One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

by M. Dobbs

  Do you hear the firm step?

  The popular admiration for Cuba was tinged with wariness and skepticism, however. Decades of propaganda had left ordinary Russians suspicious of anything they read in the newspapers. American exchange students at Moscow State University were "amused, disturbed and flabbergasted" at the nonchalance displayed by their Russian friends about the threat of nuclear war. Accustomed to tuning out official rants about the sins of the imperialists, Russian students reacted as if the crisis was not all that serious. At a meeting at the university, they warmly applauded a Cuban student leader who gave an emotional speech in Russian. But they paid little attention to the canned remarks of their own professors.

  A small but growing number of Russians were privately questioning the cost of "fraternal assistance" to faraway places. On Saturday morning, the Soviet Defense Ministry reported to Khrushchev that the low-level grumbling had even spread to the armed forces. A sailor on a torpedo boat in the Arctic Ocean had expressed doubt that the Cuban adventure would do anything to promote Soviet "state interests." An air force enlisted man asked, "What do we have in common with Cuba, why are we being dragged into this fight?" A soldier in an antiaircraft unit complained about a temporary halt to discharges because of the Cuban crisis.

  More ominously, just four months after the bread riots in Novocherkassk brutally suppressed by Pliyev's troops, some people were asking why it was necessary for Mother Russia "to feed everybody else." There was a surplus of Cuban sugar in the stores, and a deficit of Russian bread. Around bare kitchen tables, sullen Soviets were singing the rousing tune of "Kuba, lyubov' moya" to subversive new lyrics:

  Cuba, give us back our bread!

  Cuba, take back your sugar!

  We're sick of your shaggy Fidel.

  Cuba, go to hell!

  6:00 A.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27 (5:00 A.M. HAVANA)

  Castro had been at the Soviet Embassy in Havana for nearly three hours, and was still having difficulty composing his letter to Khrushchev. Don Alejandro was having a hard time understanding Fidel's "quite intricate phrases." Eventually, he could restrain himself no longer and blurted out the obvious question:

  "Do you want to say that we should deliver a nuclear first strike against the enemy?"

  That was much too blunt for the Jesuit-trained Castro.

  "No, I don't want to say it directly. But under certain conditions, without waiting to experience the treachery of the imperialists and their first strike, we should be ahead of them and erase them from the face of the earth, in the event of their aggression against Cuba."

  The drafting session resumed. As the first rays of sun appeared over the capital, Castro finally dictated a version that satisfied him.

  Dear Comrade Khrushchev,

  Analyzing the situation and the information that is in our possession, I consider that an aggression in the next 24–72 hours is almost inevitable.There are two possible variants of this aggression:

  1. The most likely is an attack from the air against certain targets with the limited goal of their destruction;

  2. Less likely, but still possible, is a direct invasion of the country. I think this variant would require a large number of forces, and this might deter the aggressor. In addition, world public opinion would greet such aggression with indignation.

  Rest assured that we will firmly and decisively oppose any type of aggression. The morale of the Cuban people is extremely high, and they will meet the aggressor heroically.

  Now I would like to express my strictly personal opinion on these events.If the aggression takes the form of the second variant and the imperialists attack Cuba with the purpose of occupying it, the danger facing all of mankind… would be so great that the Soviet Union must in no circumstances permit the creation of conditions that would allow the imperialists to carry out a first atomic strike against the USSR.I am saying this because I think that the aggressive nature of the imperialists has reached an extremely dangerous level.

  If they carry out an attack on Cuba, a barbaric, illegal, and immoral act, then that would be the time to think about liquidating such a danger for ever through a legal right of self-defense. However harsh and terrible such a decision would be, there is no other way out, in my opinion.

  The letter rambled on for another three paragraphs. It was signed: "with fraternal greetings, Fidel Castro."

  For the FKR cruise missile convoy that had been ordered to the launch position west of Guantanamo Naval Base, it was turning into a chaotic and disastrous night. The missile launchers and their support vehicles only had a dozen miles to travel, but the road was unpaved and bumpy, and ran alongside deep ravines. Shaken by the deaths of their two comrades, the drivers had to remain extremely vigilant to avoid another accident. It took the convoy another hour to reach the tiny village of Filipinas.

  The launch position was in a clearing in the forest just beyond the village, next to a little stream. The terrain had already been prepared by field engineers, who had spent a week removing tree stumps and laying down gravel for the heavy vehicles. Antiaircraft guns guarded the approaches. The area was sealed off with barbed wire and guarded by Soviet troops. Cuban troops were responsible for the outer perimeter.

  As the trucks approached a Cuban guard post a few hundred yards from the launch site, a nervous voice rang out through the darkness.

  "Contrasena!"

  The Russian soldiers at the front of the convoy shouted out the password. But there was evidently some mistake. Instead of allowing the trucks to proceed, the Cuban guards replied with a volley of rifle fire.

  It took another hour, and a lot of swearing in Russian and Spanish, for the cruise missile unit to sort out the confusion over the password. One of the Soviet officers, who spoke pigeon Spanish, eventually managed to communicate with the trigger-happy Cubans. The convoy of trucks, jeeps, and electronic vans rumbled into the cleared field next to the stream.

  "Razvernut'sya!" ordered Major Denischenko. ("Deploy!")

  The trucks moved into position around the launch site. The nuclear-armed cruise missiles sat on their transport trailers, resting on long metal rails. They looked like large model airplanes, about twenty-five feet long, with a twenty-foot wingspan. Electronic vans were parked nearby. If the order was given to fire, a solid-fuel rocket would propel the snub-nosed missile off the rails into the air. Twenty-five seconds later, a jet engine would take over. The radio operator would guide the missile to its target from his post in one of the electronic vans. The missile would cover the fifteen-mile distance to the American naval base in less than two minutes, screaming over the rock-strewn landscape at a height of around two thousand feet. When it was above the target, the operators would give another signal, switching off the engine and sending the missile into a dive. The nuclear warhead was programmed to explode a few hundred feet above the ground, to cause maximum destruction.

  A launch team consisted of an officer and five enlisted men: a senior aviation mechanic, two electricians, a radio operator, and a driver. Once the missile had been deployed to the start position, the remaining preparations took about an hour. In theory, the missiles could only be fired on orders from the regimental commander, Colonel Maltsev, who would only act on instructions from Moscow. As a practical matter, however, the lack of codes or locks on the warheads meant that they could be launched by a lieutenant, with the help of a couple of soldiers.

  "Okopat'sya!" yelled the major. ("Entrench!")

  There was not much point to this order. The ground was so hard and stony that it was impossible to dig down below the topsoil. The officers eventually relented. They permitted the troops to pitch their tents on the rocks and rest for a couple of hours. In the meantime, everything was in place for the nuclear destruction of the Guantanamo Naval Base.

  Inside the naval base, American electronic eavesdroppers followed the Soviet convoy as it moved toward Filipinas, experiencing a fatal accident along the way. Thanks to the emergency radio transmissions, they were able to ident
ify both military camps, as well as Maltsev's field headquarters. All three locations were marked down for U.S. air attack under Operation Scabbards. Intelligence officers reported large numbers of "Russ/Sino/Cuban troops," moving "unidentified artillery equipment" to Filipinas. They noted that the complex was "mobile and requires constant surveillance."

  Precisely what kind of "equipment" the Soviets had placed in Filipinas remained a mystery to U.S. intelligence analysts. It never occurred to them that the naval base had been targeted with tactical nuclear weapons. When the British consul in Santiago de Cuba passed on rumors about Soviet rocket launchers in Filipinas, he was thanked for the information by his superiors and told not to worry. "The U.S. authorities in Guantanamo know of base in [Filipinas] and are not interested, as rockets are small guided missiles not carrying atomic warheads."

  Photo Insert Two

  Close-up of missile launch position, Sagua la Grande. [NARA]

  General Igor Statsenko, commander of Soviet missile troops on Cuba. [MAVI]

  A Cuban antiaircraft battery took up position outside the Hotel Nacional on the Malecon in Havana. [Cuban government photo made available at the 2002 Havana Conference]

  Che Guevara (left) with Soviet ambassador to Cuba Aleksandr Alekseev (right). Before being appointed ambassador, Alekseev was a KGB agent who made the first formal Soviet contact with the leaders of the Cuban revolution. [MAVI]

  The cave in the mountains above the San Cristobal missile sites that was used by Che Guevara as his headquarters during the missile crisis. Cuban soldiers built a concrete structure inside the cave to provide Che with some privacy. It is now preserved as a shrine to Che. [Photo by author]

  Pedro Vera at his home in Tampa in 2006. Vera is holding a copy of a plan of the Matahambre aerial tramway he attempted to sabotage in October 1962. [Photo by author]

  This previously unpublished U.S. Navy reconnaissance photo of the Matahambre area from Blue Moon Mission 5035 on November 2 shows that the CIA sabotage mission has failed. The copper mine and aerial tramway are both intact. [NARA]

  Top secret U.S. Navy map of the planned interception of the Kimovsk and the Poltava on October 24. The Soviet missile-carrying ships were already on their way back to the Soviet Union. The Navy permitted the oil tanker Bucharest to proceed to Havana. [USNHC]

  The Poltava photographed in September 1962 while transporting eight R-12 missiles to Cuba for one of the San Cristobal missile sites. She started a second run in October, with seven R-14 missiles on board, but turned back to the Soviet Union on October 23 following President Kennedy's declaration of a naval quarantine. [NARA]

  Soviet submarine B-59 under the command of Valentin Savitsky was forced to the surface by the U.S. Navy on "Black Saturday," October 27. The submarine is flying the red flag. Crew members in the conning tower are observing a U.S. reconnaissance plane overhead. [NARA]

  The USS Oxford was stationed off Havana during the crisis to scoop up Soviet and Cuban communications, including radar and microwave signals, from tall masts fore and aft. [USNHC]

  General Thomas Power, surrounded by his staff in his command post at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, broadcasts the DEFCON-2 order to the Strategic Air Command on October 24. [U.S. Air Force]

  Fifty feet under Montana prairie, the two-person Minuteman missile combat crew is on strategic alert. Technicians jerry-rigged the launch system to allow the Minuteman to be fired from a single command center rather than two command centers, as required by safety regulations. [U.S. Air Force]

  The commander of all 43,000 Soviet troops on Cuba, General Issa Pliyev (right), with Cuban defense minister Raul Castro (left). A former cavalry officer, Pliyev had little understanding of missile systems but was trusted by Khrushchev, who had ordered him to suppress food riots in southern Russia in June 1962. [MAVI]

  Previously unpublished U.S. reconnaissance photograph of Soviet military headquarters at El Chico, southwest of Havana, taken by Air Force RF-101s on Blue Moon Mission 2623 on October 26. The Americans knew the site by the nearby villages of Torrens and Lourdes. Prior to the revolution the campus had served as a boys' reform school. [NARA]

  Lt. Gerald Coffee (left) and Lt. Arthur Day (right) being debriefed by Rear Admiral Joseph M. Carson, commander of Fleet Air Jacksonville, immediately after returning from a mission over Cuba. Coffee and Day both came under Cuban antiaircraft fire on October 27. Coffee photographed nuclear capable FROG/Luna missiles on October 25. [USNHC]

  Photograph of nuclear capable FROG/Luna missiles near Remedios, taken by Lt. Coffee on Blue Moon Mission 5012 on October 25. As a result of this photograph, U.S. estimates of Soviet troops on Cuba rose sharply. President Kennedy was briefed about the photograph on the morning of October 26. [NARA]

  CHAPTER NINE

  Hunt for the Grozny

  6:00 A.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27

  The news reaching the White House Situation Room was alarming. Five out of six medium-range missile sites in Cuba were "fully operational," according to the CIA. The sixth would "probably be fully operational" by Sunday. This meant that a large swathe of the southeastern United States was already within range of twenty 1-megaton nuclear warheads. Washington, and possibly New York, could be totally destroyed within ten minutes of the missiles lifting off from Cuba. In the event of a surprise Soviet attack, there would barely be time to evacuate the president from the White House.

  Located in the basement of the West Wing, the Situation Room was a Kennedy innovation. JFK had been intensely frustrated by the lack of information available to him during the Bay of Pigs. Ham radio operators along the east coast heard about the disaster unfolding on the beach from intercepted radio transmissions hours before the commander in chief. He had to rely on unclassified telephone lines to find out what was going on at the CIA and the Pentagon. This must never happen again. He needed an information "nerve center" at the White House that would serve as "a war room for the Cold War."

  The space used for the Situation Room had previously served as a bowling alley. The president's naval aide brought in Seabees to convert the area into a complex of four rooms that included a conference room, a file room, and a cramped watch center for the officers on duty. Communications circuits were installed in the West Wing, circumventing the need for hand-carried messages. There was a continuous clatter of teletypes outside the windowless conference room. The walls were covered with huge maps of Cuba and its sea approaches. Armed guards stood outside the door.

  The maps apart, the conference room resembled a family den in a Washington suburb. It was decorated with functional Scandinavian-type furniture, including a flimsy-looking dining-room table and uncomfortable low-backed chairs, with recessed lighting and a couple of overhead spotlights. Kennedy described the warren of basement offices as "a pigpen." Nevertheless, the Situation Room fulfilled its purpose, providing him with a continuous stream of information that had traditionally been jealously guarded by semiautonomous government bureaucracies. The watch officers, who worked twenty-four-hour shifts followed by forty-eight hours off, all came from the CIA.

  A wealth of information was flowing into the Situation Room by the time of the missile crisis. The president could listen to conversations between Navy Plot and the ships patrolling the quarantine line over single sideband radio. The White House received drop copies of the most important State Department and Pentagon telegrams. In addition to the news agency teletypes, there were also tickers for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which provided rush transcripts of Soviet government statements over Moscow Radio. Communications intercepts started arriving direct from the National Security Agency following complaints from Kennedy and McNamara about the delay in reporting the turnaround of Soviet ships.

  Contrary to later myth, Kennedy refrained from issuing orders directly to the ships enforcing the blockade. Instead, he used the traditional chain of command, through the secretary of defense and chief of naval operations. Nevertheless, the fact that the White House could monitor military commun
ications on a minute-by-minute basis had major implications for the Pentagon. The military chiefs feared that the very existence of the Situation Room would reduce their freedom of action ― and they were correct. The relationship between the civilians and the military had undergone a profound change during the two decades since World War II. In the nuclear age, a political leader could no longer afford to trust his generals to make the right decision on their own, without close supervision.

  From the Situation Room, duty officers kept track of the latest news from the blockade line. Plans were in place for a massive air attack against Cuba, followed by an invasion in approximately seven days. A tactical strike force of 576 warplanes, based at five different air bases, awaited the orders of the commander in chief. Five jet fighters were constantly in the air over Florida, ready to intercept Soviet war planes taking off from Cuba, while another 183 were on ground alert. Guantanamo was an armed garrison, guarded by 5,868 Marines. Another Marine division was on its way from the west coast, via the Panama Canal. More than 150,000 American troops had been mobilized for the ground invasion. The Navy had surrounded the island with three aircraft carriers, two heavy cruisers, and twenty-six destroyers, in addition to logistic support vessels.

  But the Americans understood that the other side was ready as well. The CIA had reported that Cuban forces were being mobilized "at a rapid rate." All twenty-four Soviet SAM missile sites were now believed to be operational and therefore capable of shooting down high-flying U-2s. Low-level photography had provided the first concrete evidence of nuclear-capable FROG launchers on the island. Half a dozen Soviet cargo ships were still heading for the island ― despite an assurance by Khrushchev to the United Nations that they would avoid the quarantine zone for the time being.