Eyeball to Eyeball (Final Failure)

by Douglas Niles

  “All right, sugar,” he said agreeably. “If you can get me ready, I’ll try and finish the job.”

  “I want some more champagne, first,” she said slyly. “You should open the last bottle.”

  “We still have one?” he asked in surprise. His head felt foggy, and his tongue seemed swollen in his mouth.

  “You bought four, we only drank three.” She reminded him, pointing to the fresh bottle, leaning slightly in a small cooler of ice, on the narrow counter.

  Hartley looked at the bedside clock: 2:50 a.m. He concentrated on the math problem, realizing he had three hours and ten minutes until his leave was up and he had to report back to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg. He factored in the rest of the data: Fort Bragg was about 20 minutes away from here. He’d drop Misty off at the restaurant, where she’d left her car, which was more or less on the way back to base.

  “I’m just not sure, darling’. I really need to get a little rest,” he admitted.

  “Come on,” she pleaded. She got up and brought him the unopened bottle, then knelt on the edge of the bed. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Her head dropped down to his lap and she started to go to work on him.

  He arched his back and thrust upward reflexively. Damn, it was worth it!

  “All right, baby,” he said, as he struggled to open the bottle without sitting up or dislodging Misty. “Ready or not, here we go again.”

  0915 hours (Tuesday morning)

  Lincoln Bedroom, The White House

  Washington, D.C.

  “That lying son of a bitch!” cursed the President of the United States.

  National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy was seated beside the President’s bed, where JFK was propped up by several pillows while he’d been reading the morning paper. Bundy could only nod solemnly, sharing the President’s opnion of Nikita Khrushchev. He’d just finished briefing his boss with a summarized version of the conclusions reached by the team of analysts at NPIC.

  “You seem pretty certain about this,” Kennedy said, almost accusingly.

  “Sir, Art Lundahl’s certain, and that’s usually worth money.”

  “Dammit! Ambassador Dobrynin assured us in plain words that they had no intention of using Cuba for offensive weapons. And Khrushchev’s said the same thing in God knows how many speeches! For Christ’s sake, he’s acting more like a gangster than a head of state! We can’t trust a goddam word he says!”

  The President clenched his jaw and punched a fist into his bed, then made a visible effort to calm down. “All right,” he said, leaning back against the pillows and closing his eyes. “We can’t take this public, not yet. How soon can the principals get here? And you’ll need to clear my schedule sometime today for at least a few hours. But we can’t afford to arouse any suspicions, to let the press know that anything’s up. I want to have a plan in place before this makes the evening news! We need to talk about our options.”

  “Wally Schirra is bringing his family by this morning, and the photographers are looking forward to that, so I don’t think you should cancel.”

  “I agree,” JFK said. Schirra was one of America’s original seven astronauts, and one of Kennedy’s favorite heroes. He had just returned from orbiting the earth on the Sigma-7 mission, America’s longest space flight to date.

  “I think I can clear your schedule by noon without raising any eyebrows,” the NSA replied.

  “That’s when we’ll do it, then,” the President replied. “We’ll meet in the cabinet room. You know who to bring.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. President. Noon it is.”

  Bundy left the bedroom for his office, leaving Kennedy to breakfast with Jackie and his two children. A few hours later he welcomed Schirra, and the two families mingled. Caroline was pleased to show off her pony, Macaroni, on the White House lawn, and the assembled photographers snapped countless adorable pictures.

  In the meantime, the National Security Advisor was making calls. He’d already seen the briefing boards prepared by Lundahl and had informed the NPIC director about the noon meeting. Lundahl, too, spent a busy morning at the White House, preparing Bobby Kennedy and several other officials with a preview of the news. Bundy ended up moving a few of JFK’s appointments from the early afternoon hours. By 11:45, most of the invitees had trickled into the White House, arriving at separate entrances, sometimes two or three to a car, in order to prevent any rumors from starting.

  The men made their way to the cabinet room, where they found the President chatting with five-year-old Caroline. Jack Kennedy escorted his daughter from the room, returned, and locked the door behind him. He took a seat at the middle of the table and looked around. No one saw his hand slide under the table and push the button to activate the tape recorder that would make a record of this conversation.

  John F. Kennedy had made it a point to surround himself with men he considered “the best and the brightest” that the nation had to offer. Now these men would make up the group that would determine the future course of American policy, and very possibly the future course of the world. Among them were General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a personal friend of the President; Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the former president of Ford Motor Company who was renowned for his quick, almost computer-like, brain; and the professorial Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Former ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn (Tommy) Thompson, one of the few Americans with face-to-face knowledge of the Soviet leadership, had been invited because of his unique perspective. Others, such as Vice President Johnson, the secretary of the Treasury, and various CIA and NSA officials, were also present, some eighteen men in all for this first strategy meeting.

  McGeorge Bundy took a seat at the head of the table. “This is a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council,” he said. He waved Art Lundahl forward, and the director of the NPIC put a bulletin board onto an easel. The board displayed several large black-and-white photographs, with accompanying text and arrows indicating certain features on the pictures.

  “These pictures are the result of a U2 flight over western Cuba. They were made two days ago, Sunday, October 14. Yesterday two more U2 missions were conducted over other parts of the island. That film is being processed as we speak.

  “However, even from this initial mission, it has become clear that Soviet ballistic missiles have been brought to Cuba, and launching sites are being prepared for them.”

  He paused to let the expressions of outrage, universal among these men, resonate through the room. They all knew that Khrushchev and his lackeys had pledged, publicly and privately, that the USSR had no interest in turning Cuba into a base for offensive warfare. The sense of betrayal was real and raw; anger ran deep around the full circle of the group.

  Lundahl went on to explain the capacities of the missiles, pointing out that Washington D.C. was well within their range. “This battery has four launchers, which is only one half or one third of a missile regiment. It seems likely there are more. We should have additional information on that tomorrow, after the more recent pictures are developed.”

  “How long would it take, following launch, for one of these missiles to reach this city?” the President interjected.

  “About ten minutes, Mr. President,” Lundahl replied.

  “Why would they do this?” Rusk demanded. “It doesn’t make sense!”

  “They must feel the same way about our Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and elsewhere,” McNamara retorted. “More important is, what are we going to do about them?”

  “Exactly,” JFK declared. “General Taylor, what can we do?”

  “The most direct response, and I think one that would have the full backing of the armed services, is a surprise airstrike with as many USAF and Navy assets as can be brought to bear. We’ll need more recon to make a full target assessment, but we can hit them very, very hard.”

  “With conventional weapons, not our own nukes?” Kennedy followed up. “A surprise attack?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, Mr. President. Napalm, wing-mounted rockets, and a whole lot of conventional gravity bombs. The element of surprise is crucial: it would give us the chance to catch them in the open and inflict the greatest possible damage.

  “But could we be sure to destroy all the missiles?” Bobby Kennedy wanted to know.

  Taylor took a moment, then shook his head. “No, Sir. I’m afraid there is no way to guarantee that every target would be destroyed. In fact, I’d have to say it’s very unlikely that the first strike could accomplish that.”

  “So we’d go to war against them—with a surprise attack, like our own version of Pearl Harbor—and we’d kill lots of Cubans, and probably Russians, too.” He turned to Lundahl. “Would there be Russian personnel at these sites?”

  “Almost certainly, Sir. For one thing, the Soviets are very closely guarded with their nuclear technology. Also, it’s complicated stuff; I doubt Cuban crews would have the technical expertise to use them.”

  “So a surprise attack would leave both Russia and Cuba scarred and angry, with at least a few ballistic missiles capable of reaching our nation’s capital,” JFK summarized succinctly and bitterly. “This does not sound like a satisfactory plan. Any other options, gentlemen?”

  “We can file a diplomatic objection in the United Nations,” Rusk noted. “Try to get the rest of world opinion on our side.”

  “Khrushchev doesn’t give a plugged nickel for world opinion,” McNamara argued, while Taylor, Bundy, and many of the others nodded in emphatic agreement. “And there’s no guarantee that he would launch a missile against us if we attack. We still have a huge intercontinental arsenal pointed at his country.”

  “And he has nuclear assets of his own,” the President pointed out. “No, gentlemen, we need to keep this situation from escalating to the point of a nuclear exchange.”

  The meeting continued as the men wrangled around the edges of the airstrike idea. All agreed they needed more information, and at the President’s insistence they acknowledged that, during these discussions, they would rule nothing out.

  “We’ll meet again this evening, seven o’clock,” Bundy finally declared, when the discussions had become circular and he knew that the President needed to be elsewhere, if eyebrows were not to be raised in the public and, in particular, the press. “Remember to arrive discreetly, travel together when you can, and let’s keep the lid on this thing for as long as we can.”

  Three: ExComm

  “Somebody’s got to keep them from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal!”

  General David Shoup, Commandant, USMC

  Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 19 October 1962

  17 October 1962

  0830 hours (Wednesday morning)

  Cabinet Room, The White House

  Washington, D.C.

  The director of the CIA, John McCone, strode into the imposing and historic building on Wednesday morning as a man whose controversial opinion had been vindicated, but one who could take very little pleasure from the fact that he’d been proved right. Even if he had been inclined to gloat, he was further burdened by the reality that he’d had to fly back to Washington from California under a somber cloud—he’d been called urgently to return from the West Coast, where he’d been to attend the funeral of his daughter’s husband, who had died suddenly just a few days earlier.

  Thus, it was a weary and discouraged DCIA who carried the envelope containing the latest intelligence data, which had crystallized overnight with the analysis of vast reams of photo evidence,. New pictures were coming in a steady stream, from multiple and extensive U2 flights over Cuba every day. The film was arriving in Washington almost faster than NPIC could keep up—in fact, Lundahl’s lab had never before had to work so hard, and the staff had gone to a 24-hour-a-day schedule to keep up with the flow of film.

  Most of the members of the President’s advisory group, which had come to be known as ExComm—short for “Executive Committee on National Security”—were present for the DCIA’s briefing, though President Kennedy did not attend. Bundy called the meeting to order, and the men listened attentively as DCIA McCone spoke for several minutes.

  “We’ve now identified five separate ballistic-missile sites on the island. Three of them are in the west, around San Cristobal, while two are closer to the middle of the country, an area around the medium-sized city of Sagua la Grande. Those sites, and the entire coastline of Cuba, are protected by a ring of at least 23 SAM batteries, though we suspect there are even more of those to be discovered.

  “Most of the SAMs look to be completely operational, though a few remain under construction—and even at those, steady progress has been made on preparations at all the unfinished sites. The Cubans and their Soviet helpers have clearly made major strides in improving their air defenses in the last eight weeks.” If McCone was bitter because his advice on maintaining the U2 flights over that interval had been ignored, he gave no clue to the men of ExComm.

  “Even the completed sites have not been activated for operations yet, but from the looks of the launchers and the installations, it might be as simple as flipping a switch. The SAM search radar is called ‘spoon rest,’ and once that’s turned on, we’ll be able to detect the emanations, but they’ll be able to follow our aircraft and shoot.”

  “How certain can we be about this?” asked RFK.

  “We have a ship, the Oxford, that has been patrolling off the north coast of Cuba for several months, now. It’s carrying some of the most highly developed electronic analysis equipment in the world. We’re fairly certain that if a search radar gets turned on anywhere on the island, Oxford’s crew will immediately be aware of the fact.”

  “How far along are the ballistic-missile sites?” asked Max Taylor. The chairman of the JCS looked grim.

  “It seems likely that at least some of them will be ready to go into action this coming weekend. Others should be ready to fire by early to middle of next week,” McCone replied bluntly.

  “Are all of these strategic missiles the SS4 Sandals, the medium-range ballistic rockets?” asked McGeorge Bundy.

  McCone shook his head. “More bad news, I’m afraid. The indications are that at least two of the sites are being made ready for the SS5 Shyster. It has twice the range of the Sandal. However, those sites are in the early stages of preparation. There’s no sign that the missiles or launchers have actually been delivered to the location, or even to Cuba at all.”

  “What are we doing about this?” Bundy followed up.

  “We continue to step up the aerial surveillance. You may know that the 4080th SRW has transferred operations from Texas and California to McCoy AFB in central Florida. Additional pilots have been brought in so that Majors Heyser and Anderson—our most experienced U2 pilots—can get enough rest to stay fresh.

  “A total of six missions are scheduled for today, but it will be Friday morning before we’ll be able to have any conclusive results from those pictures. Still, it’s fair to say that our picture of Soviet missile operations in Cuba is becoming more tightly focused every day.”

  “Do we have enough targeting information to begin launching airstrikes?” Defense Secretary McNamara asked.

  “I would say ‘no,’” the CIA director replied. “At this moment, that option presents too many risks to issue a ‘go’ order.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with John,” General Taylor said. As the only military man present, his opinion carried a great deal of weight on this question. “As we discussed yesterday evening, our own vulnerabilities in Turkey and Berlin mitigate against an immediate act of war. And we still don’t have a complete picture of the target situation. A premature strike could trigger a response from units we don’t even know about yet.”

  “Has there been any interference with the U2 flights?” Bundy asked. “Cuba MiGs coming up after them or anything?”

  “Not so far,” McCone responded. “They have to know we’re up there, but for whatever reason, they’ve not chosen to react.”
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br />   “Well, we’re not just going to sit here, are we?” demanded Bobby Kennedy. “We know that the Soviets respect strength and determination, and very little else!”

  “Agreed,” McCone said. “But any airstrike is going to kill an awful lot of Russians and Cubans, and pressure the Kremlin to make some kind of equal response. A gradual imposition of some kind of sanction—such as a naval blockade of Cuba—would demonstrate strength, and give both sides time to evaluate before lives start to be lost.”

  “I think we need to consider that option a little more carefully,” Tommy Thompson agreed, with Dean Rusk seconding the idea. “Khrushchev is volatile and hot-tempered, but he’s also shrewd. When given a chance, he’ll take the long view—although he doesn’t always think things through. Still, I think it’s crucial we figure out a way to give him some time to prepare a response, rather than do something that’s going to cause him to fly off the handle and react out of anger.”