If they didn’t manage to arrive in time, Katzenbach worried “neither Meredith nor any of those men have a chance.” Moreover, the reliability of the Mississippi National Guard remained a real question. In Ken O’Donnell’s words, “we knew that most of the National Guard members were students, former students, or else ninety percent in sympathy with the mob.” When the president issued the order to the marshals to protect Meredith at all costs, it was with the knowledge that it might be their last. In Washington, all they could do now was sit and wait. Kennedy and his advisors were on tenterhooks. Some of them feared the next news they’d hear was that Meredith was dead and Katzenbach a prisoner being held by out-of-control students and townie hooligans.
Kennedy was responsible for all the lives that hung in the balance. It was critical that the army not fail him. Yet, here again, as in the Bay of Pigs operation, Kennedy discovered the difference between command and control. Those troops stationed in Memphis, it turned out, had yet to be mustered. When the soldiers finally landed at the Rebels’ football field, it was quickly evident they weren’t mobilizing fast enough. Communicating with them by phone, staying on top of their positions minute by minute, Jack began issuing orders as their commander in chief. As they at last made their way onto the central campus, their presence had an immediate effect. By dawn on October 1, the situation was stabilized. That day, James Meredith became the first black student at the University of Mississippi.
It had been a very long night.
In the aftermath, JFK felt pretty unforgiving toward the military. “They always give you their bullshit about their instant reaction and their split-second timing, but it never works out. No wonder it’s so hard to win a war.” And he had even harsher thoughts about the local officialdom. It was simply incredible to John Kennedy that not a single elected Mississippi authority had stepped in to attempt to restore civil order. The siege of Ole Miss—like his experience as skipper of the foundering PT 109—had forced him to assume a lone command and grab tight his own destiny. What it also had done was give him the satisfaction of enforcing, to the best of his abilities and with all the conviction he had, the law of the land.
To be the American president at this moment in history was to sense the edge of the precipice. Jack Kennedy’s deepest fear was that he might somehow take the step that would send the United States toppling over it. And when he looked out at the world beyond Washington, what he saw was a single place—West Berlin—that, in the flash of an instant, could provide the setting. The balance between the two superpowers was now so precarious that a single stumble there would be all that it took.
The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, as it was commonly known, was determined to take back full control of its capital, the largest city in Germany. In pursuit of this aim—a land grab completely unacceptable to the Free World—the German Communists had their Russian patron’s full support. In July, Premier Khrushchev had once again thumped his chest, demanding the end of “the occupation regime in the West Berlin.”
The American, British, and French troops billeted there since the end of World War II were to be replaced by a newly organized police force, Khrushchev insisted. This constabulary’s members would be recruited from the three Western powers, as well as from neutral and Warsaw Pact countries. Four years down the road, the new force would be composed entirely of East Germans.
The Soviet leader sent word to Kennedy that he would put off pressing his demands until after the American midterm elections in November. As Khrushchev made clear, this was just a temporary reprieve. Alluding to West Berlin as the “bone in my throat,” he wasn’t about to let it remain there. Rumors of an increased Soviet military presence on the island of Cuba were also disturbing the peace of mind at the Kennedy White House.
Khrushchev, very certain that he had the upper hand and meaning to keep it, had Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, who was visiting Moscow, flown to his Black Sea dacha. There the startled American was entrusted with a warning to pass on to the president. “We will not allow your troops to be in Berlin.” He then added an even more specific threat that he wished relayed. “War over Berlin,” he said, “would mean that within the space of an hour, there would be no Paris and no France.”
Then, having issued this horrifying message, he told Udall that he wanted to meet the president at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in the second half of November. The main topic would be Berlin.
With the Americans continuing, nervously, to monitor Russian activity in Cuba, the Soviet leader once again issued an ultimatum. He sent JFK a letter bluntly informing him that any U.S. attack on Cuba would bring a retaliatory strike at West Berlin. The Russian behavior was so provocative as to be puzzling. Two days later, Kennedy told his close friend David Ormsby-Gore, now British ambassador to the United States, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he thought Khrushchev might actually be encouraging him to invade Cuba so he could grab West Berlin. Why else would he be tying the two together?
Suddenly it came, the real threat of war over Berlin. It came in a fight, once again, over Cuba. A bit after eight a.m. on Tuesday, October 16, 1962, McGeorge Bundy carried to Jack Kennedy the news that the latest U-2 spy flight had brought back photographic evidence of Soviet offensive missile sites under construction in western Cuba. Kennedy quickly called his brother, who now hurried to the White House, studying the photos even before the president did.
Though running the Justice Department, Bobby had decided to moonlight in the area of intelligence. He’d done so because of the numerous dissatisfactions with the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs scenario. He was now running the administration’s secret anti-Castro operation himself. Code-named “Operation Mongoose,” this enterprise involved an array of secret plots to topple the Cuban dictator, all doomed to be pathetically unsuccessful.
In the Senate, Kennedy was already under attack from two Republicans—New York’s Kenneth Keating and Indiana’s Homer Capehart—with both insisting on the fierce reality of those now verified Soviet missile installations. “Ken Keating will probably be the next president!” Jack commented as he looked at the three large photographs Bundy had carried to him. The Republicans who had been mounting the attacks may have lacked hard evidence, but at the moment it didn’t matter. They were right.
Squeezed between his soon-to-be-gloating critics on the right and the Soviets, whom he now realized had deceived him, Kennedy was suddenly in an extremely tight spot with little breathing room. The wily Khrushchev had made use of the delay he initiated for the American election to arm his Cuban allies with nuclear weapons—SS-24 Scalpels, medium-range ballistic missiles with a range of a thousand miles—able to reach well into the United States.
The only question on which the CIA had no intelligence at that moment was how rapidly the weapons on that site could be equipped with nuclear warheads. Summoned to the White House, the top cabinet officials and military advisors began to weigh in, making their case for immediate action to destroy the missiles. Such a response, Kennedy was told, would entail either an air strike on the missile sites alone or else a full-scale invasion.
The latter option, General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told him, would mean an involvement of up to 150,000 troops—a hundredfold increase on the ragtag Bay of Pigs invaders. Attacking Cuba was serious military business, and for the Joint Chiefs, what they’d been lobbying for all along. As he listened to his people, one thing was clear: the overall consensus in the room held that the least delay would allow the Soviets the time needed to ready the missiles for use.
Kennedy now assembled an expert panel to decide on what steps to take. The purpose of this group, called ExComm—for Executive Committee—was to keep all intelligence regarding the Soviet missiles at San Cristobal limited to a smaller group than the National Security Council.
“Virtually everyone’s initial choice, at that first October 16 meeting, was a surgical air strike against the nuclear missile sites before the
y could become operational,” said O’Donnell. “U.S. bombers could swoop in, eliminate the sites, and fly away, leaving the problem swiftly, magically ended. But further questions—JFK always had further questions—proved that solution illusory. First, no cruise missiles or smart bombs existed in those days to assure the precision and success of the strike. The air force acknowledged that it could be certain of eliminating only sixty of the missiles, leaving the others free to fire and destroy us.”
With each question he now asked, Kennedy gained more knowledge. It would be highly risky to send bombers over Cuba unless its surface-to-air missile sites were destroyed, along with its antiaircraft sites, its fighter planes, and its bombers, which might head off to Florida. But an invasion would pit American fighting men against Cubans defending their homeland, a recipe for long casualty lists on both sides, a guarantee of a bitter occupation. It would also mean killing countless numbers of Russians.
Time was of the essence. But so was taking the time—even if it was in short supply—to weigh all the options. Every so often, JFK would leave the room during the deliberations, allowing the others to express themselves more freely. One statement that must have played and replayed in his head was General Taylor’s “It’ll never be one hundred percent, Mr. President.” In other words, an air strike could never be guaranteed to wipe out all the missiles. But Berlin was also central to his thinking. Any attack on Cuba could give Khrushchev his chance. He was only too aware that, back in 1956, when the British, French, and Israelis had gone to war with Egypt, it gave the Soviets the opportunity to crush the Hungarian revolution. If Khrushchev was attempting the same ploy this time, using a U.S. attack on Cuba as a pretext for rolling through West Berlin, Britain and France might well blame the Americans for this mortal breach in the West’s defense.
By Thursday, Bobby was starting to have second thoughts of his own about a raid on Cuba. The issue of America’s moral standing had become part of the debate. After one meeting he passed a note to Sorensen: “I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor.” It was a serious consideration. Despite the photographic evidence, there would be many around the world who would regard any military strike against Cuba as aggression, pure and simple. For the United States to attack such a tiny neighbor would wind up in the history books as a classic example of imperialism.
Friday marked the fourth day since Bundy had shown the president the surveillance pictures. Now the stakes were raised even higher, with new aerial photographs revealing more sites in Cuba, ones serving intermediate-range missiles. Such weapons could travel nearly three thousand miles, all the way to New York. The hawks were now screaming for action. The most ferocious was the air force chief of staff, General Curtis LeMay, the former head of the Strategic Air Command, who, during World War II, had led brutal incendiary attacks over Japan.
Kennedy challenged LeMay’s thinking. Might not an American attack on Cuba quickly start a nuclear chain reaction? We attack their ally, they grab for Berlin. Then, confronted by the overwhelming force of the Red Army, the only resort of the United States would be to use tactical atomic weapons right there in the middle of Europe. The next escalation, involving an exchange of each side’s nuclear arsenals, was not, after that, hard to imagine.
This was all unfamiliar language to the cigar-smoking LeMay, who’d entered the air corps in 1929. His interest was simply spelling out the strategic facts. The United States enjoyed a huge advantage in intercontinental missiles. Why weren’t we playing our strength? A naval blockade of Cuba, the only alternative to an attack on the missile sites, would be a sign of weakness. It would be like “appeasement at Munich,” LeMay said. He’d dared—though he may not have entirely realized what he was doing—to imply that Jack Kennedy was his father’s appeasing son.
Yet, to his credit, Kennedy realized to whom he was talking, understood the mind-set of what he was confronting in this frightening moment. LeMay was telling him that the smart move for the United States was to engage in a nuclear test of strength, as if it were an arm wrestle. We lose tens of millions but we end up winning the test of strength, since the Russians will get the worst of whatever planetary horror is inflicted. “You’re talking about the destruction of a country,” Kennedy said simply. That led to the following exchange:
LeMay:
You’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.
Kennedy:
What did you say?
LeMay:
You’re in a pretty bad fix.
Kennedy:
Well, you’re in there with me. Personally.
Tapes of the discussions among the Joint Chiefs after their civilian commander left the room show them united against the president. “You pulled the rug right out from under him,” Chief of Staff General David Shoup of the marines applauded LeMay. The military men agreed that anything short of an all-out invasion was “piecemeal.”
Kennedy, fortunately, knew whom he was dealing with. He knew that LeMay and others in the high strategic command leaned toward a “first strike” option, especially in the case of a Soviet move on Berlin. This meant an “obliterating” nuclear attack on all Communist countries, three thousand weapons aimed at a thousand targets. “And we call ourselves human,” Kennedy said after a briefing.
Out campaigning in Chicago, fulfilling his obligation to attend a Democratic fund-raiser for Mayor Richard J. Daley, Jack received a call from Bobby. His brother didn’t mince words. The time had come to make a decision, he said. Flying back to D.C. on Air Force One, Jack warned Pierre Salinger: grab your balls.
A phalanx of powerful men now was allied against him. The Joint Chiefs, McGeorge Bundy, John McCone, Douglas Dillon—all supported an air strike. Here was the Establishment—intelligence, military, and finance—mutually agreeing that the best move was to send in the bombers. And other influential voices were about to join the chorus. On Monday, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, stood by LeMay, urging an air strike followed by an all-out invasion. The time for the showdown with the Soviets had arrived. Yet, still, Kennedy persisted in disagreeing.
Here was a perfect affirmation of the Founding Fathers’ reasoning, which had led them to place ultimate constitutional authority in the hands of the person elected by the American people. As the French statesman Georges Clemenceau more recently had observed, “War is far too important to be left to the generals.” Thus, even after hearing the expert arguments, Kennedy rejected the air-attack option, ordering instead a blockade on all offensive weapons headed to Cuba, a suggestion earlier made by Dean Rusk. He would announce it three days later in a nationally broadcast address.
“This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba,” he told American listeners, the aerial photographs in hand. “Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”
The missiles had to go, Kennedy declared, decreeing a naval blockade of all ships carrying offensive weapons or missile-firing equipment to Cuba. Any such vessel would be stopped and turned back. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response to the Soviet Union.” He then recited the Cold War canon: “The 1930s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war.”
Now began the waiting. During this period he distracted himself, as usual, by having his buddies to dinner at the White House. “I think the pressure of this period made him desire more to have friends around,” recalled Charlie Bartlett. “I think I was over there for dinner three times in the week . . . just small groups, which he would break up about nine
thirty and go back to the cables.”
He shared what he could. On one of those nights, Bartlett was climbing into bed around eleven thirty when the phone rang. Kennedy told him, “You’d be interested to know I got a cable from our friend, and he says that those ships are coming through, they’re coming through tomorrow.” To hear such information gave his listener a very clear notion of what kind of pressure Jack was under. Bartlett realized “it was on that kind of a note that he had to go to sleep. But I must say that the president’s coolness and temper were never more evident than they were that week.”
Under the careful supervision of Robert McNamara, the navy enforced the blockade without attacking the Soviet ships, which retreated from the Cuban sea channels. Within the Department of the Navy, however, it was an unpopular decision. That’s because, as Red Fay explained it, his friend was stepping all over what the navy brass saw as the right of a captain to run his own ship. “The President said, ‘Any communication with any skipper of our ship when coming in contact with a Russian ship, I will make the decision as to exactly what he is to say, when he’s to say it, and how he’s to say it.’ “ He was running the operation, but it wasn’t what they wanted to hear.
Nor was the young president’s operation like any they’d known before. He wasn’t fighting a war but acting to prevent one, signaling to the other side the terms on which peace could be maintained.
Two letters arriving from Premier Khrushchev marked the beginning of the conclusion to the crisis. They were sent to the U.S. embassy in Moscow on consecutive days, October 26 and 27. The first letter proposed the removal of missiles and Soviet personnel in exchange for a promise not to invade Cuba. The second asked for the added concession of the removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
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