From the Eye of the Storm
Sorensen, Theodore C.
From the Eye of the Storm The key moments of the Cuban missile crisis-as seen by a man who was in the thick of it BY THEODORE C. SORENSEN EVER SINCE JOHN F. KENNEDY AND Nikita Khrushchev...
...The president soon after departed but-accidentally or intentionally -left the tape recorder on...
...And I’m sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way, too...
...On the other hand, we’ve got to do something...
...I would do nothing until you’re ready to invade...
...Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson: . . . I think the question with the bas’e is whether we take it out or whether we talk about it, and either alternative is a very distressing one...
...Now, when you talk about the invasion . . . excluding the risk that these missiles will be fired . . . I think that it would be foolish to expect that the Russians would not regard that as a far more direct thrust...
...McNamara: Sometime today, I think at the State Department, we will want to consider that...
...George Anderson: . . . The blockade will not affect the equipment that is already in Cuba, and will provide the Russians in Cuba time to assemble all of these missiles, to assemble the IL-28s, to get the MiGs ready to go...
...We’re either a first-class power or we’re not...
...We would be prepared, following the air strike, for an invasion both by air and by sea...
...Marine Commandant Gen...
...Yet the transcripts reveal as never before that his choice was neither obvious nor easy...
...But I think that the more we tempa’rize, the more surely he is to convince himself that we are afraid to make any real movement and to really fight...
...The leaders of Congress, whom the president, Rusk, and McNamara briefed just prior to his Monday evening, Octaher 22 televised address to the country and world, voiced sentiments similar to those of the Joint Chiefs: Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Richard Rzmell: It seems to me that we are at a crossroads...
...Don’t take my word for it...
...They’ll use that time to . . . get better prepared...
...We recognize all these things, Mr...
...Goddamn...
...You’re screwed...
...Now, as I say, we may have to [end] up with all that...
...But, of the two, I would take it out...
...I don’t believe he will...
...Which leaves me only one alternative, which is to fire nuclear weapons-which is a hell of an alternative-and begin a nuclear exchange...
...Well, I would think it’s almost incumbent upon the Russians then, to say, “Well, we’re going to send them in again...
...We have to set in motion a chain of events that will eliminate this base...
...I better go and make this speech...
...By Friday morning, however, under JFK’s prodding questions, a consensus-led by McNamara, Rusk, and RFK-began moving our group away from air strike and invasion as a first step in favor of a blockade that would leave the next move up to Khrushchev...
...But it’s coming someday, Mr...
...If we go in and take them out on a quick air strike __w.e increase the chance greatly...
...Go in there and friggin’ around with the missiles...
...You’re screwed...
...We’re going to do number one...
...You’re screwed, screwed, screwed...
...In our first meeting on Tuesday, October 16, the discussion following the opening presentation of U2 photographs of these incipient missile bases centered on their removal by surprise attack: Secretary of State Dean Rusk...
...And I think that we should assemble as speedily as possible an adequate force and clean out that situation...
...Attorney General Robert Kennedy: We have the fifth one, really, which is the invasion . . . you’re dropping bombs all over Cuba if you do the second...
...President, we know...
...Later in the week United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson agreed...
...President...
...Probably ought to tell them, though, the night before...
...LeMay: You’re in a pretty bad fix...
...I think we should be in a position to invade at any time, if we so desired...
...National Seczwity Adviser McGeorge Bzindy: I share the Secretary of the Treasury’s feeling...
...He made the speech (after conveying to me some resentment over the congressional second-guessing), and he stuck to his determination that this country’s initial course should be sufficiently prudent and limited to give Khrushchev time to consider his options...
...Now, admittedly, we can never be absolutely sure until and unless we actually occupy the island...
...But] when you start talking about the invasion it’s infinitely more offensive...
...which is a larger step...
...Two conflicting letters had been received from Khrushchev...
...Where we have taken a strong stand they have backed off...
...They’ll just object...
...And we would be prepared to do that...
...We ourselves are not moved to general war...
...So I don’t think we’ve got any satisfactory alternatives...
...The second is the broader one . . . on the airfields and on the SAM sites and on anything else connected with missiles...
...When Taylor reported this to the chiefs, after assuring the president that they would all loyally support his position, General Wheeler remarked: “I never thought I’d live to see the day when I would want to go to war...
...Naval Chief of Ope?-ations Adm...
...You have told them not to do this thing...
...Taylor...
...Book excerpts adapted from The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, published by the Belknap Press of Harvard university Press...
...I don’t know whether Khrushchev will launch a nuclear war over Cuba or not...
...The following day, despite strong support for the chiefs’ position from some of the ablest members of our group, JFK selected the blockade/surveillance/ diplomatic warnings route...
...Shoup: You pulled the rug right out from under him...
...Curtis LeMay: Well, I certainly agree with everything General Taylor has said...
...President...
...It seems to me that it complicates the whole thing...
...We’re going to take out these missiles...
...I don’t know how much use consulting with the British has been...
...Because that’s what we’re going to do anyway...
...Some key documents, external developments, and exchanges conducted outside the Cabinet Room or in Kennedy’s absence are necessarily incorporated, if at all, only by reference...
...Go in there and friggin’ around with the [air] lift...
...A U-2 photo reconnaissance plane was shot down by a Soviet surface-to-air missile, killing the pilot...
...President, in my judgment, from a military point of view, the lowestrisk course of action . . . is to go ahead with a surprise air strike, the blockade, and an invasion, because these series of actions progressively will give us increasing assurance that we really have gone after the offensive capability of the Cuban/Soviets corner...
...I don’t think we can sit still...
...Maybe we just have to take them out, and continue our other preparations...
...And then, as I take it, the fourth question is the degree of consultation...
...with certainty what some in our group doubted then: that the massive air strike and invasion of Cuba that they preferred to President Kennedy’s decision to respond initially with a naval blockade (which Kennedy coupled with surveillance, warnings, and diplomatic pressure), would have engendered a vigorous Soviet nuclear as well as conventional force attack that would have escalated quickly into global war...
...David Shoup: . . . If there is a requirement to eliminate this threat of damage, then it’s going to take some forces, sizable forces, to do it...
...President Kennedy...
...It will give them a better excuse for retaliation than our attack on Cuba...
...I just think at least we start here, then we see where we go...
...President, with the great importance of getthg a strike with all the benefit of surprise, which wonld mean ideally that we would have all the missiles that are in Cuba above ground...
...Assuming that the commanders felt that way...
...I just don’t see any other solution except direct military intervention right now...
...With thousands of books, articles, documentaries, seminars, and conferences devoted to those 13 harrowing days in October 1962, it seemed to me highly unlikely that new light could be shed on this subject...
...Somebody’s got to keep them from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal...
...The question becomes whether we do it by sudden, unannounced strike of some sort or . . . build up the crisis to the point where the other side has to consider very seriously about giving in...
...President Kennedy: What are you in favor of, Bill...
...Secretary of Defense Robert McNamwa-a: . . . If we are to conduct an air strike against these installations, or against any part of Cuba, we must . . . schedule that prior to the time these missile sites become operational...
...Russell: Oh, my God, I know that...
...What the hell do you mean...
...I’d emphasize, a little strongly perhaps, that we don’t have any choice except direct military action...
...These are unsatisfactory alternatives...
...The people who are best-off are the people whose advice is not taken because whatever we do is filled with hazards...
...President...
...They’ve done it...
...LeMay: Jesus Chri.st...
...Amy Chief of Staff Gen...
...This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich...
...We’ve got the Berlin problem staring us in the face anyway...
...And if we don’t respond here in Cuba, we think the credibility is sacrificed...
...Some goddamn thing, some way, that they either do the son of a bitch and do it right, and quit friggin’ around...
...A blockade leads into quibbling and delays among our own people, and especially the probability, certainty, of a confrontation with Russia itself...
...secretary of Treasq Douglas Dillon: . . . I think that the chance of getting through this thing without a Russian reaction is greater under a quick strike than building the whole thing up to a climax...
...we] just have to decide to do it...
...It’ll never be 100 percent, Mr...
...But, I think if we’re talking about nuclear war, the escalation ought to be at least with some degree of control...
...President...
...I don’t share your view that if we knock off Cuba, they’re going to knock off Berlin...
...There’s a real possibility you’d have to invade to reintroduce order into the country...
...Air Force Chief of Staff Gen...
...They can’t say they’re not on notice...
...You’re in a pretty bad fix, Mr...
...And I think that the inevitable end result will be the seizure of Berlin...
...Earl Wheeler: Mr...
...That may be a risk we have to take, butLeMay: Well, history has been, I think, the other way, Mr...
...And I feel that, as this goes on . . . this will escalate and then we will be required to take other military action at greater disadvantage to the United States...
...Do the whole job...
...That’s right...
...That’s our problem...
...The obvious argument for the blockade was [that] what we want to do is to avoid, if we can, nuclear war by escalation or imbalance...
...President...
...The Secretary of State says: “Give them time to pause and think...
...If we don’t do anything to Cuba, then they’re going to push on Berlin and push real hard because they’ve got us on the run...
...Tomorrow or the next day...
...Through unprecedented pressures I would never wish to relive, his steady leadership had kept our ship on course...
...The missile bases were still there, largely completed and ready to fire...
...House Armed Semices Committee Chairman Carl finson: Don’t you think, when the time comes, that you should strike with all the force and power and try to get it over with as quickly as possible, instead of prolonging it...
...I was wrong...
...But the next day Khrushchev accepted the terms restated in the president’s letter and announced the withdrawal of the missiles...
...This blockade and political action, I see leading into war...
...President Kennedy: . . . They can’t let us just take out their missiles, kill a lot of Russians and not do anything...
...President Kennedy: That’s right...
...Our low-level surveillance planes were fired upon...
...Taylor...
...More Soviet supply ships headed for our naval “quarantine” line, accompanied by submarines...
...A war, our destiny, will hinge on it...
...They’re going to be saying: “I told you so...
...Rusk: . . . If there were a complete air strike against all air forces, you might as well do it...
...Unclear.] Shozip: I agree with that answer, agree a hundred percent, a hundred percent...
...While our reply to the first had interpreted its somewhat meandering message in positive terms, none of us saw hope for early success...
...Kennedy makes an unclear, joking reply.] President Kennedy: I appreciate your views...
...Fulbright: But not to the Russians, it seems to me...
...A blockade and political talk would be considered a pretty weak response...
...President Kennedy: Let me just say a little, first, about what the problem is, from my point of view...
...You’re going to lull an awful lot of people, and we’re going to take an awful lot of heat on it...
...But I think we’d all be unanimous in saying that really our strength in Berlin, our strength anyplace in the world, is the credibility of our response under certain conditions...
...Vice President Johnson, reflecting the frustrations of the now-resurgent air strike-invasion advocates, warned us that, in the absence of stronger action achieving results, both public and congressional opinion were turning against the president: Johnson: . . . They want .to know what we’re doing...
...So that’s why we’ve got to respond...
...From the Eye of the Storm The key moments of the Cuban missile crisis-as seen by a man who was in the thick of it BY THEODORE C. SORENSEN EVER SINCE JOHN F. KENNEDY AND Nikita Khrushchev peacefully resolved the world's first nuclear confrontation, a veritable cottage industry has focused on the Soviet Union's surreptitious installation of strategic missiles in Cuba and their rapid withdrawal...
...Rusk: . . . I don’t believe, myself, that the critical question is whether you get a particular missile before it goes off, because if they shoot those missiles we are in general nuclear war...
...Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fzdbright: . . . I think a blockade is the worst of the alternatives...
...Harvard’s Ernest May and Philip Zelikow have masterfully assembled, edited, and placed in context readable transcriptions of Kennedy’s secret taping (unbeknownst to us all) of “ExComm’s” marathon deliberations...
...Third is doing both of those things and also, at the same time, launching a blockade...
...Read the book...
...Go in [unclear] and get every goddamn one...
...Any air strike must be directed not solely against the missile sites, but against the missile sites plus the airfields, plus the aircraft which may not be on the airfields but hidden by that time, plus all potential nuclear st:orage sites...
...You have warned these people time and again, in the most eloquent speeches 1 have read since Woodrow Wilson, what would happen if there was an offensive capability created in Cuba...
...President Kennedy: . . . We can’t wait two weeks while we’re getting ready to roll...
...LeMay: . . . We (you) made pretty strong statements . . . that we would take action against offensive weapons...
...One is the strike just on these .. . . bases...
...Reprinted by permission...
...Some minor errors accompanied the transcription of these rudimentary tapes...
...I don’t know where Khrushchev wants to take us...
...By Saturday evening, however, that course looked unpromising...
...Copyright 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College...
...It provides for the beginning of an escalation...
...Or we’re going to decide that this is the time to eliminate the Cuban problem by actually eliminating the island...
...In retrospect, Kennedy’s choice seems obvious...
...But no previous work has conveyed more clearly the sometimes chilling, sometimes heated, sometimes foggy atmosphere in that room during the Cold War’s most dangerous fortnight...
...We’re simply doing what we said we would do if they took certain action...
...But not the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meeting privately with the president: Chaiman Taylor: . . . From the outset we were united on the military requirement: . . . First attack with the benefit of surprise those missiles and offensive weapons that we know about...
...President Kennedy: . . . Before we reach the point where we are physically able to [invade], we are going to take this action...
...But it’s a very difficult problem that we’re faced with...
...In Stevenson’s handwritten words (unfortunately contradicted in his next paragraph): “If they won’t remove the missiles and restore the status quo ante, we will have to do it ourselves...
...Will it ever be under more auspicious circumstances...
...From recent Russian publications, we know now THEODORE C. SORENSEN was a member of President Kennedy's Executive Committee of the National Security Council...
...Now the question is: What is our response...
...You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr...
...We hope to take out a vast majority in the first strike, but this is not just . . . one strike, one day-but continuous air attack for whenever necessary, whenever we discover a target...
...President Kennedy: How effective can the take-out be, do they think...
...I hope you forgive me, but you asked for opinionPresident Kennedy: No, I did ask for opinions...
...President Kennedy: What did you say...
...It’s quite obvious that what they think they can do is try to get Berlin...
...I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this...
...And as we wait and wait and wait, then it will take greater forces to do it...
...John F. Kennedy, by his judicious selection and combination of available options and instruments of power, and by his rejection of a faster, more explosive response, had successfully avoided the shoals of both war and weakness...
...There’s a great feeling of insecurity...
...President Kennedy: VVhat you’re really talking about are two or three different potential operations...
...You’re going to announce the reason that you’re doing it is because they’re sending in these kinds of missiles...
...Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf Gen...
...Stopping Russian ships-I know that’s offensive to the Russians...
...He [President Kennedy] finally got around to the word “escalation...
...Fzdbright: I’m in favor, on the basis of this information, of an invasion, and an all-out one, and as quickly as possible...
...ofl their just going in and taking Berlin by force...
...That’s the only goddamn i:hing that’s in the whole trick...
...If we do this blockade that’s proposed, a political action, the first thing that’s going to happen is your missiles are going to disappear into the woods...
...Maxwell Taylor: Wet-e impre:sed, Mr...
Vol. 29 • November 1997 • No. 11
