The Abyss, page 41
That morning meeting was nonetheless important, because it shifted the terms of the entire debate inside the White House. Hitherto, the prevailing mood had been characterized by a commitment to take whatever military or naval action proved necessary, to get Khrushchev to back down. At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, there was no doubt of the willingness of most of the decision-makers to open fire. Now, however, and with dramatic suddenness, the tide – and explicitly the temper of the president – turned. News from the ships at sea offered a clear indication that the Soviets could be backing off; that they would not attempt to send arms through the blockade. Thereafter, though many more bad moments lay ahead, including a climactic one, Kennedy’s default posture would be an unwillingness to escalate; an instinct towards sidestepping a shoot-out.
He stressed the urgency of instructing the Navy’s warships to act with caution: ‘You don’t want to have word going out from Moscow: “Turn around” and suddenly we sink a ship. So I would think that we ought to be in touch with the [carrier] Essex, [from which helicopters were shadowing a Soviet vessel] and just tell them to wait an hour and see whether that ship continues on its course.’ RFK wrote: ‘Everyone looked like a different person. For a moment the world had stood still and now it was going round again.’
Yet some Soviet ships were still approaching the blockade line, foremost among them the tanker Bucharest, steaming hard for Havana. At the White House, the president ordered that, once the ship identified herself, she should be allowed to proceed. Here was an advantage to the ‘quarantine’, later identified by Mac Bundy: ‘It was far more responsive to command and control than an air attack would have been. No ship was stopped or boarded without direct authorization from the President.’ Kennedy was determined to give Khrushchev extra time; not to confront him with an assault on a Soviet vessel which might cause him to feel obliged to respond with gunfire. Moreover, common sense argued that a tanker was unlikely to be carrying weapons. Whatever response was made by the captain of the Bucharest to a stop-and-search order, the United States must look foolish if she was stopped by force, then her cargo was found to be innocent: fuel was excluded from the US blockade prohibition list.
Strangely to posterity but significantly for an understanding of the Crisis, many hours of White House meeting time now addressed contingency planning for a new Soviet blockade of West Berlin, in response to US action in the Caribbean. More than a week since the Cuban photographs arrived, the president’s fear persisted that the Soviets might open a second front in Europe; escalate on another continent. If the perils of the situation at sea seemed temporarily abated, nobody around the table in the White House was tempted to relax.
Nor did others around the world, who were denied knowledge of the surges and eddies in the decision-making of the mighty. In Gorky, diarist Nikolai Kozakov showed himself a frightened man, bereft of confidence in his nation’s leaders: ‘Mom lit up the stove around 7 and started to stew the remains of a hare and some potatoes . . . On the radio, they have been “branding with shame the imperialists who are mindlessly playing with fire”. They are shouting about Cuba at the top of their voices. In his turn, the bearded usurper [Castro] is also shouting at the top of his voice: Patria o muerte and Venceremos – or whatever it is spelt like – “We are going to win”. I don’t know who is right there and who isn’t but I know one thing, that I don’t need a war because of Castro. I went to the office after dinner, to listen to the free radio [foreign stations], but [jamming] was crackling on all the channels. I found something at 31 meters but it was pro-Soviet.’
In the White House at 5 p.m. that day of the 24th, Kennedy met again with congressional leaders, who were first briefed by McCone and Rusk. The latter was optimistic. He was encouraged that, although Russian rhetoric at the UN was ‘bitter and as violent as ever’, it was in some respects cautious. ‘So far as we know, the Soviets have not told their own people that they have missiles in Cuba, which indicates . . . that they think their own people may be very disturbed . . . Our best judgement is that they are scratching their brains very hard at the present time and deciding just exactly how they want to play this.’ This was, of course, correct.
Illinois Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen mentioned Khrushchev’s message to British disarmament campaigner Bertrand Russell, in which he proposed a summit conference to resolve the Cuban issue. Kennedy won approval from the legislators when he said he thought that agreement to such an encounter would be useless: it was plain that the Soviets would only start a negotiation in anticipation of US concessions, and the president was in no mood to make them. He also said that, with some Russian ships pressing on while others turned back, it seemed necessary to wait for the situation to clarify, before making decisions about further American actions.
When the meeting broke up, leaving behind some Excom members and Robert Lovett, they discussed the mood on the Hill. Senator Fulbright appeared to have become a supporter of the blockade, but Richard Russell was still hawking. Lovett said the best aspect of the blockade was that it enabled the US to probe ‘the intentions’ of the Russians. He himself was a sceptic about the efficacy of air strikes. Time was needed, ‘and I don’t think a decision can be made now’. Kennedy said: ‘Well, I think they’ve got their neck [out in Cuba] just like we’ve got it [out in Berlin].’ He meant that, missiles or no missiles, the Soviets’ fundamental strategic position in the Caribbean, a few minutes’ flight time from the US, was as exposed as that of the Western garrisons in the Berlin enclave.
Then a message arrived from UN secretary-general U Thant, which Kennedy read aloud. The Burmese diplomat called for calm; for a voluntary suspension of all arms shipments to Cuba, and also of the US quarantine measures. The president promptly ordered a response, via Adlai Stevenson: the US insisted that all work on the Cuban missile sites should cease, and be subjected to UN verification, before consideration could be given to lifting the quarantine.
That evening, Kennedy spoke again with Harold Macmillan. This time around, recorded the prime minister, the president asked him ‘straight out the 64 thousand dollar question “Should he take out Cuba?” I said I would like to think about this and send an answer (it’s just like a revue called “Beyond the Fringe” which takes off the leading politicians) . . . Meanwhile the “guilty” ships seem to be turning away.’ The prime minister said news of this retreat was ‘a great triumph’ for the president.
But what about the missiles still on Cuba? This remained, indeed, the critical question. Kennedy said that once the quarantine was firmly in place, ‘We’re going to make the judgement as to whether we’re going to invade Cuba, taking our chances, or whether we hold off and use Cuba as a sort of hostage in the matter of Berlin.’ Macmillan said that obviously there would have to be a negotiation, but hopefully not one where Khrushchev ‘has all these cards in his hands’. Kennedy replied: ‘He has Cuba in his hands, but he doesn’t have Berlin. If he takes Berlin, then we will take Cuba. If we take Cuba now, we have the problem of course of these missiles being fired, or a general missile firing, and we certainly will have the problem of Berlin being seized.’ It is doubtful that Kennedy saw this match as might twenty-first-century observers: the Cuban people no more desired an American ‘liberation’ than did the citizens of West Berlin seek a Soviet one.
Macmillan said he thought Khrushchev was ‘a bit wondering what to do’. But so was Kennedy. Even assuming the quarantine worked, the only resolution of the Crisis acceptable to the US was removal of the missiles already in place. ‘Do we then tell them that if they don’t get the missiles out, that we’re going to invade Cuba? He [Khrushchev] will then say that if we invade Cuba that there’s going to be a general nuclear assault, and he will in any case grab Berlin. Or do we just let the nuclear work go on, figuring he won’t dare fire them, and when he tries to grab Berlin, we then go into Cuba? That’s what I’d like to have you to think about.’ Macmillan asserted courteously that the issue was ‘very well put, if I may say so’. He added that he thought U Thant’s UN proposal ‘rather tiresome . . . because it looks sensible and yet it’s very bad’. The prime minister then gave voice to his perennial enthusiasm for a summit. Once more the president brushed aside this ill-judged notion.
Labour MP John Strachey wrote later: ‘Mr. Macmillan’s public pronouncements and what one heard about his private reactions sounded to me rather like those of a fussy old retired nanny, forever calling out: “Oh, oh, Master Jack, do be careful or the bad men will get you!” The role of Britain in this confrontation of the two nuclear powers could only be a modest one. When there was little that we could say which made any difference, might it not have been more dignified to assert our solidarity with our ally, and, for the rest, keep silence?’
Walter Cronkite, America’s favourite uncle, told viewers of CBS Evening News: ‘It was beginning to look this day as though it might be one of armed conflict between Soviet vessels and American warships on the sea-lanes leading to Cuba. But there has been no confrontation as far as we know . . .’ Cronkite nonetheless concluded: ‘There is not a great deal of optimism tonight.’ The Kennedys’ journalist friend Charles Bartlett, dining with them in the Mansion, suggested a toast to celebrate the turn-around of some Soviet ships, but the president said: ‘You don’t want to celebrate in this game this early.’
Soon afterwards the State Department received another angry, bombastic message from Khrushchev, which Kennedy read at 9.30 p.m. This began: ‘Imagine, Mr. President, that we had posed to you those ultimative conditions which you have posed to us by your action. How would you have reacted to this? I think that you would have been indignant at such a step on our part . . . You, Mr. President, are not declaring quarantines, but advancing an ultimatum and threatening that unless we subordinate ourselves to your demands, you will use force.’ The Soviet leader declined to accept the US demands. He said that he refused to stop the ships heading for Cuba: ‘Our instructions to Soviet mariners are strictly to observe the generally recognized norms of navigation in international waters and not to retreat from them by even one step. And if the American side violates these rules, it must realize what sort of responsibility will rest on it in that case. Of course, we shall not be simply observers of piratical actions of American ships on the high seas. We will then be forced for our part to take the measures which we deem necessary and adequate in order to protect our rights. For this we have all that is necessary. Respectfully yours, N. Khrushchev’.
Kennedy and his advisers pored over the fine print of this letter. It appeared to make plain a determination to test the blockade, albeit – as Soviet behaviour of the previous day indicated – without breaching the US list of prohibited cargoes. After reading it, Kennedy called Bartlett, his earlier dinner guest, and told him laconically: ‘[Khrushchev] said those ships are coming through.’ The State Department’s George Ball saw no option but to let events take their course; to see what happened in the morning. Doubts persisted about whether to search the Bucharest, now inside the quarantine zone. Meanwhile Adlai Stevenson, as ever desperate for compromise, was wringing his hands about the US rejection of U Thant’s proposed solution. Kennedy dismissed the ambassador’s groaning. At 2 a.m., a stern message was sent to the UN, while another was dispatched to Moscow. To Khrushchev, in many fewer words than the Russian leader had employed, Kennedy reaffirmed American resolve: the missiles in Cuba had to go.
Khrushchev received this early on the 25th. ‘I ask you to recognize clearly, Mr. Chairman,’ wrote Kennedy, ‘that it was not I who issued the first challenge in this case and that in the light of this record these activities in Cuba required the responses I have announced.’ The blockade would be enforced. That same day the Russians intercepted, as they were intended to do, SAC’s communications about the move to DEFCON 2 and Gen. Power’s call to his officers. The American’s words and actions achieved precisely the purpose for which they were designed – to convince the Russians that they were serious – but at high risk to peace. Khrushchev was now sincerely fearful that the US, if further provoked, would not only invade Cuba, but also launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. His rage, in the hours and days that followed, was prompted by a conviction that he must retreat or face war, together with a determination, almost impossible to reconcile with this knowledge, that he should continue to present a masquerade of defiance not merely to frighten the West, but also to preserve his authority over his comrades and rivals within the Kremlin and across the communist world.
11
Khrushchev Looks for an Out
1 ‘Everything to Prevent War’
Early on Thursday 25 October, a message reached the White House from Harold Macmillan. Kennedy had asked for his opinion, and now he got it. The British leader was drawing back from his earlier acquiescence in American courses, expressed on the telephone the previous night. Now shifting ground, he was assuredly influenced by a rising tide of domestic dismay, most of it directed towards perceived American brinkmanship. This extended beyond thousands of antiwar demonstrators on the streets, into the editorial columns of newspapers. There was a belief that Kennedy was being pushed towards war by his own hysterical electorate. When Europe had lived for a decade under the shadow of Soviet nuclear attack capability, why should not Americans do the same? What legitimate case had the US to determine which side Cuba chose in the Cold War?
The Economist feared that Washington was driving Moscow into a corner. It spoke of ‘the ominous possibility . . . that the blockade does not mark the end of American plans for action against Dr. Castro’s land’. It also emphasized Europeans’ continuing fears about Berlin. An angry American reader, Roger Coe of Flushing, NY, wrote in the magazine’s correspondence column, deploring its condescension to a supposed American ‘obsession’ with Cuba: ‘Yes, we are “obsessed”, obsessed with the burning desire to return freedom to our Caribbean neighbours. This is the same freedom for which our soldiers are dying in Laos and for which so many of your countrymen died in preventing the world conquest of Hitler.’ The expression of such views intensified British alarm that Americans wished to promote an agenda with which they had scant sympathy, for Cuban regime change.
The prime minister was mocked by some of his own people, for alleged passivity in the face of US bellicosity. The great cartoonist Vicky drew an image for the Evening Standard of Eisenhower pulling back the coat-tails of prime minister Eden from a brink labelled ‘Suez’, while Macmillan stood supine behind Kennedy on a brink marked ‘Cuba’. Now, in his message to Washington, the old statesman urged Kennedy to call off his blockade if the Russians would accept UN inspection of the Cuban missile sites, and open a negotiation. He effectively endorsed U Thant’s proposal. He added weakly: ‘You must no doubt continue with your military build-up for any emergency.’ Though the president’s reaction is unrecorded, he cannot have been impressed by the message, which reflected a caution for which conservative Americans – especially uniformed ones – despised the ‘Brits’. They considered that the attitudes of many of Macmillan’s people reflected an unworthy indulgence and indeed fear of the communists, symbolized by the disarmers’ slogan ‘Better Red than dead’.
It was this belief that encouraged some Americans to see in the Missile Crisis an opportunity to show the world that the Soviet Union was a paper tiger – if only their president would summon the steel to act decisively. US military superiority, above all in air power and nuclear weapons, was undisputed even inside the Kremlin. Now was the moment to exploit this, argued such people as Senator Russell and the joint chiefs. Major Bill Smith, Max Taylor’s USAF aide, said: ‘The Kennedy Administration up to that point had not done anything very successfully.’ This thirty-sevenyear-old from Arkansas, veteran of scores of combat sorties in Korea, added contemptuously, ‘They wanted to use force preferably without killing anyone . . . Once they decided to do something, they tried to shave it so thin that it just didn’t work . . . They didn’t want to use any more force than was absolutely necessary. The trouble is, you don’t know what that is.’
In Moscow on the morning of 25 October, Khrushchev chaired a new Presidium meeting at which he is alleged to have crowed: ‘the Americans have chickened out’, because there was no sign of an invasion fleet setting sail for Cuba. In language designed to suggest triumphalism but which did not fool his comrades, the first secretary made a statement that later proved to have shown his path to retreat: ‘Kennedy is telling us to take our missiles out of Cuba. And we reply: Give us firm guarantees, a promise, that the Americans won’t attack Cuba. That’s not bad.’ In return for such a guarantee, the Soviets would remove their R-12s. ‘We will strengthen Cuba, and save it for two or three years. In a few years’ time, it will be even harder [for the US] to deal with it.’
It was among the precepts of the Soviet Union’s governance that unpalatable truths were seldom, if ever, explicitly voiced even within the Presidium. Its membership, however, was expert in reading the runes – interpreting oblique signals from the top. Khrushchev’s colleagues thoroughly understood that their leader declined to face a war with the US over Cuba, and was establishing the terms for Soviet retirement. On Friday 26 October, Pravda’s drum-banging bellicosity of previous days was replaced by a headline: ‘EVERYTHING TO PREVENT WAR Reason Must Prevail’.
The Kremlin’s deliberations were confused by consistently poor reporting from its US intelligence apparatus, which identified McNamara as leader of a hawkish faction within the administration, and Douglas Dillon as a dove. Gossip from Washington’s National Press Club, where the Lithuanian-born barman was a KGB informant, suggested that a US invasion of Cuba was imminent, and that reporters were being briefed to ‘embed’ with the troops. Soviet knowledge of US policy-making compared unfavourably with that which was available to the Kremlin twenty years earlier. During World War II communist sympathizers, some of them holding important positions in the US government, were briefing Russian agents, who enjoyed remarkable licence. Senator McCarthy was not wrong about everything: an astonishing volume of authoritative intelligence reached Stalin.* In 1962, by contrast, Kremlin understanding was threadbare, partly because the Soviet Union – especially since the brutal 1956 suppression of the Hungarian Uprising – had lost much of its allure for Western leftists. The spurious credibility accorded by the KGB, and then by the Kremlin, to the National Press Club scuttlebutt ranks in grotesquery alongside the intelligence reports conveyed to Moscow a generation later, during the Reagan presidency, claiming that the US was close to launching a nuclear First Strike against the Soviet Union.
