Khrushchev's Cold War

by Aleksandr Fursenko

  Castro continued to refuse. “I want to tell you, Comrade Mikoyan,” Castro told Khrushchev’s surrogate on November 5, “and in this, what I say reflects the decision of the Cuban people: We oppose this inspection.” For Castro nothing less than the prestige of his regime and his people was at stake. “We have the right to defend our dignity,” he told the Soviet representative.17 He also expected Moscow to support his five points, as the Chinese had done.

  Castro’s stubbornness only increased Khrushchev’s frustration with the Chinese, who seemed to be going out of their way to encourage the Cubans to reject Moscow’s leadership. “Of course, the least amount of assistance to Cuba,” he told his colleagues on the Presidium in November, “came from the Chinese. What did they do at the moment of greatest tension? The workers in the Chinese Embassy in Cuba went to a blood donation center and announced, ‘We are giving our blood for Cuba.’ What demagogic, cheap assistance!”18 It irritated him that the Chinese, who were never willing or able to make a significant military contribution to the defense of Cuba, were now publicly assailing him for seeking security through diplomacy. “Cuba didn’t need the blood of some men,” he complained, “but real military and political assistance so that human blood and flesh should not be spread across the land.”19

  Khrushchev had good reason to expect some Chinese generosity, rather than contempt. Since mid-October he had supported Beijing’s territorial claims along its border with India at some cost to Moscow’s relationship with New Delhi.20 Soviet support had continued even when the Chinese Army invaded Kashmir, in western India, on October 20. Besides giving rhetorical support to the Chinese, Moscow had also canceled an Indian order for twelve MiG-21 jet fighters that were to be delivered in early December.21 As Chinese criticisms of the Cuban deal surfaced, the Soviets had used the press to remind the Chinese that they continued to enjoy the Kremlin’s support in the border dispute.22 In early November, still hopeful of maintaining a good relationship with Beijing, Khrushchev sent the Indian prime minister a public letter that explained why Moscow would have to continue supporting the Chinese position.23

  The demonstrations in Beijing and the Chinese propaganda campaign so angered Khrushchev that he decided on an abrupt shift in Moscow’s position in the Sino-Indian dispute. On November 5 Pravda announced a reversal in the Soviet position. The officially sanctioned article dropped any reference to the validity of Chinese claims. “It is necessary,” wrote the editors of Pravda, “to cease fire and sit down at the round table of negotiations without setting any terms.”24 Khrushchev also decided to give the Indians the Soviet fighters that they had ordered and to honor a previous promise to supply India with 1.5 million tons of refined petroleum.25

  WHEREAS KHRUSHCHEV urged hard-line policies to put the Chinese in their place in November 1962, he decided to treat John F. Kennedy very differently. An important change was occurring in Khrushchev’s perception of the struggle with the United States, and the first signs were evident in the days after the climax of the missile crisis. The hot-tempered, impatient Khrushchev had reason to be annoyed with Kennedy. The ongoing negotiations in New York charged with hammering out the noninvasion pledge were not going well because of American insistence on the removal of the Soviet bombers. Yet Khrushchev decided not to blame the U.S. president. Instead he chose to make an even greater political investment in the American leader.

  Even though his elaborate strategy for gaining diplomatic concessions from the United States in November 1962 had collapsed, Khrushchev saw signs that the missile crisis might have created an opportunity for agreement on disarmament and possibly on Berlin with Kennedy. The results of the U.S. congressional and gubernatorial elections that took place on November 6, 1962, were a source of some of this hope. Kennedy’s Democrats lost fewer seats in the House than usual in a midterm election and actually gained seats in the Senate. Particularly satisfying to Khrushchev was the defeat of “my old friend Nixon” in the gubernatorial race in California. “All aggressive U.S. candidates,” Khrushchev later told a British diplomat, “have been rejected by the wise U.S. electorate.”26 At a reception the day after the election, Khrushchev told the new U.S. ambassador, Foy D. Kohler, that “we may not love each other, but we have to live together and may even have to embrace each other, if the world is to survive.”27

  The more important cause of Khrushchev’s future actions, however, was the favorable assessment he had developed of his counterpart in the White House. Kennedy’s handling of the crisis suggested to Khrushchev not only that this U.S. president preferred diplomatic solutions but that he was strong enough to rebuff extreme domestic pressures to use military force. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis Khrushchev had received additional evidence of how close the U.S. government had come to launching a military action in the Caribbean. On November 1, Khrushchev’s favorite U.S. journalist, Walter Lippmann, confirmed to Ambassador Dobrynin that a superpower conflict had been hours away when Khrushchev’s message was broadcast by Radio Moscow on October 28.28 Lippmann mistakenly believed that Kennedy had already ordered an air strike against Cuba for October 29 or 30. This dovetailed with some Soviet intelligence reports of the relief on Capitol Hill when what had been expected did not happen.29

  In the second week of November Khrushchev perceived a similar pattern of activity in Washington. While the administration maintained a tough public line on the unconditional removal of the Soviet bombers, Moscow began to get confidential feelers from the Kennedys that suggested the president might be looking for something less than the unconditional removal of the Soviet Il-28 bombers from Cuba.

  Before dressing for a formal dinner on November 9, Robert Kennedy met quickly at his home with Georgi Bolshakov to share “his personal opinion” about solving the Il-28 problem. The attorney general had not seen the Russian go-between directly since before the crisis, although some of his friends and associates had kept up the channel for the White House. Robert Kennedy had been disappointed that Bolshakov had been used to pass misinformation about Soviet military supplies to Cuba, but he still trusted him more than he did the Soviet ambassador, whom he suspected of not always accurately portraying the president’s words to Khrushchev. RFK asked Bolshakov to tell his superiors that the United States would probably be satisfied with one of two developments: Either Khrushchev would give a gentleman’s agreement to withdraw the bombers within a reasonable amount of time, or the Soviets could just assure the United States that so long as the bombers stayed in Cuba they would be flown by Soviet airmen. Just the day before, the New York Times had reported that the Cuban representative at the United Nations, Carlos Lechuga, told other delegates that the bombers were Cuban property and would not be returned.30

  After making this offer, the White House or someone close to President Kennedy developed cold feet. An hour after their brief meeting Robert Kennedy called Bolshakov to retract part of the offer. He claimed to have mis-spoken when he said that the bombers could stay if they were always under Soviet control; nothing less than the complete removal of the Il-28s would satisfy his government. Although the Soviets were disappointed that the White House had retracted this offer, what Robert Kennedy told the Soviets strengthened Khrushchev’s belief that though under severe domestic pressure to get the bombers out, the U.S. president was looking for a diplomatic solution.

  The image of John Kennedy as an embattled leader was not something the Kremlin was picking up by accident. The White House through Robert Kennedy was consciously promoting this image in Soviet minds as a way of facilitating a settlement of the last remaining issues of the missile crisis. “Bobby’s notion is there’s only one peace-lover in the [U.S.] government,” explained National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy in describing the information going through the back channel to the Kremlin in November, “and he’s entirely surrounded by militarists and it’s not a bad image. Well, Bobby’s feeding him that stuff, Mr. President.”31 The White House hoped to co-opt Khrushchev into helping Kennedy manage his domestic critics
.

  Khrushchev bought the argument that it was in the Soviet Union’s interest to help Kennedy. On November 10, the day after the conversations between Bolshakov and Robert Kennedy, Khrushchev told his Kremlin colleagues that it was time to consider removing the bombers.32 Despite Robert Kennedy’s apparent retraction of an offer to settle the Il-28 issue, Khrushchev believed the Kennedys would ultimately make a side deal for the bombers as they had done to remove the missiles. Besides what the Kremlin had learned from Bolshakov, Moscow had received reports that Washington might be satisfied by a Soviet promise never to increase the number of their bombers in Cuba or perhaps would accept a Soviet promise to withdraw the planes, just not immediately. Khrushchev believed he had the luxury of haggling with the United States to get the bombers out. If Washington pressed hard, and if Kennedy seemed about to ratchet up the crisis, Moscow would concede. The Soviets did not need the bombers in Cuba; they had belonged to the plan for an offensive Soviet military base on the island, and that base no longer seemed politically useful to Khrushchev. Moreover, the Soviet leader had a sense that the gesture might firm up Kennedy’s domestic position. In a letter sent the same day to Kennedy, he tried to revive the abortive offer received the previous day from the president’s brother: “[B]ecause you express apprehension that these weapons can be some sort of threat to the U.S. or other countries of Western Hemisphere which do not possess adequate defensive means, we state that those planes are piloted by our fliers.” But then he added: “We will not insist on permanently keeping those planes on Cuba. We have our difficulties in this question. Therefore we give a gentleman’s word that we will remove the Il-28 planes with all the personnel and equipment related to those planes, although not now but later.” Khrushchev explained that the conditions had “to be ripe to remove them.”33

  By “ripe” Khrushchev meant that he would have the approval of the Cubans for this concession. He had kept Castro at arm’s length on October 26, 27, and 28 when faced with the possibility of war with Washington, and although Mikoyan’s difficulties were irritating, Khrushchev had some understanding for Castro’s insistence on being consulted.

  Khrushchev also hinted at a possible price for the bombers. The acting secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant, had suggested establishing UN observer posts throughout the Caribbean to guard against an aggression in the region. The Soviets endorsed that proposal and added one of their own. Recalling a Soviet proposal from the 1950s, Khrushchev suggested that the two superpowers place inspectors at railroads, airports, and other communications nodes in the southern United States and the western USSR as part of the first phase of mutual disarmament.

  The same day Khrushchev sent an explanation of his strategy to Mikoyan in Havana. He told his colleague that though the Kremlin was prepared to give in on the bombers, it made sense to wait a bit to see whether the United States would accept something short of a complete withdrawal. Khrushchev stressed that Kennedy faced so much domestic pressure that it was in the Soviet interest to help him with his bomber problem. He believed that Kennedy on his own would never have demanded the withdrawal of the Il-28s.34

  IN WASHINGTON, Kennedy was not aware that Khrushchev was trying to help him out politically. Robert Kennedy responded to Khrushchev’s letter on behalf of his brother on November 12. President Kennedy could not accept a vague Soviet promise to remove the bombers. However, he would be satisfied if Khrushchev gave an order to remove the bombers within thirty days. The response also contained one concession for Khrushchev, who the Americans knew from intelligence evidence was having trouble in Havana. The United States pledged to remove the naval quarantine without UN confirmation that the Soviet missiles had been removed. On November 12 Robert Kennedy conveyed this offer to the Soviet ambassador in an oral message from the president.35

  Khrushchev then decided to make his haggling more explicit. On November 13 the Presidium agreed to tell the White House that the Soviet government could remove the Il-28s within thirty days but would prefer to take two to three months. In his personal response to the president, sent the next day, Khrushchev said he would probably accept specific dates for the removal of the Il-28s “even closer than those which I name and maybe even closer than those which were named by you” if Kennedy would agree to a Soviet proposal to establish a UN inspection regime throughout the Caribbean region, including observer posts along the Florida coast and in Cuba.36

  Meanwhile Khrushchev was losing patience with Castro. Moscow assumed that it could reach a diplomatic settlement on Cuba with Washington only if there were some guarantee of on-site inspection in Cuba, and Castro continued to oppose any foreign inspection. In informing Mikoyan of the Presidium decision to haggle with Kennedy, Khrushchev betrayed his disappointment with the Cuban leader. “[B]ecause of his youth,” complained Khrushchev, “[Castro] cannot behave himself properly” and “cannot understand the difficulties” that the Kremlin was trying to manage.37

  Soviet haggling came to an abrupt end when Moscow received intelligence information that suggested Kennedy was about to lose control of the U.S. military. On November 15 Khrushchev read a report from the KGB station in New York that drew on conversations with New York Times UN correspondent Thomas Hamilton and a journalist from the New York Herald Tribune. Both journalists stated that at a meeting in White House on November 12 “Pentagon chiefs” had demanded that Kennedy issue an unconditional ultimatum to the Soviet Union calling for both the withdrawal of the Il-28 bombers and UN inspections of the Soviet missile sites and air bases in Cuba. If these demands were not met, the Pentagon wanted the United States to launch an immediate invasion of Cuba.38 Moscow took this report seriously enough that on November 16 it requested corroboration of this information from the KGB station in New York.

  The U.S. military was indeed prepared to strike. Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay told Kennedy on November 16 that a U.S. air attack could easily wipe out the Soviet Il-28s. “The operation is fairly simple,” he told the commander in chief. “It would be accomplished in a few minutes.”39 U.S. intelligence had spotted nine airplanes in crates at Holguin Airport in southeastern Cuba and thirty-two at San Julián in the western part of the island. The U.S. attack force would involve forty-eight planes, twenty-four of them bombers and the rest for fire suppression and to handle any attempts by MiG fighters to disrupt the attack. The U.S. Navy was equally ready to tighten the blockade to prevent any petroleum or industrial lubricants from reaching the island. “We’re ready to put the screws on at any time,” said Admiral George Anderson. But the U.S. military, which remained under tight civilian control, could not launch a strike without a presidential order, and Kennedy had not yet ordered any kind of military attack.

  Although inaccurate, this alarming information from the United States altered Khrushchev’s assessment of the risk of waiting for Kennedy to accept a negotiated withdrawal of the Il-28 bombers. So too did reports from Cuba that Castro was about to initiate a conflict with the United States. Eager to force the United States to curtail its low-level reconnaissance flights, which had continued despite the lowering of tension after the exchange of letters by Moscow and Washington, Castro instructed the Cuban soldiers manning antiaircraft units that by November 17 or 18 they would have the right to open fire on U.S. reconnaissance planes. The Soviets still controlled the SAMs, which could reach the high-altitude U-2s, but the defensive units under Cuban control could threaten low-level U.S. flights. To communicate his resolve to Washington, Castro also warned Acting UN Secretary-General U Thant that he intended to attack planes that violated Cuban airspace.

  On November 16 Khrushchev declared before the Presidium that the Il-28s should be removed immediately. Once again he did not blame Kennedy for the increased danger in the Caribbean. This time he directed his anger at Castro’s threat to start shooting down U.S. planes. “It is just shouting and unreasonable,” Khrushchev said, complaining about Castro’s position on ending the confrontation in the Caribbean.40 The Cuban leader’s action
s since October 28 had shown him to be far less trustworthy than Khrushchev had believed. “It is a lesson to us,” Khrushchev admitted to his colleagues. He did not believe the Cubans deserved any more Soviet patience. “The affair is coming to a head: Either they will cooperate or we will recall our personnel.” The last thing Khrushchev wanted was to see a return to the tense days of late October. But his colleagues convinced him to give Castro one last chance to agree to the Il-28 concession, and the Soviet announcement of its concession to Kennedy was delayed.

  In light of the risk of a Cuban-U.S. conflict, Khrushchev made another major decision to help calm the situation. The Soviet Union would remove all the defensive nuclear weapons it had sent to the islands. Initially the Soviet military had planned that the Lunas, at least, would eventually be transferred to Cuban control still armed with nuclear warheads. In his fury at Castro, Khrushchev called off even that small act of nuclear proliferation. The Luna short-range missiles would stay on the island, as would some of the FKR cruise missiles, but without nuclear warheads.41

  The patience that the Kremlin had shown Cuba began to pay off. On November 17 and 18 Castro did not order his gunners to shoot down any U.S. low-level reconnaissance aircraft (the high-level U-2s remained vulnerable only to the SAMs, which remained under Soviet control in Cuba). Then, following an all-day meeting with his closest advisers, Castro told Mikoyan on November 19 that his government would swallow the loss of the bombers, but there could not be any independent inspection of the island.

  On November 20 Ambassador Dobrynin informed Robert Kennedy that the Il-28s would be out of Cuba within thirty days. In return, the president announced the lifting of the blockade on November 20, only a few hours after receiving the news of the Soviet concession. U.S. and Soviet negotiators had yet to reach an agreement on formalizing Kennedy’s pledge not to invade the island. Moscow’s inability to persuade Castro to accept on-site inspection had made this impossible. To satisfy American concerns that the missiles were in fact leaving, the Soviets improvised an inspection system that didn’t require Cuban participation. The ships taking the R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles back to the Soviet Union were instructed to remove the tarpaulin covers on the missiles to reveal them to U.S. planes taking photographs above. The next day the Soviet military reduced its level of readiness, and the U.S. armed forces began to demobilize. The Cuban missile crisis was finally over.