by Ted Sorensen
The President asked Rusk to prepare an analysis of possible Allied reactions; and the Secretary summarized it for our Wednesday afternoon meeting in his department. He emphasized that our evidence and reasoning would have to be convincing, and that our response would have to offer the Soviets a way out, but that the above problems would still remain. When he concluded, I asked, “Are you saying in effect that if we take a strong action the Allies and Latin Americans will turn against us and if we take a weak action they will turn away from us?” “That’s about it,” replied Rusk. There was a moment of gloomy silence until General Taylor interjected: “And a Merry Christmas to you, too!”
The bulk of our time Tuesday through Friday was spent in George Ball’s conference room canvassing all the possible courses as the President had requested, and preparing the back-up material for them: suggested time schedules or scenarios, draft messages, military estimates and predictions of Soviet and Cuban responses. Initially the possibilities seemed to divide into six categories, some of which could be combined:
1. Do nothing.
2. Bring diplomatic pressures and warnings to bear upon the Soviets. Possible forms included an appeal to the UN or OAS for an inspection team, or a direct approach to Khrushchev, possibly at a summit conference. The removal of our missile bases in Turkey in exchange for the removal of the Cuban missiles was also listed in our later discussions as a possibility which Khrushchev was likely to suggest if we didn’t.
3. Undertake a secret approach to Castro, to use this means of splitting him off from the Soviets, to warn him that the alternative was his island’s downfall and that the Soviets were selling him out.
4. Initiate indirect military action by means of a blockade, possibly accompanied by increased aerial surveillance and warnings. Many types of blockades were considered.
5. Conduct an air strike—pinpointed against the missiles only or against other military targets, with or without advance warning. (Other military means of directly removing the missiles were raised—bombarding them with pellets that would cause their malfunctioning without fatalities, or suddenly landing paratroopers or guerrillas—but none of these was deemed feasible.)
6. Launch an invasion—or, as one chief advocate of this course put it: “Go in there and take Cuba away from Castro.”
Other related moves were considered—such as declaring a national emergency, sending a special envoy to Khrushchev or asking Congress for a declaration of war against Cuba (suggested as a means of building both Allied support and a legal basis for blockade, but deemed not essential to either). But these six choices were the center of our deliberations.
Choice No. 1—doing nothing—and choice No. 2—limiting our response to diplomatic action only—were both seriously considered. As some (but not all) Pentagon advisers pointed out to the President, we had long lived within range of Soviet missiles, we expected Khrushchev to live with our missiles nearby, and by taking this addition calmly we could prevent him from inflating its importance. All the other courses raised so many risks and drawbacks that choice No. 2 had its appeal. All of us came back to it at one discouraged moment or another; and it was advocated to the President as a preferable alternative to blockade by one of the regular members of our group in the key Thursday night meeting discussed below.
But the President had rejected this course from the outset. He was concerned less about the missiles’ military implications than with their effect on the global political balance. The Soviet move had been undertaken so swiftly, so secretly and with so much deliberate deception—it was so sudden a departure from Soviet practice—that it represented a provocative change in the delicate status quo. Missiles on Soviet territory or submarines were very different from missiles in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in their political and psychological effect on Latin America. The history of Soviet intentions toward smaller nations was very different from our own. Such a step, if accepted, would be followed by more; and the President’s September pledges of action clearly called this step unacceptable. While he desired to combine diplomatic moves with military action, he was not willing to let the UN debate and Khrushchev equivocate while the missiles became operational.
Various approaches to Castro (choice No. 3)—either instead of or as well as to Khrushchev—were also considered many times during the week. This course was set aside rather than dropped. The President increasingly felt that we should not avoid the fact that this was a confrontation of the great powers—that the missiles had been placed there by the Soviets, were manned and guarded by the Soviets, and would have to be removed by the Soviets in response to direct American action.
The invasion course (choice No. 6) had surprisingly few supporters. One leader outside our group whose views were conveyed to us felt that the missiles could not be tolerated, that the Soviet motivation was baffling, that a limited military action such as a blockade would seem indecisive and irritating to the world, and that an American airborne seizure of Havana and the government was the best bet. But with one possible exception, the conferees shared the President’s view that invasion was a last step, not the first; that it should be prepared but held back; that an invasion—more than any other course—risked a world war, a Soviet retaliation at Berlin or elsewhere, a wreckage of our Latin-American policy and the indictment of history for our aggression.
Thus our attention soon centered on two alternatives—an air strike and a blockade—and initially more on the former. The idea of American planes suddenly and swiftly eliminating the missile complex with conventional bombs in a matter of minutes—a so-called “surgical” strike—had appeal to almost everyone first considering the matter, including President Kennedy on Tuesday and Wednesday. It would be over quickly and cleanly, remove the missiles effectively and serve as a warning to the Communists. It could be accompanied by an explanatory address to the nation and by a blockade or increased aerial surveillance to guard against future installations. The air-strike advocates in our group prepared an elaborate scenario, which provided for a Presidential announcement of the missiles’ presence Saturday, calling Congress back into emergency session, and then knocking the missiles out early Sunday morning, simultaneously notifying Khrushchev of our action and recommending a summit. Cuba was to be notified at the UN shortly in advance. Leaflet warnings to Russians at the sites were also considered.
But there were grave difficulties to the air-strike alternative, which became clearer each day.
1. The “surgical” strike, like the April, 1961, overthrow of Castro by a small exile brigade, was merely a hopeful illusion—and this time it was so recognized. It could not be accomplished by a few sorties in a few minutes, as hoped, nor could it be limited to the missile sites alone. To so limit the strike, declared the Joint Chiefs firmly, would be an unacceptable risk. Castro’s planes—and newly arrived Soviet MIGs and IL-28 bombers, if operative—might respond with an attack on our planes, on Guantánamo or even on the Southeastern United States. The SAMs would surely fire at our planes. Cuban batteries opposite Guantánamo might open fire. The nuclear warhead storage sites, if identified, should not remain. All or most of these targets would have to be taken out in a massive bombardment. Even then, admitted the Air Force—and this in particular influenced the President—there could be no assurance that all the missiles would have been removed or that some of them would not fire first, unleashing their nuclear warheads on American soil. The more we looked at the air strike, the clearer it became that the resultant chaos and political collapse would ultimately necessitate a U.S. invasion. Most of the air-strike advocates openly agreed that their route took us back to the invasion course, and they added Cuban military installations and invasion support targets to the list of sites to be bombed. But invasion with all its consequences was still opposed by the President.
2. The problem of advance warning was unsolvable. A sudden air strike at dawn Sunday without warning, said the Attorney General in rather impassioned tones, would be “a Pearl Harbor in reverse,
and it would blacken the name of the United States in the pages of history” as a great power who attacked a small neighbor. The Suez fiasco was also cited as comparable. Latin Americans would produce new Castros in their bitterness; the Cuban people would not forgive us for decades; and the Soviets would entertain the very dangerous notion that the United States, as they had feared all these years, was indeed capable of launching a pre-emptive first strike. But to provide advance warning raised as many difficulties as no warning at all. It would enable the Soviets to conceal the missiles and make their elimination less certain. It would invite Khrushchev to commit himself to bombing us if we carried out our attack, give him time to take the propaganda and diplomatic initiative, and stir up a host of UN, Latin-American and Allied objections which we would have to defy or let the missiles stand. Many of those originally attracted to the air-strike course had favored it in the hope that a warning would suffice, and that the Soviets would then withdraw their missiles. But no one could devise any method of warning that would not enable Khrushchev either to tie us into knots or force us into obloquy. I tried my hand, for example, at an airtight letter to be carried from the President to the Soviet Chairman by a high-level personal envoy. The letter would inform Khrushchev that only if he agreed in his conference with that courier (and such others as he called in) to order the missiles dismantled would U.S. military action be withheld while our surveillance oversaw their removal. But no matter how many references I put in to a summit, to peaceful intentions and to previous warnings and pledges, the letter still constituted the kind of ultimatum which no great power could accept, and a justification for either a pre-emptive strike against this country or our indictment in the court of history. From that point on, I veered away from the air-strike course.
3. The air strike, unlike the blockade, would directly and definitely attack Soviet military might, kill Russians as well as Cubans and thus more likely provoke a Soviet military response. Not to respond at all would be too great a humiliation for Khrushchev to bear, affecting his relations not only at home and with the Chinese but with all the Communist parties in the developing world. Any Cuban missiles operational by the time of our strike might be ordered by Khrushchev to fire their nuclear salvos into the United States before they were wiped out—or, we speculated, the local Soviet commander, under attack, might order the missiles fired on the assumption that war was on. The air-strike advocates did not shrink from the fact that a Soviet military riposte was likely. “What will the Soviets do in response?” one consultant favoring this course was asked. “I know the Soviets pretty well,” he replied. “I think they’ll knock out our missile bases in Turkey.” “What do we do then?” “Under our NATO Treaty, we’d be obligated to knock out a base inside the Soviet Union.” “What will they do then?” “Why, then we hope everyone will cool down and want to talk.” It seemed rather cool in the conference room as he spoke.
On that same day, Wednesday, October 17, the President—after a brief review of the situation with aides in the morning—had flown to Connecticut to keep a campaign commitment. Cancellation would only have aroused suspicion, and Vice President Johnson also flew west to carry on his campaign tour. A day of meetings in the State Department conference room had made some progress in defining the issues; and when we recessed for dinner until 9 P.M., the Attorney General and I decided to meet the President’s plane at eight. It was after nine when he arrived, to find us sitting in his car to avoid attention. I have the most vivid memory of the smiling campaigner alighting from his plane, waving casually to onlookers at the airport, and then instantly casting off that pose and taking up the burdens of crisis as he entered his car and said almost immediately to the driver, “Let’s go, Bill.” We promptly filled him in as we drove to the White House. I had prepared a four-page memorandum outlining the areas of agreement and disagreement, the full list of possibilities and (longest of all) the unanswered questions. With this to ponder, and for the reasons earlier mentioned, the President decided not to attend our session that night. Dropping him at the White House, the Attorney General and I returned to the State Department.
At that meeting, one of the most influential participants—who had theretofore not indicated which course he favored—read a brief paper he had prepared on his position: On the following Wednesday, after informing Macmillan, De Gaulle, Adenauer and possibly Turkey and a few Latin Americans, a limited air strike wiping out the missiles should be accompanied by a simultaneous Presidential announcement to the world and formal reference to the UN and OAS. We would expect a Soviet attack on Berlin, possibly Korea, or possibly the Turkish missile bases in response; and NATO and our armed forces should be so prepared.
This paper, another adviser pointed out, by-passed the question of warning to the Soviets and Castro. Advance warning, he said, was required if the rest of the world was not to turn against us. Moreover, if Khrushchev defied our warning or in response lied about the existence of offensive weapons, our hand would be strengthened. Others pointed out the objections to advance warning, the dangers, of being trapped in a diplomatic wrangle, and the fact that no air strike could be limited and still effective. Still others repeated the objections to no warning. The original proponent, undecided on this key element, began to back away from his plan.
That discussion, and my inability the next day to draft a letter to Khrushchev that could stand the light of logic and history, turned increasing attention upon the blockade route. Most of the career diplomats in our group had initially favored the blockade course, although some had preferred waiting for Khrushchev’s response to a letter before deciding which military move to make. As the consensus shifted away from any notion of trying political or diplomatic pressure before resorting to military action, and away from the “surgical” air strike as an impossibility, it shifted on Thursday toward the notion of blockade. It was by no means unanimous—the advocates of a broad air strike were still strong—but the blockade alternative was picking up important backers.
At first there had been very little support of a blockade. It sounded like Senator Capehart trying to starve Cuba out before there were even missiles on the island. It appeared almost irrelevant to the problem of the missiles, neither getting them out nor seeming justifiable to our many maritime allies who were sensitive to freedom of the seas. Blockade was a word so closely associated with Berlin that it almost guaranteed a new Berlin blockade in response. Both our allies and world opinion would then blame the U.S. and impose as a “solution” the lifting of both blockades simultaneously, thus accomplishing nothing.
Moreover, blockade had many of the drawbacks of the air-strike plan. If Soviet ships ignored it, U.S. forces would have to fire the first shot, provoking Soviet action elsewhere—by their submarines against our ships there or in other waters, by a blockade of our overseas bases or by a more serious military move against Berlin, Turkey, Iran or the other trouble spots mentioned. One view held that Khrushchev and the U.S. could both pretend that an air strike on Cuba was no affair of the Soviet Union but a blockade of Soviet ships was a direct challenge from which he could not retreat. And if Castro thought a blockade was effectively cutting him off, he might in desperation—or to involve Soviet help—attack our ships, Guantánamo or Florida.
We could not even be certain that the blockade route was open to us. Without obtaining a two-thirds vote in the OAS—which appeared dubious at best—allies and neutrals as well as adversaries might well regard it as an illegal blockade, in violation of the UN Charter and international law. If so, they might feel free to defy it. One member of the group with a shipping background warned of the complications of maritime insurance and claims in an illegal blockade.
But the greatest single drawback to the blockade, in comparison with the air strike, was time. Instead of presenting Khrushchev and the world with a fait accompli, it offered a prolonged and agonizing approach, uncertain in its effect, indefinite in its duration, enabling the missiles to become operational, subjecting us to counterthre
ats from Khrushchev, giving him a propaganda advantage, stirring fears and protests and pickets all over the world, causing Latin-American governments to fall, permitting Castro to announce that he would execute two Bay of Pigs prisoners for each day it continued, encouraging the UN or the OAS or our allies to bring pressure for talks, and in all these ways making more difficult a subsequent air strike if the missiles remained. Our own people would be frustrated and divided as tensions built. One of the air-strike advocates, a Republican, passed a note to me across the table reading:
Ted—Have you considered the very real possibility that if we allow Cuba to complete installation and operational readiness of missile bases, the next House of Representatives is likely to have a Republican majority? This would completely paralyze our ability to react sensibly and coherently to further Soviet advances.
Despite all these disadvantages, the blockade route gained strength on Thursday as other choices faded. It was a more limited, low-key military action than the air strike. It offered Khrushchev the choice of avoiding a direct military clash by keeping his ships away. It could at least be initiated without a shot being fired or a single Soviet or Cuban citizen being killed. Thus it seemed slightly less likely to precipitate an immediate military riposte. Moreover, a naval engagement in the Caribbean, just off our own shores, was the most advantageous military confrontation the United States could have, if one were necessary. Whatever the balance of strategic and ground forces may have been, the superiority of the American Navy was unquestioned; and this superiority was world-wide, should Soviet submarines retaliate elsewhere. To avoid a military defeat, Khrushchev might well turn his ships back, causing U.S. allies to have increased confidence in our credibility and Cuba’s Communists to feel they were being abandoned.