by Scott Farris
Khrushchev had advised Kennedy in Vienna that the Soviet Union intended to sign a peace treaty independently with East Germany, an act that would have abrogated all previous agreements, including the right of American access to West Berlin. Kennedy presumed this was a prelude to the Soviets seizing control of all Berlin. He warned that such a step could lead to war, including nuclear war. “I never met a man like this,” Kennedy later told journalist Hugh Sidey about his discussions with Khrushchev. “[I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill seventy million people in ten minutes and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So what?’ My impression was that he just didn’t give a damn if it came to that.”
Khrushchev did give a damn, but he wanted to give Kennedy the impression that he would use nuclear weapons if he must as a bluff to get what he wanted. Kennedy, therefore, in the crazy logic of the Cold War, had to convince Khrushchev that he, too, was prepared to use nuclear weapons if necessary, because only if the other side thought you would use them would their use become unnecessary. Despite his desire for a more flexible response, Kennedy had himself discovered the logic behind the concept of mutually assured destruction.
Fearing Khrushchev’s intentions, Kennedy took a number of steps to prepare the nation for war. He ordered six new divisions sent to Europe before the end of the year, called up reserves, asked Congress for authority to triple the number of draft calls, and unnerved the American public with his call for Americans to build fallout shelters in their backyards. The Senate unanimously endorsed Kennedy’s preparations for war.
Then, on August 13, 1961, the growing crisis was diffused when the East Germans began to construct a barrier, first of barbed wire but later of concrete with guard towers, along the boundary with West Berlin. West Berlin became the antithesis of a prison; the free were locked inside while the prisoners were kept outside. Kennedy understood that the wall was not a problem but a solution. Khrushchev had clearly decided not to seize West Berlin, only to stop the flow of refugees. “This is his way out of his predicament,” Kennedy said. “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”
Relieved that war was no longer imminent, the American public supported Kennedy’s acceptance of the wall as fait accompli. The wall was, in fact, a great propaganda victory for the United States. It was now clear which system of government was preferable. There were no walls required to keep people in the West. The wall also oddly reduced the international community’s tensions with the Soviet Union. With this key territorial issue now resolved, West Germany and other Western European nations began to open up new lines of communication with Moscow. It was the beginning of the policy of détente that Reagan would come to despise.
Given how clearheaded Khrushchev had acted in regard to Berlin, it seems perplexing why he sought to install Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Khrushchev was a poorly educated peasant, coal miner, and factory worker who had become a Stalin protégé. After a protracted struggle, he emerged as Stalin’s successor in 1956. But unlike Stalin, Khrushchev did not believe war with the West was inevitable and favored a policy of “peaceful coexistence.”
Having witnessed the carnage of World War II and being aware of how the ability to reason can disappear on a battlefield, Khrushchev was as appalled by the prospect of using nuclear weapons as Kennedy was. Khrushchev’s bluster, such as the famous incident in which he pounded his desk at the United Nations with his shoe in 1960 to protest the anti-Communist remarks of another speaker, were designed in part to mask the truth that the USSR was far behind the United States in nuclear capability. In his memoirs, Khrushchev wrote, “It always sounded good to say in public speeches that we could hit a fly at any distance with our missiles. I exaggerated a little.”
The Soviets’ lack of long-range missiles capable of striking the United States (as of 1960, they could not launch more than six long-range missiles at one time) was one rationale for their seeking to place intermediate range missiles in Cuba. The Soviets were also livid that the United States had deployed fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles in Turkey, beginning in 1961. Placing missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev thought, would give the Americans “a little of their own medicine.”
But the primary reasons for seeking to deploy the missiles in Cuba was to foment Communist revolution in Latin America and to protect Cuba from a U.S. invasion. Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Khrushchev were aware that the Kennedy administration remained determined to remove Castro from power, and that the American government was pursuing a variety of plots to assassinate Castro. Khrushchev and the Politburo had been exhilarated that Cuba had gone Communist under Castro without any prodding or assistance from Moscow. It confirmed their belief that they were on the right side of history. Soviet statesman Anastas Mikoyan said the Cuban revolution was so thrilling “I felt as though I had returned to my childhood.” Khrushchev, too, “had a weakness for Cuba,” and as he considered how to deter the United States from interfering with the Communist government there he concluded, “The logical answer was missiles.”
Kennedy acknowledged that his administration had “this fixation with Cuba,” and noted that many American allies believed “we’re slightly demented on the subject.” But he could not accept Khrushchev’s rationale of defending Cuba, even had he understood it, which he did not. No one in the administration considered the missiles in Cuba to be defensive. Kennedy understood the provocative effects of deploying missiles in Turkey, which Turkey, as a member of NATO, had asked for as a sign of America’s commitment to mutual defense. The American public, Kennedy knew, would not tolerate enemy missiles so close to the American shore; it destabilized the balance of power—a balance that favored the United States.
Having observed Kennedy for many years, journalist Hugh Sidey wrote that if there was “one element that more than anything else influences [Kennedy’s] leadership it would be a horror of war, a total revulsion over the terrible toll that modern war had taken on individuals, nations, and societies, and the even worse prospects in the nuclear age.” Furthermore, Kennedy had little faith in our military to ensure rational judgments were made during battle conditions. As he had told a friend after World War II, “You know the military always screws up everything.”
Even before he became president, Kennedy had thought a great deal about what to do should he ever face the choice to go to war. In a book review he wrote in 1960 for the Saturday Review, Kennedy said all world leaders would be wise to heed the advice of British military historian Sir Basil Liddell Hart: “Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes—so as if to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil—nothing is so self-blinding.” It was advice Kennedy would himself follow throughout what became known as the Cuban missile crisis.
On October 16, 1962, Kennedy and his advisors were first made aware that spy planes and other reconnaissance had concluded that more than forty thousand Soviet soldiers and technicians had entered Cuba, and large numbers were involved in the construction of launch sites for intermediate ballistic missiles. Kennedy immediately convened his top advisors in a group that became known as the “ExComm” to debate the appropriate U.S. response.
Three options were laid out: immediate air strikes to destroy the launch sites before they were operational, a blockade to pressure the Soviets to remove the missiles, or a full-scale invasion of Cuba. Kennedy immediately leaned toward the blockade as the option that provided him with the most flexibility to continue negotiations. Surprise air strikes soon lost favor because they seemed too reminiscent of the infamous Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Further, it was unlikely an attack would destroy every site, which meant the likely possibility of a Soviet response either from surviving launch sites in Cuba or from the Soviet Union itself.
There were, however, strong voices for a full-scale invasion, including that o
f brother Robert Kennedy, whose account of the crisis, published posthumously in 1969 as the book Thirteen Days, made him appear far more dovish during those thirteen days in October than he actually was. Only when the tapes of the ExComm deliberations were declassified, beginning in the mid-1990s, was it clear that “John F. Kennedy was the only person at the ExComm meetings who genuinely understood that nuclear war could never be a viable or rational choice,” said Sheldon M. Stern, historian of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and the first person allowed to listen to the secret White House tape recordings made during the Cuban missile crisis.
The crisis was only two days old when Kennedy first mused about offering Khrushchev a trade: The United States would remove its missiles from Turkey if the Soviets would remove all missiles from Cuba. But first Kennedy fended off those who wanted no negotiation at all, only an overwhelming military response. When Kennedy informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he intended to pursue a blockade as the first response, Air Force general Curtis LeMay called the decision “almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich.”
Kennedy reminded LeMay that a Soviet nuclear attack would mean eighty million to one hundred million American casualties, but LeMay was unmoved. As Kennedy once told Senator J. William Fulbright, “There’s no doubt that any man with complete conviction, particularly who’s an expert, is bound to shake anybody who’s got an open mind. That’s the advantage of having a closed mind.” Kennedy intended to keep an open mind and to follow Liddell Hart’s advice to be patient, to see the conflict through his opponent’s eyes, and to help his opponent save face.
Shortly after he briefed congressional leaders (who also urged a full-scale invasion of Cuba) on Monday, October 22, Kennedy informed a stunned nation and world of the brewing crisis and his decision to impose a blockade around Cuba, though because international law defined a blockade as an act of war, Kennedy referred to the U.S. action as a “quarantine.” For the rest of the week, the world was on edge, waiting for Khrushchev’s response. He gave two.
Worried that the Soviets were risking nuclear war, world opinion had sided with the United States and supported Kennedy’s quarantine. By Wednesday it was clear that the Soviets had decided not to test the quarantine. But without further communication, Kennedy worried Khrushchev was stalling for time to complete the launch sites. Then on Friday night, October 26, Khrushchev released a letter, offering to remove the missiles from Cuba in return for an American pledge not to invade Cuba. Then, as Kennedy mulled his response, on Saturday morning Khrushchev went on Moscow radio and outlined new conditions: The Soviets would remove the missiles in Cuba only if the United States removed its nuclear missiles from Turkey.
Kennedy thought Khrushchev’s proposal for a missile swap was reasonable, but his advisors argued that he could not publicly undercut their Turkish NATO ally. So Kennedy decided on a ruse. Saturday night he had Robert Kennedy hand deliver a letter to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that accepted the terms of Khrushchev’s letter of Friday, in which the United States agreed not to invade in return for the removal of the missiles and on-site inspections by United Nations officials to ensure compliance. Privately and only verbally, however, Robert Kennedy also assured Dobrynin that the United States, in return for the removal of missiles from Cuba, would remove its missiles from Turkey.
Khrushchev, showing as he had in Berlin that he shared Kennedy’s fear of nuclear war, accepted Kennedy’s terms. Kennedy lifted the quarantine around Cuba, but rescinded the pledge never to invade Cuba when Castro refused to allow UN inspectors on the island. Kennedy continued covert operations against Castro until his own assassination.
Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis continues to win plaudits. Presidential historian Richard Neustadt said, “For the first time in our foreign relations, the president displayed on that occasion both concern for the psychology of his opponent and insistence on a limited objective.” Neustadt went on to praise Kennedy for doing his best to keep the nation informed but also calm during the crisis. He concluded, “There can be little doubt that Kennedy’s successors have a lighter task because he pioneered in handling nuclear confrontations.”
But there are dissenters. Biographer Garry Wills said Kennedy badly mishandled the situation and exacerbated the crisis by refusing to engage in diplomacy because he wanted to maintain the option of a surprise air attack during the early days of the crisis. Kennedy claimed to want to give the Russians room to maneuver, but instead of confronting Soviet diplomats privately, which might have given the Soviets time to back down and save face, he forced the issue publicly with his nationally televised speech. Further, Wills noted, Kennedy failed to consult any of America’s allies, all of whom presumably would have been directly impacted by nuclear war, nor did he level with the American people about the secret war being waged against Castro, which was a large part of the impetus for Khrushchev to dispatch the missiles to Cuba.
Wills said the lesson learned by American leaders since Kennedy is that negotiation, in which the United States and its adversaries reach a solution acceptable to both, should be eschewed in favor of ultimatum in which the United States gets it way without regard to whether the process creates new enemies and new problems. Wills quoted top Kennedy advisor Ted Sorensen as worrying that the wrong lesson had been learned from the Cuban missile crisis: “Ever since the successful resolution of that crisis,” Sorensen said, “I have noted among many political and military figures a Cuban-missile-crisis syndrome, which calls for a repetition in some other conflict of Jack Kennedy’s tough stance of October 1962 when he told the Russians with their missiles either to pull out or look out!” Johnson’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, even Israel’s unilateral bombing of an Iraqi nuclear site are partially the result of the wrong lessons learned from the Cuban missile crisis, Wills states.
Following their 1961 summit in Vienna, Kennedy had thought Khrushchev indifferent to the horrific possibility of nuclear war. Coming out of the missile crisis, Kennedy had a new view of the Soviet leader. He now believed that he and Khrushchev occupied similar political positions within their respective governments—as reasonable men committed to avoiding nuclear war, but each under pressure from “the hard-liners” within their respective countries. Kennedy had begun establishing a rapport with Khrushchev similar to that which Reagan and Gorbachev would enjoy. And Kennedy’s sense of the pressures on Khrushchev was correct. The crisis was the beginning of the end of Khrushchev’s leadership. Hard-liners forced him out of power less than two years later. Kennedy, meanwhile, saw his job approval rating soar after the missile crisis to 76 percent.
The crisis had frightened, or at least sobered, Kennedy to the point that he wanted to take additional concrete steps to reduce tensions between Washington and Moscow. Kennedy pushed for the installation of a “hotline” between the two capitals so American and Soviet leaders could talk to each other in an instant to defuse a potential crisis. He also successfully pushed for a limited nuclear test ban treaty, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in August 1963 (even though, Kennedy wryly noted, he received more mail from Americans concerned about his daughter Caroline’s new pony than he did about fears of nuclear fallout).
Two months prior to the treaty ratification, he gave his famous “peace speech” during a commencement address at American University in Washington, DC. It was a speech that biographer Robert Dallek said ranks among “the great state papers of any twentieth-century American presidency.” Perhaps recognizing, as Wills later would, that he might have better handled the missile crisis, Kennedy said the world peace he hoped for was “not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.” Nor was it, “the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.”
The responsibility for such a peace did not lay solely with America’s adversaries, Kennedy said, but required that Americans “reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a nation—for our atti
tude is as essential as theirs.” War was not inevitable, and humanity should not be pessimistic, Kennedy said. Americans may find Communism “profoundly repugnant,” Kennedy said, but “we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements.” No world is free of tension, Kennedy said, but if there were “mutual tolerance” and understanding, then quarrels would not escalate to war.
Beyond the hotline and the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty, Kennedy, who was assassinated less than six months after the American University speech, had little time to implement many other changes in U.S.–Soviet relations. Still, his speech was in many ways the beginning of détente—the deliberate easing of tensions between the two nations that reached its apex in the Nixon and Ford administrations when there were increased talks, agreements, and exchanges. Détente effectively ended when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which led President Jimmy Carter to suspend a variety of agreements with the Soviets, including implementing an embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union and ordering the American boycott of the Olympic Games that were held in Moscow in 1980.
Reagan was pleased to see détente die, and he had no interest whatsoever in reviving it. Détente implied tolerance of Communism, but Reagan could not tolerate an atheistic system that he believed was antithetical to human nature—particularly since he believed the goal of all true Communists was world domination. Détente, he said at his first presidential news conference, had been “a one-way street the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims.” Détente? Reagan joked: “Isn’t that what a farmer has with his turkey—until Thanksgiving Day?”