The phone woke Dimka. His heart pounded: was it war? How many minutes did he have to live? He snatched up the receiver. It was Natalya. First with the news, as usual, she said: “There’s a flash from Pliyev.”
General Pliyev was in command of Soviet forces in Cuba.
“What?” said Dimka. “What does it say?”
“They think the Americans are going to attack today, at dawn their time.”
It was still dark in Moscow. Dimka turned on the bedside light and looked at his watch. It was eight in the morning: he should be at the Kremlin. But dawn in Cuba was still five and a half hours away. His heart slowed a little. “How do they know?”
“That’s not the point,” she said impatiently.
“What is the point?”
“I’ll read you the last sentence. ‘We have decided that in the event of a U.S. attack on our installations, we will employ all available means of air defense.’ They will use nuclear weapons.”
“They can’t do that without our permission!”
“But that’s exactly what they’re proposing.”
“Malinovsky won’t let them.”
“Don’t bet on that.”
Dimka cursed under his breath. Sometimes the military seemed actually to want nuclear annihilation. “I’ll meet you in the canteen.”
“Give me half an hour.”
Dimka showered fast. His mother offered him breakfast, but he refused, so she gave him a piece of black rye bread to take with him. “Don’t forget there’s a party for your grandfather today,” Anya said.
It was Grigori’s birthday: he was seventy-four. There would be a big lunch at his apartment. Dimka had promised to bring Nina. They were planning to surprise everyone by announcing their engagement.
But there would be no party if the Americans attacked Cuba.
As Dimka was leaving, Anya stopped him. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “What’s going to happen?”
He put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Mother, I don’t know.”
“Your sister’s over there in Cuba.”
“I know.”
“She’s right in the line of fire.”
“The Americans have intercontinental missiles, Mother. We’re all in the line of fire.”
She hugged him, then turned away.
Dimka drove to the Kremlin on his motorcycle. When he got to the Presidium building, Natalya was waiting in the canteen. Like Dimka, she had dressed in a hurry, and she looked a little disheveled. Her untidy hair fell over her face in a way he found charming. I must stop thinking like this, he told himself: I’m going to do the right thing, and marry Nina and raise our child.
He wondered what Natalya would say when he told her that.
But this was not the moment. He took his piece of rye bread from his pocket. “I wish I could get some tea,” he said. The canteen doors were open but no one was serving yet.
“I’ve heard that restaurants in the United States open when people want food and drinks, not when the staff want to work,” said Natalya. “Do you think it’s true?”
“Probably just propaganda,” said Dimka. He sat down.
“Let’s draft a reply to Pliyev,” she said, and opened a notebook.
Chewing, Dimka concentrated on the issue. “The Presidium should forbid Pliyev to launch nuclear weapons without specific orders from Moscow.”
“I’d rather forbid him even to mount the warheads on the rockets. Then they can’t be fired by accident.”
“Good thinking.”
Yevgeny Filipov came into the room. He was wearing a brown pullover under a gray suit jacket. Dimka said: “Good morning, Filipov, have you come to apologize to me?”
“For what?”
“You accused me of allowing the secret of our Cuban missiles to leak out. You even said I should be arrested. Now we know the missiles were photographed by a spy plane of the CIA. Obviously you owe me a groveling apology.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Filipov blustered. “We didn’t think their high-altitude photographs would show something as small as a missile. What are you two plotting?”
Natalya answered with the truth. “We’re discussing this morning’s flash message from Pliyev.”
“I’ve already spoken to Malinovsky about it.” Filipov worked for Defense Minister Malinovsky. “He is in agreement with Pliyev.”
Dimka was horrified. “Pliyev can’t be allowed to start World War Three on his own initiative!”
“He won’t be starting it. He’ll be defending our troops from American aggression.”
“The level of response can’t be a local decision.”
“There may be no time for anything else.”
“Pliyev must make time, rather than trigger a nuclear exchange.”
“Malinovsky believes we must protect the weapons we have in Cuba. If they were destroyed by the Americans, it would weaken our ability to defend the USSR.”
Dimka had not thought of that. A significant part of the Soviet nuclear stockpile was now in Cuba. The Americans could wipe out all those costly weapons, leaving the Soviets seriously weakened.
“No,” said Natalya. “Our whole strategy must be based on not using nuclear weapons. Why? Because we have so few, by comparison with the American arsenal.” She leaned forward across the canteen table. “Listen to me, Yevgeny. If it comes to all-out nuclear war, they win.” She sat back. “So we may brag, we may bluster, we may threaten, but we may not fire our weapons. For us, nuclear war is suicide.”
“That’s not how the Defense Ministry sees it.”
Natalya hesitated. “You speak as if a decision has already been made.”
“It has. Malinovsky has endorsed Pliyev’s proposal.”
Dimka said: “Khrushchev won’t like that.”
“On the contrary,” said Filipov. “He agreed with it.”
Dimka realized he had missed out on early-morning discussions because he had been up so late last night. That put him at a disadvantage. He stood up. “Let’s go,” he said to Natalya.
They left the cafeteria. Waiting for the elevator, Dimka said: “Damn. We’ve got to reverse that decision.”
“I’m sure Kosygin will want to raise it at the Presidium today.”
“Why don’t you type the order we drafted and suggest Kosygin brings it to the meeting? I’ll try to soften Khrushchev up.”
“All right.”
They parted and Dimka went to Khrushchev’s office. The first secretary was reading translations of Western newspaper articles, each one stapled to the original clipping. “Have you read Walter Lippmann’s article?”
Lippmann was a syndicated American columnist of liberal views. He was said to be close to President Kennedy.
“No.” Dimka had not yet looked at the papers.
“Lippmann proposes a swap: we withdraw our missiles from Cuba, and they remove theirs from Turkey. It’s a message to me from Kennedy!”
“Lippmann is only a journalist—”
“No, no. He’s a mouthpiece for the president.”
Dimka doubted that American democracy worked that way, but he said nothing.
Khrushchev went on: “It means that if we propose this swap, Kennedy will accept.”
“But we have already demanded something different—their promise not to invade Cuba.”
“So, we will keep Kennedy guessing!”
We’ll certainly keep him confused, Dimka thought. But that was Khrushchev’s way. Why be consistent? It only made life easier for the enemy.
Dimka changed the subject. “There will be questions at the Presidium about Pliyev’s message. Giving him the power to fire nuclear weapons—”
“Don’t worry,” said Khrushchev with a deprecating wave. “The Americans are not going to attack now. They’re even talking to the United Nations general secretary. They want peace.”
“Of course,” said Dimka deferentially. “So long as you know it’s going to come up.”
“Yes, yes.”
The leaders of the Soviet Union gathered in the paneled Presidium Room a few minutes later. Khrushchev opened the meeting with a long speech arguing that the time for an American attack had passed. Then he raised what he called the Lippmann Proposal. There was little enthusiasm for it around the long table, but no one opposed him. Most people realized the leader had to conduct diplomacy in his own style.
Khrushchev was so excited about the new idea that he dictated his letter to Kennedy there and then, while the others listened. Then he ordered that it should be read out on Radio Moscow. That way the American embassy here could forward it to Washington without the time-consuming chore of encoding it.
Finally Kosygin raised the issue of Pliyev’s flash. He argued that control of nuclear weapons must remain in Moscow, and read out the order to Pliyev that Dimka and Natalya had drafted.
“Yes, yes, send it,” said Khrushchev impatiently; and Dimka breathed easier.
An hour later Dimka was with Nina, going up in the elevator at Government House. “Let’s try to forget our woes for a while,” he said to her. “We won’t talk about Cuba. We’re going to a party. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”
“That suits me,” Nina said.
They went to the apartment of Dimka’s grandparents. Katerina opened the door in a red dress. Dimka was startled to see that it was knee length, in the latest Western fashion, and that his grandmother still had slim legs. She had lived in the West, while her husband was on the diplomatic circuit, and she had learned to dress more stylishly than most Soviet women.
She looked Nina up and down with the unapologetic curiosity of old people. “You look well,” she said, and Dimka wondered why her tone of voice sounded a little odd.
Nina took it as a compliment. “Thank you, so do you. Where did you get that dress?”
Katerina led them into the living room. Dimka remembered coming here as a boy. His grandmother had always given him belev candy, a traditional Russian kind of apple confection. His mouth watered: he would have liked a piece right then.
Katerina seemed a little unsteady in her high-heeled shoes. Grigori was sitting in the easy chair opposite the television, as always, though the set was off. He had already opened a bottle of vodka. Perhaps that was why Grandmother was wobbling a little.
“Birthday greetings, Grandfather,” said Dimka.
“Have a drink,” said Grigori.
Dimka had to be careful. He would be no use to Khrushchev drunk. He knocked back the vodka Grigori gave him, then put the glass down out of Grandfather’s reach, to avoid a refill.
Dimka’s mother was already there, helping Katerina. She came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of crackers with red caviar. Anya had not inherited Katerina’s stylishness. She always looked comfortably dumpy, whatever she wore.
She kissed Nina.
The doorbell rang and Uncle Volodya came in with his family. He was forty-eight, and his close-cropped hair was now gray. He was in uniform: he might be called to duty at any moment. Aunt Zoya followed him, approaching fifty but still a pale Russian goddess. Behind her trailed their two teenagers, Dimka’s cousins, Kotya and Galina.
Dimka introduced Nina. Both Volodya and Zoya greeted her warmly.
“Now we’re all here!” said Katerina.
Dimka looked around: at the old couple who had started it all; at his plain mother and her handsome blue-eyed brother; at his beautiful aunt and his teenage cousins; and at the voluptuous redhead he was going to marry. This was his family. And it was the most precious part of everything that would be lost today if his fears came true. They all lived within a mile of the Kremlin. If the Americans fired their nuclear weapons at Moscow tonight, the people in this room would all be lying dead in the morning, their brains boiled, their bodies crushed, their skin burned black. And the only consolation was that he would not have to mourn them because he, too, would be dead.
They all drank to Grigori’s birthday.
“I wish my little brother, Lev, could be with us,” said Grigori.
“And Tanya,” said Anya.
Volodya said: “Lev Peshkov is not so little anymore, Father. He’s sixty-seven years old and a millionaire in America.”
“I wonder if he has grandchildren in America.”
“Not in America, no,” said Volodya. Red Army Intelligence could find out this sort of thing easily, Dimka knew. “Lev’s illegitimate son, Greg, the senator, is a bachelor. But his legitimate daughter, Daisy, who lives in London, has two adolescents, a boy and a girl, about the same age as Kotya and Galina.”
“So, I’m a great-uncle to two British kids,” Grigori said, musing in a pleased tone. “What are they called? Jane and Bill, perhaps.” The others laughed at the odd sounds of the English names.
“David and Evie,” said Volodya.
“You know, I was supposed to be the one to go to America,” Grigori said. “But at the last minute I had to give my ticket to Lev.” He went into a reminiscence. His family had heard the story before, but they listened again, happy to indulge him on his birthday.
After a moment, Volodya took Dimka aside and said: “How was this morning’s Presidium?”
“They ordered Pliyev not to fire nuclear weapons without specific orders from the Kremlin.”
Volodya grunted disparagingly. “Waste of time.”
Dimka was surprised. “Why?”
“It will make no difference.”
“Are you saying Pliyev will disobey orders?”
“I think any commander would. You haven’t been in battle, have you?” Volodya gave Dimka a searching look with those intense blue eyes. “When you’re under attack, fighting for your life, you defend yourself with any means that come to hand. It’s visceral, you can’t help it. If the Americans invade Cuba, our forces there will throw everything at them, regardless of orders from Moscow.”
“Shit,” said Dimka. All this morning’s efforts had been wasted, if Volodya was right.
Grandfather’s story wound down, and Nina touched Dimka’s arm. “Now might be a good moment.”
Dimka addressed the assembled family. “Now that we have honored my grandfather’s birthday, I have an announcement. Quiet, please.” He waited for the teenagers to stop talking. “I have asked Nina to marry me, and she has accepted.”
They all cheered.
Another round of vodka was poured, but Dimka managed not to drink this one.
Anya kissed Dimka. “Well done, my son,” she said. “She didn’t want to get married—until she met you!”
“Maybe I’ll have great-grandchildren soon!” said Grigori, and he winked broadly at Nina.
Volodya said: “Father, don’t embarrass the poor girl.”
“Embarrass? Rubbish. Nina and I are friends.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Katerina, who was now drunk. “She’s already pregnant.”
Volodya protested: “Mother!”
Katerina shrugged. “A woman can tell.”
So that was why Grandmother looked Nina up and down so hard when we arrived, Dimka thought. He saw a glance pass between Volodya and Zoya: Volodya raised an eyebrow, Zoya gave a slight nod, and Volodya made a momentary “Oh!” with his mouth.
Anya looked shocked. She said to Nina: “But you told me . . .”
Dimka said: “I know. We thought Nina couldn’t have children. But the doctors were wrong!”
Grigori raised yet another glass. “Hooray for wrong doctors! I want a boy, Nina—a great-grandson to carry on the Peshkov-Dvorkin line!”
Nina smiled. “I’ll do my best, Grigori Sergeivitch.”
Anya still looked troubled. “The doctors made a mistake?”
“You know doctors, they never admit to mistakes,” said Nina. “They say it’s a miracle.”
“I just hope I live to see my great-grandchild,” said Grigori. “Damn the Americans to hell.” He drank.
Kotya, the sixteen-year-old boy, spoke up. “Why do the Americans have more missiles than we do?”
Zoya answered: “When we scientists began to work on nuclear energy, back in 1940, and we told the government that it could be used to create a super-powerful bomb, Stalin did not believe us. So the West got ahead of the USSR, and they’re still ahead. That’s what happens when governments don’t listen to scientists.”
Volodya added: “But don’t repeat what your mother says when you go to school, okay?”
Anya said: “Who cares? Stalin killed half of us, now Khrushchev will kill the other half.”
“Anya!” protested Volodya. “Not in front of the children!”
“I feel for Tanya,” said Anya, ignoring her brother’s remonstrances. “Over there in Cuba, waiting for the Americans to attack.” She began to weep. “I wish I could have seen my pretty little girl again,” she said, sudden tears streaming down her cheeks. “Just once more, before we die.”
• • •
By Saturday morning the U.S. was ready to attack Cuba.
Larry Mawhinney gave George the details in the basement Situation Room at the White House. President Kennedy called this area a pigpen, because he found it cramped; but he had been raised in grand spacious homes: the suite was larger than George’s apartment.
According to Mawhinney, the air force had five hundred seventy-six planes at five different bases ready for the air strike that would turn Cuba into a smoking wasteland. The army had mobilized one hundred fifty thousand troops for the invasion that would follow. The navy had twenty-six destroyers and three aircraft carriers circling the island nation. Mawhinney said all this proudly, as if it were his own personal achievement.
George thought Mawhinney was too glib. “None of that will be any use against nuclear missiles,” George said.
“Fortunately, we have nukes of our own,” Mawhinney replied.
Like that made everything all right.
“How do we fire them, exactly?” said George. “I mean, what does the president do, physically?”
“He has to call the Joint War Room at the Pentagon. His phone in the Oval Office has a red button that connects him instantly.”
“And what would he say?”
“He has a black leather briefcase containing a set of codes that he has to use. The briefcase goes everywhere with him.”
“And then . . . ?”
“It’s automatic. There’s a program called the Single Integrated Operational Plan. Our bombers and missiles take off with about three thousand nuclear weapons, and head for a thousand targets in the Communist bloc.” Mawhinney made a flattening motion with his hand. “Wipe them out,” he said with relish.
George was not buying this attitude. “And they do the same to us.”
Mawhinney looked annoyed. “Listen, if we get the first punch in, we can destroy most of their weapons before they get off the ground.”
“But we’re not likely to get the first punch in, because we’re not barbarians, and we don’t want to start a nuclear war that would kill millions.”
“That’s where you politicians go wrong. A first strike is the way to win.”
“Even if we do what you want, we’ll only destroy most of their weapons, you said.”
“Obviously, we won’t get a hundred percent.”
“So, whatever happens, the USA gets nuked.”
“War is not a picnic,” Mawhinney said angrily.
“If we avoid war, we can carry on having picnics.”
Larry looked at his watch. “ExComm at ten,” he said.
They left the Situation Room and went upstairs to the Cabinet Room. The president’s senior advisers were gathering, with their aides. President Kennedy entered a few minutes after ten. This was the first time George had seen him since Maria’s abortion. He stared at the president with new eyes. This middle-aged man in the dark suit with the faint stripe had fucked a young woman, then let her go to the abortion doctor on her own. George felt a momentary flash of pure vitriolic rage. At that moment he could have killed Jack Kennedy.
All the same, the president did not look evil. He was bearing the strain of the cares of the world, literally, and George, against his will, felt a pang of sympathy, too.
As usual, CIA chief McCone opened the meeting with an intelligence summary. In his customary soporific drone he announced news frightening enough to keep everyone wide awake. Five medium-range missile sites in Cuba were now fully operational. Each had four missiles, so there were now twenty nuclear weapons pointed at the United States and ready to be fired.
At least one had to be targeted on this building, George thought grimly, and his stomach cramped in fear.
McCone proposed round-the-clock surveillance of the sites. Eight U.S. Navy jets were ready to take off from Key West to overfly the launchpads at low level. Another eight would travel the same circuit this afternoon. When it got dark they would go again, illuminating the sites with flares. In addition, high-altitude reconnaissance flights by U-2 spy planes would continue.
George wondered what good that would do. The overflights might detect prelaunch activity, but what could the U.S. do about that? Even if the American bombers took off immediately, they would not reach Cuba before the missiles were fired.
And there was another problem. As well as nuclear missiles aimed at the USA, the Red Army in Cuba had SAMs, surface-to-air missiles designed to bring down aircraft. All twenty-four SAM batteries were operational, McCone reported, and their radar equipment had been switched on. So American planes overflying Cuba would now be tracked and targeted.
An aide came into the room with a long sheet of paper torn off a teletype machine. He gave it to President Kennedy. “This is from the Associated Press in Moscow,” said the president, and he read it aloud. “‘Premier Khrushchev told President Kennedy yesterday he would withdraw offensive weapons from Cuba if the United States withdrew its rockets from Turkey.’”
Mac Bundy, the national security adviser, said: “He did not.”
George was as puzzled as everyone else. Khrushchev’s letter yesterday had demanded that the USA promise not to invade Cuba. It had said nothing about Turkey. Had the Associated Press made a mistake? Or was Khrushchev up to his usual tricks?
The president said: “He may be putting out another letter.”
That turned out to be the truth. In the next few minutes, further reports made the situation clearer. Khrushchev was making a completely separate new proposal, and had broadcast it on Radio Moscow.
“He’s got us in a pretty good spot here,” said President Kennedy. “Most people would regard this as not an unreasonable proposal.”
Mac Bundy did not like that idea. “What ‘most people,’ Mr. President?”
The president said: “I think you’re going to find it difficult to explain why we want to take hostile military action in Cuba when he’s saying: ‘Get yours out of Turkey and we’ll get ours out of Cuba.’ I think you’ve got a very touchy point there.”
Bundy argued for going back to Khrushchev’s first offer. “Why pick that track when he’s offered us the other track in the last twenty-four hours?”
Impatiently, the president said: “This is their new and latest position—and it’s a public one.” The press did not yet know about Khrushchev’s letter, but this new proposal had been made through the media.
Bundy persisted. America’s NATO allies would feel betrayed if the U.S. traded missiles, he said.
Defense Secretary Bob McNamara expressed the bewilderment and fear that they all felt. “We had one deal in the letter, now we’ve got a different one,” he said. “How can we negotiate with somebody who changes his deal before we even get a chance to reply?”
No one knew the answer.
• • •
That Saturday, the royal poinsettia trees in the streets of Havana blossomed with brilliant red flowers like bloodstains on the sky.
Early in the morning Tanya went to the store and grimly laid in provisions for the end of the world: smoked meat, canned milk, processed cheese, a carton of cigarettes, a bottle of rum, and fresh batteries for her flashlight. Although it was daybreak there was a line, but she waited only fifteen minutes, which was nothing to someone accustomed to Moscow queues.
There was a doomsday air in the narrow streets of the old town. Habaneros were no longer waving machetes and singing the national anthem. They were collecting sand in buckets for putting out fires, sticking gummed paper over their windows to minimize flying shards, toting sacks of flour. They had been so foolish as to defy their superpower neighbor, and now they were going to be punished. They should have known better.
Were they right? Was war unavoidable now? Tanya felt sure no world leader really wanted it, not even Castro, who was beginning to sound borderline crazy. But it could happen anyway. She thought gloomily of the events of 1914. No one had wanted war then. But the Austrian emperor had seen Serbian independence as a threat, in the same way that Kennedy saw Cuban independence as a threat. And once Austria declared war on Serbia the dominoes fell with deadly inevitability until half the planet was involved in a conflict more cruel and bloody than any the world had previously known. But surely that could be avoided this time?
She thought of Vasili Yenkov, in a prison camp in Siberia. Ironically, he might have a chance of surviving a nuclear war. His punishment might save his life. She hoped so.
When she got back to her apartment she turned on the radio. It was tuned to one of the American stations broadcasting from Florida. The news was that Khrushchev had offered Kennedy a deal. He would withdraw the missiles from Cuba if Kennedy would do the same in Turkey.
She looked at her canned milk with a feeling of overwhelming relief. Maybe she would not need emergency rations after all.
She told herself it was too soon to feel safe. Would Kennedy accept? Would he prove wiser than the ultraconservative Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria?
A car honked outside. She had a long-standing date to fly to the eastern end of Cuba with Paz today to write about a Soviet antiaircraft battery. She had not really expected him to show up, but when she looked out of the window she saw his Buick station wagon at the curb, its wipers struggling to cope with a tropical rainstorm. She picked up her raincoat and bag and went out.
“Have you seen what your leader has done?” he asked angrily as soon as she got into the car.
She was surprised by his rage. “You mean the Turkey offer?”
“He didn’t even consult us!” Paz pulled away, driving too fast along the narrow streets.
Tanya had not even thought about whether the Cuban leaders should be part of the negotiation. Obviously Khrushchev, too, had overlooked the need for this courtesy. The world saw the crisis as a conflict of superpowers, but naturally the Cubans still imagined it was about them. And this faint prospect of a peace deal seemed to them a betrayal.
She needed to calm Paz down, if only to prevent a road accident. “What would you have said, if Khrushchev had asked you?”
“That we will not trade our security for Turkey’s!” he said, and banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.
Nuclear weapons had not brought security to Cuba, Tanya reflected. They had done the opposite. Cuba’s sovereignty was more threatened today than ever. But she decided not to enrage Paz further by pointing this out.
He drove to a military airstrip outside Havana where their plane was waiting, a Yakovlev Yak-16 propeller-driven Soviet light transport aircraft. Tanya looked at it with interest. She had never intended to be a war correspondent but, to avoid appearing ignorant, she had taken pains to learn the stuff men knew, especially how to identify aircraft, tanks, and ships. This was the military modification of the Yak, she saw, with a machine gun mounted in a ball turret on top of the fuselage.
They shared the ten-seat cabin with two majors of the 32nd Guards air fighter regiment, dressed in the loud check shirts and peg-top pants that had been issued in a clumsy attempt to disguise Soviet troops as Cubans.
Takeoff was a little too exciting: it was the rainy season in the Caribbean, and there were gusty winds, too. When they could see the land below, through gaps in the clouds, they glimpsed a collage of brown and green patches crazed with crooked yellow lines of dirt road. The little plane was tossed around in a storm for two hours. Then the sky cleared, with the rapidity characteristic of tropical weather changes, and they landed smoothly near the town of Banes.
They were met by a Red Army colonel called Ivanov who already knew all about Tanya and the article she was writing. He drove them to an antiaircraft base. They arrived at ten A.M., Cuban time.
The site was laid out as a six-pointed star, with the command post in the center and the launchers at the points. Beside each launcher stood a transporter trailer bearing a single surface-to-air missile. The troops looked miserable in their waterlogged trenches. Inside the command post, officers stared intently at green radar screens that beeped monotonously.
Ivanov introduced them to the major in command of the battery. He was obviously tense. No doubt he would have preferred not to have visiting VIPs on a day such as this.
A few minutes after they arrived, a foreign aircraft was sighted at high altitude entering Cuban airspace two hundred miles west. It was given the tag Target No. 33.
Everyone was speaking Russian, so Tanya had to translate for Paz. “It must be a U-2 spy plane,” he said. “Nothing else flies that high.”
Tanya was suspicious. “Is this a drill?” she asked Ivanov.
“We were planning to fake something, for your benefit,” he said. “But actually this is the real thing.”
He looked so worried that Tanya believed him. “We’re not going to shoot it down, are we?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“The arrogance of these Americans!” Paz raved. “Flying right above us! What would they say if a Cuban plane overflew Fort Bragg? Imagine their indignation!”
The major ordered a combat alert, and Soviet troops began to move missiles from transporters to launchers, and to attach the cables. They did it with calm efficiency, and Tanya guessed they had practised many times.
A captain was plotting the course of the U-2 on a map. Cuba was long and thin, 777 miles from east to west but only fifty to a hundred miles from north to south. Tanya saw that the spy plane was already fifty miles inside Cuba. “How fast do they fly?” she asked.
Ivanov answered: “Five hundred miles an hour.”
“How high?”
“Seventy thousand feet, roughly double the altitude of a regular jet airline flight.”
“Can we really hit a target that far away and moving so fast?”
“We don’t need a direct hit. The missile has a proximity fuse. It explodes when it gets close.”
“I know we’re targeting this plane,” she said. “But please tell me we’re not actually going to fire at it.”
“The major is calling for instructions.”
“But the Americans might retaliate.”
“Not my decision.”
The radar was tracking the intruder plane, and a lieutenant reading from a screen called out its height, speed, and distance. Outside the command post, the Soviet artillerymen adjusted the aim of the launchers to follow Target No. 33. The U-2 crossed Cuba from north to south, then turned east, following the coast, coming closer to Banes. Outside, the missile launchers turned slowly on their pivoting bases, tracking the target like wolves sniffing the air. Tanya said to Paz: “What if they fire by accident?”
That was not what he was thinking about. “It’s taking pictures of our positions!” he said. “Those photographs will be used to guide their army when they invade—which could be in a few hours’ time.”
“The invasion is much more likely to happen if you kill an American pilot!”
The major had the phone to his ear while he watched the fire-control radar. He looked up at Ivanov and said: “They’re checking with Pliyev.” Tanya knew that Pliyev was the Soviet commander in chief in Cuba. But surely Pliyev would not shoot down an American plane without authorization from Moscow?
The U-2 reached the southernmost tip of Cuba and turned, following the north coast. Banes was near the coast. The U-2’s course would bring it directly overhead. But at any instant it could turn north—and then, traveling at about a mile a second, it could quickly be out of range.
“Shoot it down!” said Paz. “Now!”
Everyone ignored him.
The plane turned north. It was almost directly above the battery, though thirteen miles high.
Just a few more seconds, please, Tanya thought, praying to she knew not what god.
Tanya, Paz, and Ivanov stared at the major, who stared at the screen. The room was silent but for the beeping of the radar.
Then the major said: “Yes, sir.”
What was it—reprieve or doom?
Without putting down the phone, he spoke to the men in the room. “Destroy Target No. 33. Fire two missiles.”
“No!” said Tanya.
There was a roar of sound. Tanya looked through the window. A missile rose from its launcher and was gone in a blink. Another followed seconds later. Tanya put her hand to her mouth, feeling she might vomit in fear.
They would take about a minute to reach an altitude of thirteen miles.
Something might go wrong, Tanya thought. The missiles could malfunction, veer off course, and land harmlessly in the sea.
On the radar screen, two small dots approached a larger one.
Tanya prayed they would miss.
They went fast, then all three dots merged.
Paz let out a yell of triumph.
Then a scatter of smaller dots sprayed across the screen.
Speaking into the phone, the major said: “Target No. 33 is destroyed.”
Tanya looked out of the window, as if she might see the U-2 crashing to earth.
The major raised his voice. “It’s a kill. Well done, everyone.”
Tanya said: “And what will President Kennedy do to us now?”
• • •
George was full of hope on Saturday afternoon. Khrushchev’s messages were inconsistent and confusing, but the Soviet leader seemed to be seeking a way out of the crisis. And President Kennedy certainly did not want war. Given goodwill on both sides, it seemed inconceivable that they would fail.
On his way to the Cabinet Room, George stopped by the press office and found Maria at her desk. She was wearing a smart gray dress, but she had on a bright pink headband, as if to announce to the world that she was well and happy. George decided not to ask how she was: clearly she did not want to be treated as an invalid. “Are you busy?” he said.
“We’re waiting for the president’s reply to Khrushchev,” she said. “The Soviet offer was made publicly, so we’re assuming the American response will be released to the press.”
“That’s the meeting I’m going to with Bobby,” George said. “To draft the response.”
“Swapping missiles in Cuba for missiles in Turkey seems like a reasonable proposal,” she said. “Especially as it may save all our lives.”
“Your mom says that.”
He laughed and moved on. In the Cabinet Room, advisers and their aides were gathering for the four o’clock meeting of ExComm. Among a knot of military aides by the door, Larry Mawhinney was saying: “We have to stop them giving Turkey to the Communists!”
George groaned. The military saw everything as a fight to the death. In truth, nobody was going to give Turkey away. The proposal was to scrap some missiles that were obsolete anyway. Was the Pentagon really going to oppose a peace deal? He could hardly believe it.
President Kennedy came in and took his usual place, in the middle of the long table with the windows behind him. They all had copies of a draft response put together earlier. It said that the USA could not discuss missiles in Turkey until the Cuba crisis had been resolved. The president did not like the wording of this reply to Khrushchev. “We’re rejecting his message,” he complained. “He” was always Khrushchev: Kennedy saw this as a personal conflict. “This is not going to be successful. He’s going to announce that we’ve rejected his proposal. Our position ought to be that we’re glad to discuss this matter—once we get a positive indication that they have ceased their work in Cuba.”
Someone said: “That really injects Turkey as a quid pro quo.”
National Security Adviser Mac Bundy chimed in: “That’s my worry.” Bundy, whose hair was receding although he was only forty-three, came from a Republican family and tended to be hard-line. “If we sound, to NATO and other allies, as if we want to make this trade, then we’re in real trouble.”
George was disheartened: Bundy was lining up with the Pentagon, against a deal.
Bundy went on: “If we appear to be trading the defense of Turkey for a threat to Cuba, we’ll just have to face a radical decline in the effectiveness of the alliance.”
That was the problem, George realized. The Jupiter missiles might have been obsolete, but they symbolized American determination to resist the spread of Communism.
The president was not convinced by Bundy. “The situation is moving there, Mac.”
Bundy persisted. “The justification for this message is that we expect it to be turned down.”
Really? thought George. He was pretty sure President Kennedy and his brother did not see it that way.
“We expect to be acting against Cuba tomorrow or the next day,” Bundy went on. “What’s our military plan?”
This was not how George had thought the meeting would go. They should be talking about peace, not war.
Defense Secretary Bob McNamara, the whiz kid from Ford, answered the question. “A large air strike leading to invasion.” Then he turned the argument back to Turkey. “To minimize the Soviet response against NATO following a U.S. attack on Cuba, we get those Jupiters out of Turkey before the Cuban attack—and let the Soviets know. On that basis, I don’t believe the Soviets would strike Turkey.”
That was ironic, George thought: to protect Turkey, it was necessary to take away its nuclear weapons.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who George thought was one of the smarter men in the room, warned: “They might take some other action—in Berlin.”
George marveled that the American president could not attack a Caribbean island without calculating the repercussions five thousand miles away in Eastern Europe. It showed how the entire planet was a chess board for the two superpowers.
McNamara said: “I’m not prepared at this moment to recommend air attacks on Cuba. I’m just saying we must now begin to look at it more realistically.”
General Maxwell Taylor spoke. He had been in touch with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The recommendation they give is that the big strike, Operations Plan 312, be executed no later than Monday morning, unless there is irrefutable evidence in the meantime that offensive weapons are being dismantled.”
Sitting behind Taylor, Mawhinney and his friends looked pleased. Just like the military, George thought: they could hardly wait to go into battle, even though it might mean the end of the world. He prayed that the politicians in the room would not be guided by the soldiers.
Taylor continued: “And that the execution of this strike plan be followed by the execution of 316, the invasion plan, seven days later.”
Bobby Kennedy said sarcastically: “Well, I’m surprised.”
There was loud laughter around the table. Everyone thought the military’s recommendations were absurdly predictable, it seemed. George felt relieved.
But the mood became grim again when McNamara, reading a note passed to him by an aide, suddenly said: “The U-2 was shot down.”
George gasped. He knew that a CIA spy plane had gone silent during a mission over Cuba, but everyone was hoping it had suffered a radio problem and was on its way home.
President Kennedy evidently had not been briefed about the missing plane. “A U-2 was shot down?” he said, and there was fear in his voice.
George knew why the president was appalled. Until this moment, the superpowers had been nose to nose, but all they had done was threaten one another. Now the first shot had been fired. From this point on, it would be much more difficult to avoid war.
“Wright just said it was found shot down,” McNamara said. Colonel John Wright was with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Bobby said: “Was the pilot killed?”
As so often, he had asked the key question.
General Taylor said: “The pilot’s body is in the plane.”
President Kennedy said: “Did anyone see the pilot?”
“Yes, sir,” Taylor replied. “The wreckage is on the ground and the pilot’s dead.”
The room went quiet. This changed everything. An American was dead, shot down in Cuba by Soviet guns.
Taylor said: “That raises the question of retaliation.”
It certainly did. The American people would demand revenge. George felt the same. Suddenly he yearned for the president to launch the massive air attack that the Pentagon had demanded. In his mind he saw hundreds of bombers in close formation sweeping across the Florida Straits and dropping their deadly payload on Cuba like a hailstorm. He wanted every missile launcher blown up, all the Soviet troops slaughtered, Castro killed. If the entire Cuban nation suffered, so be it: that would teach them not to kill Americans.
The meeting had been going on for two hours, and the room was foggy with tobacco smoke. The president announced a break. It was a good idea, George thought. George himself certainly needed to calm down. If the others were feeling as bloodthirsty as he was, they were in no state to make rational decisions.
The more important reason for the break, George knew, was that President Kennedy had to take his medicine. Most people knew he had a bad back, but few understood that he fought a constant battle against a whole range of ailments, including Addison’s disease and colitis. Twice a day the doctors shot him up with a cocktail of steroids and antibiotics to keep him functioning.
Bobby undertook to redraft the letter to Khrushchev, with the help of the president’s cheerful young speechwriter Ted Sorensen. The two of them went with their aides to the president’s study, a cramped room next to the Oval Office. George took a pen and yellow pad and wrote down everything Bobby told him to. With only two people discussing it, the draft was done quickly.
The key paragraphs were:
1. You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and undertake, with suitable safeguards, to halt the further introduction of such weapons systems into Cuba.
2. We, on our part, would agree—upon the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments—(a) to remove promptly the quarantine arrangements now in effect and (b) to give assurances against an invasion of Cuba and I am confident that other nations of the Western Hemisphere would be prepared to do likewise.
The USA was accepting Khrushchev’s first offer. But what about his second? Bobby and Sorensen agreed to say:
The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding “other armaments” as proposed in your second letter.
It was not much, just a hint of a promise to discuss something, but it was probably the most that ExComm would allow.
George privately wondered how this could possibly be enough.
He gave his handwritten draft to one of the president’s secretaries and asked her to get it typed. A few minutes later, Bobby was summoned to the Oval Office, where a smaller group was gathering: the president, Dean Rusk, Mac Bundy, and two or three others, with their closest aides. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was excluded: he was a smart political operator, in George’s opinion, but his rough Texas manners grated on the refined Boston Kennedy brothers.
The president wanted Bobby to carry the letter personally to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin. Bobby and Dobrynin had had several informal meetings in the last few days. They did not much like one another, but they were able to speak frankly, and had formed a useful back channel that bypassed the Washington bureaucracy. In a face-to-face meeting, perhaps Bobby could expand on the hint of a promise to discuss the missiles in Turkey—without getting prior approval from ExComm.
Dean Rusk suggested that Bobby could go a little further with Dobrynin. In today’s meetings it had become clear that no one really wanted the Jupiter missiles to remain in Turkey. From a strictly military point of view they were useless. The problem was cosmetic: the Turkish government and the other NATO allies would be angered if the USA traded those missiles in a Cuba settlement. Rusk suggested a solution that George thought was very smart. “Offer to pull the Jupiters out later—say, in five or six months’ time,” said Rusk. “Then we can do it quietly, with the agreement of our allies, and step up the Mediterranean activity of our nuclear-armed submarines to compensate. But the Soviets have to promise to keep that deal deadly secret.”
It was a startling suggestion, but brilliant, George thought.
Everyone agreed with remarkable speed. ExComm discussions had rambled all over the globe for most of the day, but this smaller group here in the Oval Office had suddenly become decisive. Bobby said to George: “Call Dobrynin.” He looked at his watch, and George did the same: it was seven fifteen P.M. “Ask him to meet me at the Justice Department in half an hour,” Bobby said.
The president added: “And release the letter to the press fifteen minutes later.”
George stepped into the secretaries’ office next to the Oval Office and picked up a phone. “Get me the Soviet embassy,” he said to the switchboard operator.
The ambassador agreed instantly to the meeting.
George took the typed letter to Maria and told her the president wanted it released to the press at eight P.M.
She looked anxiously at her watch, then said: “Okay, girls, we’d better go to work.”
Bobby and George left the White House and a car drove them the few blocks to the Justice Department. In the gloomy weekend lighting, the statues in the Great Hall seemed to watch the two men suspiciously. George explained to the security staff that an important visitor would shortly arrive to see Bobby.
They went up in the elevator. George thought Bobby looked exhausted, and undoubtedly he was. The corridors of the huge building echoed emptily. Bobby’s cavernous office was dimly lit, but he did not bother to switch on more lamps. He slumped behind his wide desk and rubbed his eyes.
George looked out of the window at the streetlights. The center of Washington was a pretty park full of monuments and palaces, but the rest of it was a densely populated metropolis with five million residents, more than half of them black. Would the city be here this time tomorrow? George had seen pictures of Hiroshima: miles of buildings flattened to rubble, and burned and maimed survivors on the outskirts, staring with uncomprehending eyes at the unrecognizable world around them. Would Washington look like that in the morning?
Ambassador Dobrynin was shown in at exactly a quarter to eight. He was a bald man in his early forties, and he clearly relished his informal meetings with the president’s brother.
“I want to lay out the current alarming situation the way the president sees it,” Bobby said. “One of our planes has been shot down over Cuba and the pilot is dead.”
“Your planes have no right to fly over Cuba,” Dobrynin said quickly.
Bobby’s discussions with Dobrynin could be combative, but today the attorney general was in a different mood. “I want you to understand the political realities,” he said. “There is now strong pressure on the president to respond with fire. We can’t stop these overflights: it’s the only way we can check the state of construction of your missile bases. But if the Cubans shoot at our planes, we’re going to shoot back.”
Bobby told Dobrynin what was in the letter from President Kennedy to Secretary Khrushchev.
“And what about Turkey?” Dobrynin said sharply.
Bobby replied carefully. “If that is the only obstacle to achieving the regulation I mentioned earlier, the president doesn’t see any insurmountable difficulties. The greatest difficulty for the president is the public discussion of the issue. If such a decision were announced now it would tear NATO apart. We need four to five months to remove the missiles from Turkey. But this is extremely confidential: only a handful of people know that I am saying this to you.”
George watched Dobrynin’s face carefully. Was it his imagination, or was the diplomat concealing a rush of excitement?
Bobby said: “George, give the ambassador the phone numbers we use to get to the president directly.”
George grabbed a pad, wrote down three numbers, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Dobrynin.
Bobby stood up, and the ambassador did the same. “I need an answer tomorrow,” Bobby said. “That’s not an ultimatum, it’s the reality. Our generals are itching for a fight. And don’t send us one of those long Khrushchev letters that take all day to translate. We need a clear, businesslike answer from you, Mr. Ambassador. And we need it fast.”
“Very well,” said the Russian, and he went out.
• • •
On Sunday morning, the KGB station chief in Havana reported to the Kremlin that the Cubans now thought an American attack was inevitable.
Dimka was at a government dacha at Novo-Ogaryevo, a picturesque village on the outskirts of Moscow. The dacha was a small place with white columns that made it look a bit like the White House in Washington. Dimka was preparing for the Presidium meeting to be held here in a few minutes, at twelve noon. He went around the long oak table with eighteen briefing folders, putting one in each place. They contained President Kennedy’s latest message to Khrushchev, translated into Russian.
Dimka felt hopeful. The American president had agreed to everything Khrushchev had originally demanded. If this letter had arrived, miraculously, minutes after Khrushchev’s first message had been sent, the crisis would have been over instantly. But the delay had permitted Khrushchev to add to his demands. And, unfortunately, Kennedy’s letter did not directly mention Turkey. Dimka did not know whether that would be a sticking point for his boss.
The Presidium members were assembling when Natalya Smotrov came into the room. Dimka noticed first that her curly hair was getting longer and sexier, and second that she looked scared. He had been trying to get a few minutes with her to tell her about his engagement. He felt he could not give the news to anyone in the Kremlin until he had told Natalya. But once again this was not a good moment. He needed her alone.
She came straight to him and said: “Those imbeciles have shot down an American plane.”
“Oh, no!”
She nodded. “A U-2 spy plane. The pilot is dead.”
“Shit! Who did it, us or the Cubans?”
“No one will say, which means it was probably us.”
“But no such order was given!”
“Exactly.”
This was what they had both feared: that someone would start the shooting without authorization.
The members were taking their seats, aides behind them as usual. “I’ll go and tell him,” Dimka said but, as he spoke, Khrushchev came in. Dimka hurried to his side and murmured the news in the leader’s ear as he sat down. Khrushchev did not reply, but looked grim.
He opened the meeting with what was clearly a prepared speech. “There was a time when we advanced, as in October 1917; but in March 1918 we had to retreat, having signed the Brest-Litovsk agreement with the Germans,” he began. “Now we find ourselves face-to-face with the danger of war and nuclear catastrophe, with the possible result of destroying the human race. In order to save the world, we must retreat.”
That sounded like the beginning of an argument for compromise, Dimka thought.
But Khrushchev quickly turned to military considerations. What should the Soviet Union do if the Americans were to attack Cuba today, as the Cubans themselves fully expected? General Pliyev must be instructed to defend Soviet forces in Cuba. But he should ask permission before using nuclear weapons.
While the Presidium was discussing that possibility, Dimka was called out of the room by Vera Pletner, his secretary. There was a phone call for him.
Natalya followed him out.
The Foreign Ministry had news that must be passed to Khrushchev immediately—yes, in the middle of the meeting. A cable had just been received from the Soviet ambassador in Washington. Bobby Kennedy had told him the missiles in Turkey would be removed in four or five months—but this must be kept deadly secret.
“This is good news!” Dimka said delightedly. “I’ll tell him right away.”
“One more thing,” said the Foreign Ministry official. “Bobby kept stressing the need for speed. Apparently the American president is under severe pressure from the Pentagon to attack Cuba.”
“Just as we thought.”
“Bobby kept saying there is very little time. They must have their answer today.”
“I’ll tell him.”
He hung up. Natalya was standing beside him, looking expectant. She had a nose for news. He told her: “Bobby Kennedy offered to remove the missiles from Turkey.”
She smiled broadly. “It’s over!” she said. “We’ve won!” Then she kissed him on the lips.
Dimka went back into the room in high excitement. Malinovsky, the defense minister, was speaking. Dimka went up to Khrushchev and said in a low voice: “A cable from Dobrynin—he’s received a new offer from Bobby Kennedy.”
“Tell everyone,” Khrushchev said, interrupting the speaker.
Dimka repeated what he had been told.
Presidium members rarely smiled, but Dimka now saw broad grins around the table. Kennedy had given them everything they had asked for! It was a triumph for the Soviet Union and for Khrushchev personally.
“We must accept as quickly as possible,” Khrushchev said. “Bring in a stenographer. I will dictate our letter of acceptance immediately, and it must be broadcast on Radio Moscow.”
Malinovsky said: “When should I instruct Pliyev to start dismantling the missile launchers?”
Khrushchev looked at him as if he were stupid. “Now,” he said.
• • •
After the Presidium, Dimka at last got Natalya alone. She was sitting in an anteroom, going through her notes of the meeting. “I have something to tell you,” he said. For some reason he had a feeling of discomfort in his stomach, though he had nothing to be nervous about.
“Go ahead.” She turned a page in her notebook.
He hesitated, feeling he did not have her attention.
Natalya put down the book and smiled.
Now or never.
Dimka said: “Nina and I are engaged to be married.”
Natalya went pale and her mouth dropped open in shock.
Dimka felt the need to say something else. “We told my family yesterday,” he said. “At my grandfather’s birthday party.” Stop gabbling, shut up, he told himself. “He’s seventy-four.”
When Natalya spoke, her words shocked him. “What about me?” she said.
He hardly understood what she meant. “You?” he said.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We spent a night together.”
“I’ll never forget it.” Dimka was baffled. “But afterward, all you would say to me was that you were married.”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
Her face showed genuine distress. Her wide mouth was twisted in a grimace, almost as if she were in pain. “Don’t get married, please!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to.”
Dimka was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“But now it’s too late.”
“Is it?” She looked at him with pleading eyes. “You can break off an engagement . . . if you want to.”
“Nina is going to have a baby.”
Natalya gasped.
Dimka said: “You should have said something . . . before . . .”
“And if I had?”
He shook his head. “There is no point in discussing it.”
“No,” she said. “I see that.”
“Well,” said Dimka, “at least we avoided a nuclear war.”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re alive. That’s something.”