous than the original installation of Cuban missiles, and they surprised even the combat hardened and politically experienced veteran, Nikita Khrushchev, who sat in judgment over their acceptance.

                                                     Silent Wind Objectives
                                                           (Top Secret)

A. Place the USSR in the strategic position of controlling events that would subject the U.S.A. to public castigation and potentially force military withdrawal from occupied territories, specifically western European nations under the NATO umbrella.

B. Destroy the image of the U.S.A. as having secure and safe control over their nuclear weapons stored at military bases in allied territory.

C. Design the operation for high public exposure and criticism, with minimum loss of life. (Low-yield nuclear device with limited range.)

After lengthy debate, Khrushchev dismissed the committee and called for Marshal Orchenko from the KGB Third Directorate, which dealt with covert operations. Orchenko was even more astonished at the boldness of the plan than Khrushchev had been, but he undertook the assignment to prepare an operational outline, delivered sixty days later.

                                             Silent Wind Operational Plans
                                                                                (Top Secret)

1. Five teams of KGB agents (all trained Spetznatz troops) will be selected to covertly place small, tactical nuclear weapons in close proximity to U.S. installations known to house nuclear weapons. (One team to stand in reserve)

2. Four tactical nuclear devices, in the 25 kiloton range will be placed near U.S. military installations. Targets: Japan, England, Spain, and U.S.A. (U.S. base to be decided.)

3. The USSR will create a series of political and/or military regional incidents that will cause the U.S. to increase their military readiness status to DEFCON 4 or 3, thereby bringing their nuclear weapons delivery systems to a pre-launch mode.

4. During the alert, Soviet agents will recover the hidden nuclear weapon in the selected country and detonate the nuclear device near the American military base.

5. Soviet-controlled national and international world media will portray the incident as representative of the lack of control exerted by the U.S. over their nuclear safety program, and pressure will be placed on the U.S. through the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, to remove nuclear weapons from all foreign military bases.

6. The target country for program implementation will be selected by the Central Committee as political concerns dictate.

Kennedy's assassination, occurring in the midst of their operation, did not change their resolve. In fact, once Lyndon Johnson, the cowboy from Texas became president, they went forward with even more determination. Had their plans become public knowledge, the Soviet Union and the entire communist system might have been brought down twenty-five years earlier. As it was, in October 1964 only Khrushchev and his immediate cronies fell from power as a result of the Cuban fiasco, but not before "Silent Wind" had been conceptualised, planned, and implemented. The plan, and the deadly instruments of its success, would lie dormant for the next forty years, awaiting only a resurgence of the political will to use politically unorthodox tactics, defined as mass murder, to achieve desired political objectives.