FOR SIX MONTHS after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April 1961, President Kennedy reached no decision on how to deal with Fidel Castro. “The Cuba matter is being allowed to slide,” his brother Bobby noted in a memo. But ending Castro’s rule remained “the top priority — all else is secondary”, Bobby added. And JFK himself said: “The final chapter on Cuba has not been written.”
Now there was another factor to consider. The Soviet Union, under the erratic leadership of Nikita Krushchev, had decided to turn Cuba, just 70 miles south of Florida, into a missile base from which it could more directly threaten the United States.
In May and June, Krushchev and Soviet military and political chiefs decided to deploy on the island 24 medium-range R12 missiles (MRBMs), which could travel 1,050 miles, and 16 intermediate R14 missiles (IRBMs), with a range of 2,100 miles. The 40 missiles would double the number in the Soviet arsenal that could reach the United States. The plan also called for 44,000 support troops, 1,300 civilian construction workers and a Soviet naval base housing surface ships and nuclear missile equipped submarines.
Such a substantial change in the balance of power seemed likely to provoke a crisis and possibly a war with the United States. Khrushchev convinced himself, however, that the “intelligent” Kennedy “would not set off a thermo-nuclear war”. The deployment would equalise the balance of power. The Americans had surrounded the Soviet Union with military bases housing nuclear weapons: now they would learn what it felt like to have enemy missiles pointing at them.
It would be difficult to hide from America’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus the movement of men and equipment to Cuba. But Khrushchev bargained on the Americans assuming that he would never send weapons of mass destruction abroad. By the time they woke up to what was happening, the missiles would be in place. Soviet private and public statements gave Kennedy assurances that the military build-up represented a change in degree but not in kind. But Kennedy could not take their assurances at face value. At the beginning of September, he sent a forceful warning to Moscow. Secretly he ordered his defence secretary, Robert McNamara, to put plans for military operations against Cuba into motion. There were also large-scale manoeuvres calculated to send Moscow signals of US readiness to take military action.
On October 1, McNamara and the Joint Chiefs learnt of “a first-hand sighting of a truck convoy of 20 objects 65ft to 70ft long which resembled large missiles”. Kennedy approved a U-2 spy mission that revealed conclusive evidence of offensive weapons: three medium-range ballistic missile sites under construction, one additional MRBM site at San Cristobal and two IRBM sites at Guanajay. The photos also revealed 21 crated IL-28 medium-range bombers capable of delivering nuclear bombs. At 8.45 on the morning of the 16th, McGeorge Bundy, a national security adviser, brought the bad news to Kennedy in his bedroom. The President ordered Bundy to set up a White House meeting of national security officials. He then called Bobby: “We have some big trouble. I want you over here.” After 21 months in the White House, the Kennedys were no strangers to “big trouble”, but this was worse: no president or administration had confronted so much danger to the nation.
Kennedy saw four military options: an air strike against the missile installations, a more general air attack against a wide array of targets, a blockade, and an invasion. He wanted preparations for the second, third and fourth options, decisions on which could come later. But “we’re certainly going to do No 1,” he said. “We’re going to take out these missiles.” Two days later, more reconnaissance photos revealed construction of IRBM launching pads. They had now discovered five different missile sites. The Russians could have between 16 and 32 missiles ready to fire within a week. They were turning Cuba into “a powerful military problem” for the United States, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said, and a failure to respond would “undermine our alliances all over the world”. Inaction would also encourage Moscow to feel free to intervene wherever they liked and would create an unmanageable problem in sustaining domestic support for the country’s foreign policy commitments. But an attack on Cuba without a prior effort at diplomatic pressure to remove the missiles would alienate America’s allies. The evidence of additional missile sites had convinced the Joint Chiefs to urge a full-scale invasion of Cuba. But Kennedy stubbornly resisted unannounced air strikes. “It’s the kind of conduct that one might expect from the Soviet Union. It is not conduct that one expects of the United States.” The way we act, Bobby asserted, “speaks to the whole question of . . . what kind of a country we are”.
Kennedy’s preference was for a blockade and negotiations. He saw the the Joint Chiefs’ counsel as predictable and not especially helpful. Their apparent readiness to risk nuclear war in Europe and their unhelpful advice before the Bay of Pigs deepened his distrust.
The air force chief of staff, Curtis LeMay, indirectly threatened Kennedy with making his dissent public. “I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I’m sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way, too. In other words, you’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.” An irritated Kennedy asked: “What did you say?” LeMay repeated himself: “You’re in a pretty bad fix.” Kennedy responded with a hollow laugh: “You’re in there with me.” Afterwards Kennedy commented: “These brass hats have one great advantage. If we listen to them, and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them they were wrong.”
On Saturday October 20, Kennedy and the National Security Council agreed on a blockade, which could less readily be described as an act of war. The announcement was to coincide with a demand for removal of the offensive missiles from Cuba and preparations for an air strike should Moscow not comply.
Kennedy’s Monday night speech to the nation reached 100 million Americans, more than any previous presidential address. Looking drawn and tired, he spoke more deliberately than usual, making clear the gravity of what the United States, the USSR and indeed the whole world faced. Kennedy demanded prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba under UN supervision.
With no response from Khrushchev by Tuesday morning, the world feared the worse. Rusk woke an aide, George Ball, who was sleeping on a couch in his State Department office, with some graveyard humour: “We have won a considerable victory,” he said. “You and I are still alive.”
But Kennedy feared that they were on the brink of an unavoidable disaster. Soviet ships were continuing on course to Cuba, and two of them, which seemed to be carrying weapons, would approach the quarantine line in two hours. The President’s tension was reflected in his appearance and physical movements. “These few minutes were the time of greatest worry by the President,” Bobby wrote later. “His hand went up to his face and covered his mouth and he closed his fist. His eyes were tense, almost grey. Was the world on the brink of a holocaust?” A State Department intelligence report gave a glimmer of hope: all six Soviet ships in Cuban waters had either stopped or reversed course. “We’re eyeball to eyeball,” Dean Rusk famously remarked, “and I think the other fellow just blinked.”
