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

by M. Dobbs

  Three American destroyers arrived on the scene, circling the area where the Foxtrot was lurking. "Dropped five hand grenades as challenge to submarine for identification," recorded the logbook of the USS Beale at 5:59 p.m. "No response. Challenged submarine on radar. No response." The USS Cony dropped another set of five practice depth charges half an hour later.

  The purpose of the signals had been described in a Pentagon message transmitted to the Soviet government via the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday. "Submerged submarines, on hearing this signal, should surface on easterly course." Both Kennedy and McNamara assumed that the Soviet submarine captains had been informed about the new procedures and understood the meaning of the signals.

  They were mistaken. The Soviet government never acknowledged receipt of the message about the underwater signals, and never relayed the contents to the commanders of the four Foxtrots.

  6:30 P.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27

  While the American destroyers dropped hand grenades into the Sargasso Sea, a thousand miles away in Washington, Maxwell Taylor briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the results of the afternoon ExComm session. "The president has been seized by the idea of trading Turkish missiles for Cuban missiles," he reported. "He seems to be the only one in favor of it. He has a feeling that time is running out."

  The other chiefs were suspicious of their chairman. They felt he was too "political," too close to the administration. Bobby Kennedy had even named one of his many children after the former D-Day paratroop hero. The president respected him as a soldier-scholar, very different from the no-nonsense military type personified by Curtis LeMay. Slightly deaf in one ear from an explosion, Taylor spoke Japanese, German, Spanish, and French. The word at the White House was that if you presented Max Taylor with a problem on the Middle East, "he would want to know how Xerxes had handled it."

  With his keen sense of history, Taylor was beginning to wonder whether there was a danger of getting "bogged down" in Cuba. He felt it was necessary to keep in mind the experience of "the British in the Boer war, the Russians in the last war with the Finnish, and our own experience with the North Koreans." He was worried about the latest intelligence information suggesting a much larger Soviet troop presence than previously suspected. The American invasion plan, code-named Operations Plan 316, seemed "thin" to him.

  The chairman had to straddle a delicate line between his loyalty to the president and his loyalty to his fellow chiefs. He shuttled back and forth between the two camps, conveying the views of the White House to the Pentagon, and vice versa. In the ExComm debates, he consistently spoke in favor of tough action against the Soviets, and had initially preferred air strikes to a blockade. But once the president made a decision, he implemented it loyally, and tried to explain the reasons behind Kennedy's thinking to his fellow generals.

  Taylor told the chiefs that he had passed on their unanimous recommendation for air strikes against the missile sites by Monday at the latest. "Then we got word of the U-2 loss." By now, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that Major Anderson had been shot down by a SAM missile. Electronic eavesdroppers on board the USS Oxford had intercepted a teletype message saying that the Cubans had recovered his body along with wreckage from his plane. The National Security Agency also possessed a couple of minutes of Soviet air defense tracking suggesting that the U-2 went down somewhere near Banes in eastern Cuba.

  "Should we take out the SAM site?" the chairman wanted to know.

  Some members of the ExComm, including Taylor himself, favored an immediate attack on one or more SAM sites in retaliation for the downing of the spy plane. The Pentagon had drawn up a plan, code-named FIRE HOSE, for attacks on three sites in the Havana area. But the other chiefs were opposed to strikes against individual SAM sites and "piecemeal" measures like the proposed drop of propaganda leaflets, which they dismissed as "militarily unsound" because it could lead to the pointless loss of the delivery plane. They preferred to wait another day and destroy all Soviet military installations in Cuba, beginning with the air defense system. The minimum acceptable response for the Joint Chiefs was the elimination of all the SAM sites, not just one or two.

  "We would only expose ourselves to retaliation," objected LeMay. "We have little to gain and a lot to lose."

  "I feel the same way," agreed General Earle Wheeler, chief of staff of the Army. "Khrushchev may loose one of his missiles on us."

  Like the other submarine skippers, Valentin Savitsky was near the end of his tether. The U.S. Navy had been chasing his submarine for the last two days. His batteries were dangerously low. He had been unable to communicate with Moscow for more than twenty-four hours. He had missed a scheduled radio session that afternoon because American airplanes had appeared overhead and he had been forced to make an emergency dive. For all he knew, World War III might have broken out while he was underneath the waves.

  The four-week journey had been physically and emotionally draining for the skipper of B-59. His vessel was not in quite as bad shape as that of his friend Nikolai Shumkov, which had lost two of its three diesel engines, but it was still plagued with mechanical problems. The ventilation system had broken down. The diesel coolers were blocked with salt, the rubber sealings were torn, and several electrical compressors were broken. Temperatures aboard ship ranged from 110–140 degrees. The presence of carbon dioxide was approaching critical levels and duty officers were fainting from a combination of heat and exhaustion. The men were falling "like dominoes."

  The hottest place in the ship was the engine room, next to the stern torpedo room. The noxious fumes from the three noisy diesels created an unbearably stuffy atmosphere. The electric batteries were housed in the adjoining compartment, together with the recharging equipment. Most of the crew had their bunks in the next compartment forward. The central part of the vessel was taken up by the command post, where the periscope was raised and lowered, a cubbyhole for the captain, and a radio room. The forward section consisted of the officers' quarters and the bow torpedo room. Men who were not on duty often lay down alongside the torpedo tubes, as far as possible from the suffocating engine room. This was also where the nuclear torpedo was located.

  A lieutenant commander was assigned full-time to look after the torpedo and service its 10-kiloton warhead. He even slept next to the shiny gray container. According to regulations, a nuclear torpedo could only be fired on receipt of a coded instruction from Moscow, unlike a conventional torpedo, which could be fired on the orders of the flotilla commander. In practice, however, there were no special locks on the weapon that blocked its unauthorized use. If the officer in charge of the torpedo and the captain of the submarine were in agreement, it was physically possible to launch it.

  B-59 was carrying several extra passengers, in addition to its regular seventy-eight-man crew. The passengers included the chief of staff of the submarine flotilla, Commander Vasily Arkhipov. Arkhipov and Savitsky were equal in rank, although Savitsky was captain of the ship and therefore ultimately responsible for it. A team of signals intelligence experts was also on board, charged with intercepting and analyzing American naval messages. To eavesdrop on the Americans, the submarine had to be close enough to the surface for its antenna to poke through the waves. Communications were interrupted whenever the sub went deep.

  The sub was several hundred feet down when loud explosions began popping off all around. All compartments were dimly lit. Savitsky had switched to emergency lighting to conserve his dwindling batteries. Men were groping around in the semidarkness. As the explosions got closer, they became more nerve-wracking. Soon they were going off right next to the hull. Crew members felt as if they were seated "inside a metal barrel that someone is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer." Nobody knew what was going on.

  Savitsky was in the control room, along with Arkhipov and the chief of the signals intelligence team, Vadim Orlov. He knew nothing about the signaling procedures introduced by the U.S. Navy. He had lost communications with Moscow and the other thre
e Foxtrots. He knew only that he was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to recharge his batteries. He could only guess at the fate awaiting him and his men. Judging by the deafening explosions, the Americans were doing their best to torment him. There was no greater humiliation for a submarine captain than to be forced to the surface by the enemy.

  Four decades later, Orlov would recall what happened next:

  The Americans hit us with something stronger than a grenade, apparently some kind of practice depth charge. We thought "that's it, that's the end." After this attack, a totally exhausted Savitsky became furious. In addition to everything else, he had been unable to establish communications with the General Staff. He summoned the officer who was in charge of the nuclear torpedo, and ordered him to make it combat ready. "Maybe the war has already started up there while we are doing somersaults down here," shouted Valentin Grigorievich emotionally, justifying his order. "We're going to blast them now! We will perish ourselves, but we will sink them all! We will not disgrace our Navy!"

  7:30 P.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27

  In Washington, the president had ducked out of the Cabinet Room after more than two hours of tense, sometimes passionate debate to get his twice-daily dose of medicines. His doctors gave him an extra shot of hydrocortisone to compensate for adrenal insufficiency, in addition to the usual cocktail of steroids and antibiotics. Fifteen minutes later, he took a call from Jackie, who had taken the children off to their weekend retreat at Glen Ora in rural Virginia, away from the nuclear fallout zone around Washington.

  Forging a consensus in the ExComm was becoming increasingly difficult. Everybody seemed to have their own ideas for dealing with the Soviets. Bobby and Ted Sorensen had gone to the president's private office to try to merge the rival State Department and Adlai Stevenson drafts. Bob McNamara was working on a plan to pull the Jupiters out of Turkey unilaterally, to deprive the Soviets of an easy target in the event of American air strikes against Cuba. John McCone was drafting his own ultimatum to Khrushchev: another attack on U.S. surveillance planes and we'll destroy all your military installations on Cuba. Paul Nitze was composing a demand that Moscow agree to begin dismantling its Cuban missile bases by 5:00 p.m. Washington time on Monday or face the consequences.

  In the space of a few hours, alliances formed, fell apart, and reshaped themselves, as ExComm members agonized over various responses to Khrushchev. "There were sharp disagreements," Bobby would later recall. "Everyone was tense; some were already near exhaustion; all were weighted down with concern and worry." McCone joined forces with the veteran diplomat George Ball in attacking McNamara's plan for a unilateral withdrawal of the Jupiters. "If we're going to get the damn missiles out of Turkey anyway," Ball argued, let's trade them for the Soviet missiles and avoid "military action with enormous casualties and a great, grave risk of escalation."

  "And what's left of NATO?" demanded an alarmed Bundy.

  "I don't think NATO is going to be wrecked," Ball replied. "And if NATO isn't any better than that, it isn't much good to us." Just a few hours earlier, the under secretary of state had insisted that merely talking about the Jupiters to the Turks would be an "extremely unsettling business."

  An aide whispered into Bundy's ear. The national security adviser interrupted the debate on war and peace to address a more immediate issue.

  "Do people want dinner downstairs, do they want trays, or do they want to wait?"

  "Eating is the least of my worries," snapped McNamara.

  People drifted in and out of the Cabinet Room. In Kennedy's absence, the debate went round in circles, sometimes descending into barely concealed animosity. Vice President Lyndon Johnson had kept his views to himself as long as the president was around. But he became much more animated when JFK was out of the room, hinting at policy differences. He was worried that the administration was "backing down" from the firm position outlined in the president's speech. The American public could sense that the White House was wavering and felt "insecure."

  "People feel it. They don't know why they feel it and how. They just…"

  Bobby had wandered back into the room. He was angered by the suggestion that his brother was "backing down," but LBJ pressed ahead, claiming that Soviet ships were "comin' through" the blockade.

  "No, the ships aren't coming through. They all turned back…. Ninety percent of them."

  LBJ stuck to his guns. He repeated quietly that it was difficult to argue that "we are as strong as we were the day of the president's announcement." A few minutes later, after his nemesis had again wandered off, he startled other ExComm members by interjecting whimsically, "I think governments are old and tired and sick, don't you think?" He wanted action ― such as an immediate attack on a Soviet SAM site. The shoot-down of the U-2 had grabbed everybody's attention much more than "all these signals that each one of us write." Words were becoming meaningless. Khrushchev was "an expert at palaver."

  After his lengthy absence, the president returned to the Cabinet Room around seven thirty to wrap up the marathon ExComm meeting. He did not reveal what he had been doing while he was away, or who he had been consulting, but it was clear that he had begun to bypass the ExComm as a decision-making body. There were too many opinions to reconcile. Despite the objections of Bundy and others, Kennedy made clear he was still thinking about some kind of deal over Turkey. The United States could not invade Cuba to destroy the missiles it could trade away without incurring any carnage.

  "If that's part of the record, I don't see how we'll have a very good war," the president said.

  After initially supporting a trade, Johnson now feared that Khrushchev would merely use negotiations over Turkey to wrestle an endless series of concessions from the United States:

  "It doesn't just mean missiles. He takes his missiles out of Cuba, takes his men out of Cuba, and takes his planes out of Cuba. Why then your whole foreign policy is gone. You take everything out of Turkey. Twenty thousand men, all your technicians, and all your planes, and all your missiles. And…and crumble."

  "How else are we gonna get those missiles out of there?" JFK wanted to know.

  In moments of crisis, the person in whom Kennedy had most confidence was Bobby. He saw him as "a puritan, absolutely incorruptible." But his brother's most important characteristics, from JFK's point of view, were his "terrific executive energy" and his intuitive, "almost telepathic" understanding of the president's wishes. The White House was full of exceptionally intelligent people brimming with brilliant ideas. The problem was getting things done. Bobby was a superb organizer. Jack trusted his brother to implement his will.

  In their different ways, both men had been profoundly changed by their shared experiences of the last twelve days. When they first heard about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, their immediate reaction had been anger, even pique, at being thwarted by Khrushchev. They had come very close to bombing the missile sites. Now they were desperately looking for ways to step back from the edge of a nuclear abyss.

  Working in the president's private office, Bobby and Ted Sorensen had managed to merge the rival letters to Khrushchev into a single document. The final version bore the marks of many authors:

  I have read your letter of October 26th with great care and welcome the statement of your desire to seek a prompt solution to the problem. [Original State Department draft, written mainly by Ball and his deputy, Alexis Johnson]

  The first thing that needs to be done, however, is for work to cease on offensive missile bases in Cuba and for all weapons systems in Cuba capable of offensive use to be rendered inoperable…. [Stevenson/JFK] Assuming this is done promptly, I have given my representatives in New York instructions that will permit them to work out this weekend ― in cooperation with the Acting Secretary General and your representative ― an arrangement for a permanent solution to the Cuban problem [Stevenson] along the lines suggested in your letter of October 26th. As I read your letter, the key elements of your proposals ― which seem generally ac
ceptable as I understand them ― are as follows: [RFK]

  1. You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and undertake, with suitable safeguards, to halt the further introduction of such weapons systems into Cuba. [State]

  2. We on our part, would agree ― upon the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments ― (a) to remove promptly the quarantine measures now in effect [State] and (b) to give assurances against an invasion of Cuba….[ExComm discussion]

  The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding "other armaments," as proposed in your second letter which you made public. [Stevenson]

  I would like to say again that the United States is very much interested in reducing tensions and halting the arms race [JFK] and if your letter signifies that you are prepared to discuss a detente affecting NATO and the Warsaw Pact, we are quite prepared to consider with our allies any useful proposals. [Stevenson]

  But the first ingredient, let me emphasize, is the cessation of work on missile sites in Cuba and measures to render such weapons inoperable, under effective international guarantees…. [JFK]

  The president wanted Bobby to deliver the letter personally to the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, along with an oral message emphasizing the gravity of the situation. Unbeknownst to the rest of the ExComm, Bobby had already telephoned Dobrynin and asked to meet with him at the Justice Department, six blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

  As the ExComm meeting broke up, Kennedy invited a select group of his advisers ― including RFK, McNamara, Rusk, and Bundy ― into the Oval Office to discuss the oral message Bobby would deliver to Dobrynin. He excluded LBJ and McCone from this session. The inner ExComm agreed that Bobby should warn the ambassador that time was running out and "further American action was unavoidable" if Khrushchev rejected the terms outlined by the president. That left the issue of how to respond to Khrushchev's call for a Cuba-Turkey trade beyond the promise in the letter to discuss "other armaments," diplomatic code for the Jupiters.