by Kai Bird
The question of the IL-28 bombers was a different matter. McCloy told Kuznetsov that the president was not going to back down on this issue: the bombers had to be crated up and shipped out under the same procedures as the missiles. Otherwise, he said, Kennedy was prepared not only to continue the naval quarantine but also to take some other, unspecified measures. The crisis suddenly threatened to escalate once again to the point of armed conflict. This was McCloy’s most sobering encounter with Kuznetsov, and he did not leave the Soviet estate that day until 5:00 P.M.83
Kennedy was, in fact, warning his European allies that air strikes and a toughening of the quarantine were a possibility. Ominously, a press conference was scheduled for the evening of November 20 to announce his intentions. Kuznetsov must have taken the warnings he received through McCloy quite seriously, for a few hours before the press conference Khrushchev informed the president that the IL-28S would be out of Cuba within thirty days. A relieved Kennedy then appeared before the reporters to announce the news and to say that he had finally ordered a suspension of the quarantine. With Thanksgiving being celebrated the next day, he said the country had “much for which we can be grateful, as we look back to where we stood only four weeks ago.”84
The crisis was now more or less over. Both sides had residual problems. From the Soviet perspective, the most serious of these was the matter of a no-invasion pledge. In his press conference, Kennedy waffled, observing only that, “if Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist purposes, there will be peace in the Caribbean.” Of course, the United States had to fight subversion from Cuba and could not abandon its “hope that the Cuban people shall some day be truly free.” But these policies, he said, “are very different from any intent to launch a military invasion of the island.”85 Not surprisingly, the Soviets found this a less than satisfactory fulfillment of the no-invasion pledge.
So far, Washington had won every round with the Soviets, and the Kennedy administration was not about to tie its hands with regard to further interventions in Cuba. The day after Kennedy’s press conference, McCloy was told by Rusk: “Recent indications from Soviets make clear their intention: to disengage militarily from Cuba, but to stick to their story that they have saved the Castro regime from US invasion. Our interest lies in speeding the disengagement process, while avoiding the kind of commitment that unduly ties our hands in dealing with the Castro regime while it lasts.”86
Off and on throughout the rest of November and December, McCloy continued to meet with Kuznetsov to discuss loose ends. The Russian kept pressing McCloy for little crumbs, minor concessions that might help Khrushchev save face with his own military establishment. He reiterated the Soviet demand for a definitive no-invasion pledge, and he “almost pleaded” with McCloy to leave out any mention of U.S. overflights in the administration’s report to the U.N. on ending the crisis. The overflights, of course, were an embarrassment to both the Cubans and the Soviet military, and if they continued, the Soviets at least wanted no public mention made of them. As McCloy put it, “In essence, he kept asking us to find a way to maintain our position without rubbing their noses in it.” On instructions from Washington, McCloy refused Kuznetsov on both counts, insisting that the Soviets had not fulfilled their pledge for on-site inspections.87
He knew that this was a pointless argument. In fact, he had been told by the State Department that a stalemate was actually preferable, that “the absence of on-site verification” allowed the U.S. “to retain full freedom of action as regards aerial surveillance and other means of keeping a close eye on Cuban behavior and any evidence of renewed Soviet intrusion in the Hemisphere.”88 As McCloy had predicted, the camera was proving to be the best inspector of all. On December 6—the day the last of the IL-28 bombers left Cuba—McCloy met for two hours with Kuznetsov, and they had the same old conversation.89 Both men were entirely weary of the argument, if not of each other.
McCloy was by now so fed up with his instructions from Washington that he and Stevenson sent an “eyes-only” cable to Rusk and the president pleading for an end to the demand for on-site inspection. They reported their “growing impression that effects of victory in public mind are being gradually effaced by prolonged and inconclusive negotiation which gives impression we are still seeking vital objective. . . . If public presumes this objective is on-site inspection, more and more importance will be attached to such inspection as negotiation continues.” McCloy and Stevenson warned that, “if and when we emerge from negotiation without achieving that objective, even though it may have been otherwise successful, we will risk seeming to have failed rather than to have succeeded.”90
It was not advice the White House wanted to hear, but, with considerable reluctance, McCloy was now authorized to negotiate with Kuznetsov wording on an official statement to be read at the Security Council. The nuclear confrontation was over, though both sides would agree to disagree on the terms of the settlement. The United States would not get on-site inspection, and the Soviets failed to obtain from the United States an unqualified pledge not to invade Cuba. But, true to Bobby Kennedy’s promise to Dobrynin at the height of the crisis, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were withdrawn. From the Soviet point of view, an understanding had been reached with the Americans; Soviet officials spoke of how the crisis had demonstrated that “mutual concessions” could resolve disputes between the two powers without going to war. The Soviets even began to suggest that, in the wake of the missile crisis, superpower agreements could be reached on a number of Cold War issues, such as the status of Berlin and Germany, a nuclear-test-ban treaty, nuclear-free zones, and other steps toward disarmament. McCloy and Stevenson reiterated their view that further agreements could be negotiated and cabled Washington that it was important to close up their Cuban “transactions” on a “relatively harmonious note . . . thus maintaining momentum for possible subsequent agreements on other subjects.”91
In Washington, however, the men around the president were chary. One Excomm memo at the time complained of the “air of détente” that had settled in since the negotiations in New York had eased the crisis: the “ ‘mutual concessions’ theme is being played to the hilt by the Russians. . . .” This was dangerous, it was suggested, because it implied a linkage between Cuba and East-West questions, “and very often takes the line that since the USSR has made concessions in Cuba it is only right and proper that the West now give some ground elsewhere.”92 The Kennedy administration simply was not ready to take advantage of the momentum achieved by McCloy’s negotiations.
Late in December, McCloy invited Kuznetsov up to his country home in Cos Cob, Connecticut. It was to be one of their final sessions. Despite the cold, Kuznetsov suggested they take a walk outside. Perched uncomfortably atop the wood-rail fence surrounding McCloy’s home, Kuznetsov leaned over to his companion and said, “Well, Mr. McCloy, we will honor this agreement. But I want to tell you something. The Soviet Union is not going to find itself in a position like this ever again.”93 McCloy understood exactly what Kuznetsov meant, and quickly reported the conversation to Washington. The Soviets had been humiliated on the world stage, certainly in part because they had taken a risk in an area of the world far from the focus of their own conventional military strength. (They had no real naval deterrent at the time to counter Kennedy’s naval quarantine of Cuba.) But in the view of Soviet military planners, it was America’s great strategic nuclear superiority that had allowed Kennedy to take the risks that he did in Cuba.94 Khrushchev had gambled on a temporary shortcut to rectify that imbalance. Now the Soviets would invest the resources necessary to acquire a credible countervailing nuclear force. A megatonnage race had now begun in earnest.95
With the crisis over, the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, had Averell Harriman and his wife over for dinner. Dobrynin asked a series of what Harriman thought were “leading questions.” He wanted to know if the administration was divided now between those who wanted to “make progress” on U.S.-Soviet relation
s and those who were content just to sit back and see what happened in the wake of Cuba. When Harriman deflected this parry, Dobrynin began naming names, and specifically asked “whether McCloy represented the business and banking group” in the country. Harriman tried to say that McCloy represented no one but himself; the Russian commented, “We find him frank, objective and have confidence in his statements.”96 (For his part, McCloy always thought Dobrynin was one of “those pretty fair and reasonable people.”97)
It is not hard to understand why the Soviets found McCloy “objective.” He may have started out as a hawk, urging the president to launch an air strike against the missile sites and later counseling against a relaxation of the quarantine until the Soviets backed down. But, characteristically, as soon as he was exposed to other points of view, particularly those of doves like Stevenson and George Ball, he began to reassess his initial reactions. He was altogether more flexible and less driven by ideological prejudices than most of his colleagues during the crisis. For him, Castroism was not the bugbear that it was for some of the president’s other advisers. He favored a no-invasion-of-Cuba pledge even before the Soviets agreed to withdraw their IL-28 bombers. He also recommended that “if the Cubans want to normalize relations we are ready and willing to talk to them about it.”98 Most important, at the height of the crisis he gave his acquiescence to the president for a trade of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
During the course of the negotiations in New York, McCloy demonstrated a willingness to deal on a substantive level with the Soviets. Once he had arranged for aerial inspection of the departing missiles, he knew further U.S. demands for on-site inspection were both impractical (because of Castro’s opposition) and unnecessary. When the Kennedy administration nevertheless pressed for such ground inspections, he was willing to make the case for Cuban inspections of U.S. territory as a matter of reciprocity. Similarly, when Kennedy demanded that no Soviet troops should be allowed to stay in Cuba, McCloy got the most pragmatic deal he could from Kuznetsov: a promise that all troops associated with the offensive weaponry would leave the island.
In short, the Soviets recognized that McCloy was the kind of negotiator who wanted to solve problems. A lifetime of legal experience had taught him that no set of negotiations could be a one-way street. By the end of his sessions with Kuznetsov, he thought “a considerable record of conciliation and performance on both sides” had been established.99 The Soviets had demonstrated their willingness to abide by complicated contractual arrangements, and McCloy was convinced that further steps toward détente could be right around the corner.100
Throughout early 1963, as the missile crisis petered out, McCloy continued to come down to Washington to see Kennedy, Rusk, and other officials. But the focus of his work now returned to the law. On the first day of the new year, Milbank, Tweed mailed out a nicely embossed card announcing that “John J. McCloy has again become a member of the firm.” This meant that, after two years of very part-time work, he had graduated from semiretirement status—“of counsel”—to the much more remunerative position of a full-time partner. It was unusual, though not extraordinary, for a major Wall Street firm to take back a sixty-seven-year-old former partner. McCloy himself had been just a little hesitant about returning to the law in 1960; he had not, after all, practiced any law for nearly fifteen years. “I had a real question in my mind if I could come back to the law,” he recalled. “[But] You have a feeling of where the red flags are and where the thin ice is that sticks with you. After I got into it again, I had the feeling of coming home.”101 Indeed, through his corporate connections, particularly to the oil companies, McCloy had quickly re-established his reputation as a “rainmaker,” a lawyer who brought high-paying clients to the firm.
In connection with his oil-company clients, early in the year he decided to plan a month-long trip to the Middle East. In February, he wrote President Kennedy that, in addition to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, “I hope to stick my head into Baghdad if I am not too apt to get it shot off.”102 When Rusk found out McCloy was on his way to the Middle East, he gave him a few discreet assignments. In Egypt, he had a highly secret and, as it turned out, unsatisfactory meeting with Nasser, who refused McCloy’s plea that the Egyptians abandon a missile program staffed with ex-Nazi scientists. In Saudi Arabia, McCloy developed friendships with Crown Prince Faisal, Petroleum Minister Zaki Yamani, and—with a recommendation from David Rockefeller—the real power behind the throne, Prince Abd-Allah bin Abd al-Rahman. The brother of the late king, “Uncle Abbie” had the reputation of a vizier, the man who literally stood behind the throne and whispered counsel into the ear of the king. When McCloy flew into Riyadh to see him in 1963, Uncle Abbie was thought to be using his influence within the royal family to replace the profligate King Saud with the far more suave and intelligent Prince Faisal. (A year later, the palace coup succeeded.) Typically, McCloy used his visits to these Middle Eastern countries to combine discussions of U.S. foreign-policy goals with his own business interests. Specifically, he discussed the effect on his oil-company clients of OPEC’s latest demands for increased oil revenues, and such matters as Chase Manhattan Bank’s desire to handle the investment of Saudi and ARAMCO pension funds. Somehow he managed in these conversations to blend private and national issues in a seamless web of common interests.
Later in the spring of 1963, McCloy had numerous meetings with German and American officials to discuss an ominous trend in the Atlantic alliance. He was shocked by France’s withdrawal from the military aspects of NATO and disappointed that Adenauer seemed to be climbing aboard General De Gaulle’s platform of European independence. The French general’s anti-British sentiments were blocking any chance for British entry into the Common Market, and this in turn threatened McCloy’s vision of a European union based on the American-dominated Atlantic alliance. With his usual persistence, he urged Adenauer, the British, and various officials in Washington to halt the drift in NATO affairs.
McCloy was, of course, always worried about relations with Europe, and Germany in particular. He had warned Washington so many times of impending crises in German-American relations that his credibility on the subject sometimes wore thin. But Washington rarely ignored him. When he learned from Ball that the president intended to confine his visit to Germany in the summer of 1963 to a simple stop in Bonn, McCloy insisted that Kennedy go to West Berlin. Though the White House feared some incident might occur in the divided city, Kennedy reluctantly agreed to risk the visit. It became, of course, the scene of his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, a personal triumph for the president and a high point in German-American relations.
That summer, McCloy relaxed more than he had for many years. He hunted whitewings with Clint Murchison on the Texas oil man’s Mexico farm.103 Over Memorial Day weekend, he went fishing on one of his favorite Adirondack rivers, the West Branch of the Ausable, and caught several good-sized browns.104
Uncharacteristically, he seemed that summer rather pessimistic about the state of the world and unhappy with both the Kennedy administration and the caliber of presidential candidates already running for the Republican nomination. After lunching with Dick Nixon—for the first time since the former vice-president had moved to New York City—he wrote Eisenhower that he doubted either Nixon or Nelson Rockefeller would be a factor in the Republican nomination. Barry Goldwater, he thought, was going to be the nominee, and he wasn’t pleased by the prospect. He thought Goldwater “a fine character,” but “quite naïve” and “overconservative.” He complained to Ike, “I do feel that both domestically and internationally the country is face-to-face with some deeply disturbing issues and I very much wish that we could have Republican leadership at this time that would give promise of being able to cope with them.”105
He was thinking not only of the troubled Atlantic alliance but also of Vietnam. When Kennedy had first considered sending “combat advisors” to South Vietnam, he had sought McCloy’s counsel. The lawyer had cautioned him to “consider thi
s very carefully because once committed, there would be no turning back.” Kennedy had gone ahead and dispatched eighteen thousand troops to support the Saigon government. Now, when the Diem regime seemed incapable of prosecuting the war, the administration was wavering, and it disturbed McCloy that Kennedy seemed to feel he could place the prestige of American troops on the line “without making an irretrievable commitment.”106
He was also disturbed by the domestic racial upheavals that were beginning to rock American society. Martin Luther King and other civil-rights leaders were at that moment planning a mammoth “march on Washington.” Early in June, he wrote Lew Douglas, “The racial problem, if you read the newspapers, is causing everyone a lot of concern. No one knows where the next outbreaks are going to occur and how serious they will be.” Despite his role in desegregating the army during the war, he rather thought, like Eisenhower, that racial equality could not easily be legislated. On such domestic issues, McCloy could be quite conservative, and he doubted the Kennedy brothers’ ability to contain the pent-up emotions of this potentially explosive social problem. “It does seem to be clear,” he warned Douglas, “that on both sides more radical elements are taking control.”107 The great American consensus—built on a postwar ideology of corporate liberalism at home and unprecedented imperial strength abroad—seemed to be coming undone.
He was now even pessimistic on the prospects for achieving some kind of test-ban accord with the Soviets. So, when Rusk asked him early that summer if he would be willing to go to Moscow in a final attempt to negotiate a test-ban treaty with Khrushchev, McCloy turned him down flat. He said he was planning an Aegean cruise with his daughter and suggested that Rusk send Harriman in his place.108 He thought, in fact, that the timing of such negotiations was all wrong. “Mr. Khrushchev is just about to go into a plenary session of the Soviet Council and next month he has the Chinese confrontation in Moscow,” he wrote Lew Douglas by way of explanation. “I do not think, in the light of either of these events, that he is apt to make any new concessions now and there is absolutely no chance of effecting an agreement on the basis of three on-site inspections which is all that he will now agree to.”109