CHAPTER 14:
“HEDGEHOGS DOWN THE AMERICANS’ TROUSERS”
In April 1962, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev was in Bulgaria on a state visit. But his thoughts were thousands of miles away in the Caribbean. He worried that the United States was preparing to invade Cuba, and was preoccupied with defending the Cuban revolution.
The idea of deploying Soviet missiles to Cuba came to Khrushchev as he strolled along the Black Sea in Varna, Bulgaria, from the state guest house to the Black Sea and back through the forest in Varna Park, with Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky. Malinovsky pointed to Turkey across the Black Sea, noting the U.S. Jupiter missile base there. Intermediate-range Jupiter missiles could reach targets in the Ukraine and southern Russia within a matter of minutes. Khrushchev asked why the Soviet Union did not have the right to deploy missiles to Cuba as the United States did in Turkey. He became convinced that the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba would deter a U.S. invasion of Cuba.574 Back in Moscow, Khrushchev pressed Malinovsky again: “What about putting one of our hedgehogs down the Americans’ trousers?”
This time, however, Khrushchev made a strategic argument. He pointed out that the installation of missiles in Cuba would also augment the Soviet Union’s strategic nuclear force.
He elaborated, “According to our intelligence we are lagging almost fifteen years behind the Americans in warheads. We cannot reduce that lead even in ten years. But our rockets on America’s doorstep would drastically alter the situation and go a long way towards compensating us for the lag in time.” Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba would be capable of striking targets deep inside the United States, including New York and Washington.
The Kremlin was acutely aware of the margin of U.S. superiority over the Soviet Union in strategic nuclear weapons. According to Anatoly Dobrynin, the USSR’s ambassador in Washington, the USSR had 300 nuclear warheads compared to a U.S. arsenal of 5,000 warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and B-52 bombers with an intercontinental range in October 1962.575 Khrushchev discussed his plan to deploy Soviet missiles to Cuba with only a handful of Soviet leaders.576
Khrushchev consulted Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko about his missile deployment plan. “The situation forming around Cuba at the moment is dangerous,” Khrushchev said. “It is essential that we deploy a certain quantity of our nuclear missiles there for its defense, as an independent state.” Gromyko responded, “I have to say quite frankly that taking our own nuclear missiles to Cuba will cause a political explosion in the United States.” The chairman dismissed Gromyko’s warning. Instead, he sought the counsel of Anastas Mikoyan, a veteran member of the Presidium and his closest associate.
Khrushchev later wrote, “Comrade Mikoyan expressed his reservations.” Khrushchev continued, “His opinion was that we would be taking a dangerous step… This step bordered on adventurism. This risk lay in the fact that in wanting to save Cuba, we could be drawn into a very terrible and unprecedented nuclear missile war. That had to be avoided by every possible means, and to consciously provoke such a war would really be dangerous.”577
Khrushchev would not be deterred. On May 24, 1962, the Presidium met to consider Khrushchev’s missile deployment idea. According to the minutes of the meeting, the Presidium gave “full and unanimous approval of enterprise ‘Anadyr’ (subject to receiving F. Castro’s agreement).”578 KGB officer Alexandr Alexiev was summoned back to Moscow from his post in Cuba. When Khrushchev informed him that he would return to Cuba as the new Soviet ambassador, Alexiev was puzzled, because he was not a diplomat. Khrushchev explained, “What is important is that you are friendly with Fidel, with the leadership.” He noted, “And they believe in you, which is the most important thing.”
Khrushchev added, “Comrade Alexiev, to help Cuba, to save the Cuban revolution, we have reached a decision to place rockets in Cuba.” He asked, “What do you think? How will Fidel react? Will he accept or not?” Alexiev said he thought Castro would reject the missiles because they would compromise the independence of the Cuban revolution. Khrushchev responded, “There’s no other way for us to defend him.” He continued, “The Americans only understand force. We can give them back the same medicine they gave us in Turkey. Kennedy is pragmatic, he is an intellectual, he’ll comprehend and won’t go to war… [I]t’s just to frighten them a bit…. They have to swallow the pill like we swallowed the Turkish one.”
The success of Khrushchev’s exercise in Soviet missile power was based on presenting President Kennedy with a fait accompli. The Soviet “hedgehogs” would be installed in Cuba while Washington was preoccupied with the November 1962 congressional elections. Khrushchev planned to tell Kennedy about the Soviet missile deployment after the November elections, when the missiles were fully operational. Khrushchev believed that Kennedy would not launch U.S. military strikes against the missile sites, because he could not be sure of taking out all of the missiles. He reasoned that Kennedy would grudgingly accept the missiles in Cuba as an alternative to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.579
In June, Alexiev returned to Cuba with a delegation from the Soviet Union, including Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, head of the Strategic Rocket Forces, and Politburo member Sharaf Rashidov. When the delegation met with Fidel Castro, the Soviets discussed the international situation and the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Cuba. Marshal Biryuzov asked Castro what he thought would deter U.S. military intervention. Castro replied, “If the United States knows that an invasion of Cuba would imply war with the Soviet Union, then, in my view, that would be the best way to prevent an invasion of Cuba.” Castro wanted a formal Cuba-USSR defense pact.
The Soviet delegation insisted that only the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba would prevent U.S. intervention. The Soviets said the missiles would also enhance the power of the USSR and the Socialist bloc of nations. Castro responded, “If making such a decision is indispensable for the socialist camp, I think we will agree to the deployment of Soviet missiles on our island.” But he wanted to consult with his closest colleagues before making a decision about the missiles.
The next day Alexiev met again with Castro, who was joined by Che Guevara, President Osvaldo Dorticós, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, and Blas Roca. Guevara stated, “Anything that can stop the Americans is worthwhile.” The Cubans approved the broad outline of the missile deployment plan. The details would be negotiated later in Moscow.580 The idea that Soviet missiles in Cuba would make the Socialist bloc stronger appealed to the Cuban revolutionaries. It also tempered their concern that the missiles would compromise the independence of the revolution.581
On July 2, 1962, Raúl Castro led a Cuban delegation to Moscow to negotiate the details of the Soviet missile deployment. Raúl met with Khrushchev twice. Raúl and Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky initialed a treaty to formalize the missile deployment. The treaty stipulated that the missiles would be completely controlled by the USSR. But the Soviets refused make the treaty public.
Raúl, following Fidel’s instructions, asked Khrushchev what the Soviet Union would do if the United States discovered the missiles before they were operational. Khrushchev replied, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.” He added, “If the Americans start getting nervous, we’ll send our Baltic fleet as a show of support.” Fidel was not satisfied. He thought the missile agreement should be announced publicly to put the United States on notice. He wanted explicit wording that U.S. intervention would be treated as if it were a military attack against the USSR.
In August 1962, Guevara and Emilio Aragonés traveled to Moscow to renegotiate the missile agreement. The changes Fidel wanted in the treaty text were accepted.582 In July 1962, the Soviet missile deployment to Cuba, code-named Operation Anadyr, named for a river in the Soviet Union’s Arctic region, began in great secrecy. It would turn out to be Khrushchev’s most fateful decision.
Khrushchev closely monitored the progress of Operation Anadyr. Colonel-General Dmitri Volkogonov stated, “He was involved at every phase and concerned with every detail, and saw Malinovsky two or three times a week.” Volkogonov was director of the Institute of Military History in Moscow from 1985 to 1991. Never before had so many merchant vessels sailed simultaneously from ports in the Soviet Union. Freighters from the USSR’s Baltic and Black Sea merchant fleets transported cargoes of missiles, related equipment, and military personnel. Nuclear warheads were shipped in freighters from Murmansk and the remote North Sea Military Base.
The scope of Operation Anadyr was massive. Ambassador Dobrynin wrote, “More than eighty-five ships were secretly used to transport men and material to Cuba, and they made more than 183 runs from different ports under false cover.” The first Soviet missiles arrived in Cuba in mid-September 1962. According to General Anatoli Gribkov, thirty-six medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) were off-loaded from the freighters Omsk and Poltava. On October 4, the Indigirka delivered atomic warheads for MRBMs. In mid-October, the Poltava set out for Cuba with twenty-four IRBM launchers. The Operation Anadyr timetable called for all the missiles to be operational by early November. Gribkov supervised the planning and execution of Anadyr.
In all, forty-two launchers for MRBMs with sixty nuclear warheads were shipped to Cuba. Six launchers for short-range tactical Luna missiles with nuclear warheads were unloaded in Cuban ports. Forty MiG jet aircraft and nine IL-28 bombers were also delivered to Cuba. Along with the missiles and warheads, 42,000 Soviet troops were deployed to the island. The Achilles heel of Operation Anadyr was Khrushchev’s gamble that Soviet missiles could be shipped halfway around the world and installed in Cuba without being discovered by the prying eyes of U.S. U-2 spy planes.583
On October 14, U-2 Mission 3101 took 928 photographs from 70,000 feet above Cuba. The next day the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington made a critical discovery. According to a CIA memorandum, NPIC photo interpreters found evidence of “Soviet MRBMs in the early stages of deployment.”
The Agency memorandum noted that NPIC identified fourteen “canvas-covered trailers” similar to those used to transport MRBMs in the USSR. CIA photo interpreters also detected “four specifically configured vehicles… used for missile erection in a field environment.” The MRBM-related equipment was spotted in the Sierra del Rosario mountains about fifty miles southwest of Havana.584
NPIC director Arthur Lundahl informed CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) Ray Cline about the findings of his photo analysts. On the evening of October fifty Cline telephoned National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy at his home. Cline told Bundy, “Those things we’ve been worrying about in Cuba are there.” Bundy said that he wanted to see the photographic evidence first thing in the morning.
On October 16, Cline and Lundahl briefed Bundy on U-2 Mission 3101 in his White House basement office at 8 a.m. Lundahl showed Bundy three enlarged photographs of MRBM sites. Bundy asked the CIA men to wait in his office while he went to the White House family quarters to tell the president about the new intelligence.
President Kennedy telephoned his brother Robert, who came over to the White House to look at the photographs. Cline and Lundahl briefed the younger Kennedy, who cursed “Oh shit! Shit! Shit!” and paced about the office sputtering, “Those sons of bitches Russians.”585 Later in the day Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) Marshall Carter joined Cline and Lundahl to brief President Kennedy. Kennedy asked Lundahl, “Are you sure?” Lundahl replied, “Mr. President, I am as sure of this as a photo interpreter can be of anything.” Kennedy asked, “How long will it be before they can fire those missiles?”
CIA missile analyst Sidney Graybeal said, “We do not believe they are ready to fire.” Kennedy ordered new U-2 flights over Cuba, saying “I want photography interpreted and the findings from the readouts as soon as possible.”586 Two more U-2 missions were flown over Cuba, which revealed a fourth MRBM site at San Cristóbal. NPIC interpreters also identified twenty-one crates for Soviet IL-28 medium-range bombers at an airfield in San Julián. The IL-28 was technically obsolete, but it was capable of carrying nuclear bombs. The IL-28, test flown in 1948, had a cruise radius of 750 miles, compared to MRBMs with a range of 1,100 miles.587
The CIA’s timely identification of the MRBM sites was greatly assisted by Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of Soviet military intelligence (GRU). Penkovsky provided the CIA with a treasure trove of intelligence about Soviet missiles that helped NPIC interpret the raw intelligence provided by the U-2 photos. Penkovsky was a “walk-in” defector, who volunteered to spy for the United States and Great Britain. He was arrested in Moscow in October 1962 and executed the following May.588
However, there was a gap in the U-2 surveillance of Cuba. MRBMs began arriving in Cuba in September 1962, and by the middle of the month, construction work had started on IRBM sites, according to a CIA Directorate of Intelligence Research Staff report. But these developments were not detected until a month later, because of the Kennedy Administration’s reluctance to authorize more U-2 overflights of Cuba.
U-2 missions were flown on September 17, 25, 26, and 29, but they did not fly directly over the island. According to a Directorate of Intelligence Research Staff report, the U-2 missions were “coastal flights which occasionally passed over portions of Cuba near the coast,” far from the areas of missile site construction.589 The intelligence collected by U-2 Mission 3101 would spark an intense debate within the Kennedy Administration.
President Kennedy’s senior advisers remained in the Cabinet Room after a CIA briefing on the Soviet missiles in Cuba on October 16. In this and subsequent meetings of the ad hoc Executive Committee (ExCom) of the National Security Council, Kennedy and his aides struggled to assess the significance of the missiles in Cuba and what to do about them.
Kennedy asked Secretary of State Dean Rusk for his views. Rusk said that the goal of U.S. policy should be to bring about the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. Rusk proposed military action against the missile sites in Cuba: “The question becomes whether we do it by a sudden, unannounced strike of some sort or that we build up the crisis to the point where the other side has to consider very seriously about giving in, or even the Cubans themselves take action on this.”
Rusk said that the time had come to move to the revolt phase of Operation Mongoose. “We then would move more openly and vigorously into the guerrilla field and create maximum confusion on the island,” Rusk counseled. “We won’t be too squeamish at this point about the overt/covert counterpoint of what is being done.”590 Meanwhile, an initial consensus formed in the ExCom in support of air strikes on the missile sites in Cuba. White House aide Theodore Sorensen later wrote, “The idea of American planes suddenly and swiftly eliminating the missile complex with conventional bombs in a matter of minutes—a so-called ‘surgical’ strike—had appeal to almost everyone first considering the matter, including President Kennedy…”
Sorensen added, “But there were grave difficulties to the air-strike alternative, which became clearer each day.” The core members of the ExCom were the members of Kennedy’s foreign-policy inner circle, including Bundy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Robert Kennedy, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, McCone, Rusk, Sorensen, and General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy’s new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.591
McNamara played a forceful role in the ExCom debates. On October 16, he outlined a possible sequence of military action in Cuba, beginning with several days of air attacks on known missile sites. He asserted, “[W]e would be prepared, following the air strike, for an invasion, both by air and by sea.” He added U.S. forces would be ready to invade Cuba seven days after the start of the air strikes. He outlined a five-day air campaign of 700 to 1,000 sorties a day. He estimated an invasion force would require from 90,000 to more than 150,000 U.S. troops. He pointed out that U.S. military intervention “will lead to a Soviet military response of some type, some place in the world.”
At the same time, however, McNamara opposed bombing Soviet missile sites in Cuba if they were operational. Instead, he proposed a naval blockade of Cuba as an alternative to U.S. air strikes or an invasion. “We would plan to maintain [the blockade] indefinitely,” he stated. “[W]e would be prepared to immediately attack the Soviet Union in the event that Cuba made any offensive move against this country.”592
Members of the ExCom knew that the Soviet missiles in Cuba posed a big political problem for President Kennedy. The Republicans would use the missiles to criticize Kennedy’s policy in Cuba. Kennedy lamented to his aides, “The campaign is over,” referring to the November Congressional elections. “This blows it—we’ve lost anyway.”593 Kennedy insisted on maintaining the appearance of “business as usual” until he decided on a course of action. The missile crisis was emotionally and physically grueling for members of the ExCom. The meetings were endless, and the alternatives were risky.
Sorensen recalls, “Each of us changed his mind more than once that week on the best course of action to take—not only because new facts and arguments were adduced but because, in the President’s words, ‘Whatever action we took had so many disadvantages to it and each… raised the prospect that it might escalate the Soviet Union into nuclear war.’”
President Kennedy maintained his scheduled public activities. He met with the West German Foreign Minister and the Crown Prince of Libya. He made public appearances in the Midwest, New England, and upstate New York on behalf of Democratic congressional candidates.594 Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy tried to get Operation Mongoose back on track. At a meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) on October 14, the attorney general complained, “Nothing was moving forward.” According to a memorandum by McCone, Kennedy reported his brother was “dissatisfied by the lack of action in the sabotage field.”
McCone defended the CIA, putting the responsibility for the lack of progress on President Kennedy’s aides. McCone emphasized the Special Group (Augmented)’s “hesitancy” to approve aggressive covert operations “which would involve attribution.” After a series of heated exchanges, a consensus emerged. It was agreed that Mongoose Alternative Course B, approved in early September, was outdated. McCone wrote, “General Lansdale was instructed to give consideration to new and more dynamic approaches, the specific items of sabotage should be brought forward immediately and new ones conceived, that a plan for mining harbors should be developed, and the possibility of capturing Castro forces for interrogation should be studied.”595
On October 16, Robert Kennedy convened another meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) on Mongoose, sandwiched between ExCom meetings. He again expressed the “general dissatisfaction of the President” with the progress of Mongoose. CIA Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) Richard Helms wrote in a memorandum, “The attorney general then stated that in view of this lack of progress, he was going to give Operation Mongoose more personal attention.”
CIA veterans of the Cuba Project had concluded that the main lesson of the Bay of Pigs was covert action by itself could not topple the Cuban revolution. U.S. military intervention was required. The same day, DDCI Marshall Carter outlined new proposals for sabotage operations in a memorandum to Bundy, which focused on hit-and-run attacks on bridges, oil refineries, power plants and SAM sites. Carter also proposed underwater demolition by Cuban frogmen in the port of La Isabela de Sagua, mining the approaches to one or more Cuban harbors with moored oil drums, and setting an oil tanker on fire off Havana or Matanzas harbor. The CIA proposal also included a “grenade attack” on the Embassy of China in Havana.
Robert Kennedy responded favorably to the CIA proposals. Helms wrote, “[H]e made reference to the change in atmosphere in the United States Government during the last twenty-four hours, and asked some questions about the percentage of Cubans whom we thought would fight for the regime if the country were invaded.” On October 16, the ExCom briefly discussed Mongoose. Bundy said, “We have a list of sabotage options, Mr. President.” Bundy noted a proposal for laying mines in “international waters.” Kennedy replied, “I don’t think we need to put mines out right now,” but he gave a green light for the other Mongoose proposals.596
Despite the Kennedy brothers’ renewed interest in Operation Mongoose, the rush of events in Cuba overtook the covert operation.
When the ExCom reconvened on October 16, General Taylor reported on the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s evaluation of U.S. military options in Cuba. Taylor stressed that the Joint Chiefs were adamantly opposed to limited air strikes on Soviet missile sites. He said, “They would prefer no military action rather than to take that limited first strike.”
Taylor told the ExCom, “You’re never sure of… getting everything down there.” He added, “We can certainly do a great deal of damage… [I]n our judgment it would be a great mistake to take this very narrow, selective target because it invited reprisal attacks and it may be detrimental.”
Instead, Taylor pressed for an expanded target list, including Cuban airfields, where Soviet IL-28 bombers and MiG jets were based. He said the bombing campaign would last five days, which would give the Administration time to decide whether to invade Cuba. President Kennedy countered with a proposal for limited U.S. air strikes in Cuba. He was acutely conscious the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of a military confrontation.
Kennedy framed the problem in a global context. He reasoned if the missile crisis were confined to Cuba, “the best thing is to be bold.” But the Soviet missiles had Cold War ramifications. As the crisis in Cuba escalated, so, too, would “the dangers of worldwide effects.” A better approach would be “to get this thing under some degree of control.” He added, “If you go into Cuba in the way we’re talking about, and taking all the planes and all the rest, then you really haven’t got much of an argument against invading it.”597
When McCone met with President Kennedy later in the day, he described Khrushchev’s objective in Cuba as twofold. Khrushchev wanted to provide Cuba “with an offensive or retaliatory power for use if attacked” and to “enhance Soviet strike capability against the United States.” McCone advised Kennedy to tell Khrushchev: The United States has discovered the Soviet missiles in Cuba and will give you twenty-four hours to begin removing them. “If Khrushchev and Castro fail to act, we should make a massive surprise strike at air fields, MRBM sites and SAM sites concurrently.”598
Meanwhile, Kennedy sought the counsel of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, one of the architects of President Harry Truman’s Cold War strategy of containment. On October 17, Acheson attended ExCom meetings and met with President Kennedy. He recommended air strikes limited to Soviet missile sites, which he thought would restore U.S. credibility, but opposed an invasion, because of its prohibitively high military and political costs. He predicted U.S. troops would be needed to occupy Cuba for years after an invasion.
Robert Kennedy strongly disagreed, and he and Acheson clashed bitterly. Kennedy declared his support for a naval blockade of Cuba: “My brother is not going to be the Tojo of the 1960s.”599 He compared U.S. air strikes on missile sites in Cuba without warning to Japan’s surprise bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor. Kennedy later wrote, “I could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands of civilians in a surprise attack.”
Acheson angrily rejected Kennedy’s Pearl Harbor analogy. He pointed out that President Kennedy had warned the USSR publicly in September of the consequences of deploying offensive missiles in Cuba. He asked, “How much of a warning was necessary to avoid the stigma of ‘Pearl Harbor in reverse’?”600
President Kennedy’s closest aides understood that Robert Kennedy was acting as a surrogate for his brother when he advocated a naval blockade of Cuba. Until this point, Robert Kennedy had been a hawk on Cuba.601 A few days earlier, he had suggested fabricating an incident to justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba: “We should also think of whether there is some other way we can get involved in this, through Guantánamo Bay or something. Or whether there’s some ship that… you know, sink the Maine or something.”602 Meanwhile, new U-2 photographs ratcheted up tensions in the missile crisis.
On October 18, McCone and Lundahl briefed President Kennedy and the ExCom on new U-2 intelligence on Cuba. For the first time, CIA photo interpreters had identified intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) facilities under construction in Cuba. Lundahl pointed to missile-launch pads and concrete nuclear-warhead storage bunkers at two sites near Guanajay, twenty-one miles west of Havana, which bore the characteristics of SS-5 IRBM sites in the USSR. He also identified an IRBM site under construction near Remedios, 185 miles east of Havana.
The evidence of IRBM sites was disturbing. The range of IRBMs (2,200 miles) was twice that of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), and their nuclear warheads (five megatons) were nearly twice as powerful as those of MRBMs. The newly discovered IRBM sites had spurred support in the ExCom for full-scale U.S. military intervention in Cuba. Taylor was so troubled by them that he dropped his opposition to an invasion.”603
In between ExCom meetings, President Kennedy met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Oval Office on October 18. The previously scheduled meeting, which Ambassador Dobrynin also attended, was awkward and tense. Gromyko began by protesting the administration’s “anti-Cuba campaign” and support for Cuban exile raids on Cuba. Kennedy assured Gromyko “there was no intention to invade Cuba.” Gromyko reacted skeptically, recalling the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Kennedy said the Soviet Union’s recent shipments of military equipment to Cuba were the real source of tension in the Caribbean. He walked over to his desk, picked up transcripts of his September 4 and 13 press statements on Soviet arms shipments to Cuba, and read them aloud to Gromyko, including his warning that “the gravest of situations would arise” if the Soviet Union delivered weapons to Cuba with offensive capabilities.
Rusk recalled that Gromyko listened to Kennedy with a “poker face,” then replied, “The Soviet Union would never become involved in the furnishing of offensive weapons to Cuba.” Although Gromyko was fully informed about the secret missile deployment, Dobrynin had been kept out of the intelligence loop. Still, Gromyko sent an optimistic report to the Presidium on his meeting with Kennedy. He wrote, “All that we know about the U.S. position on the Cuban question warrants the conclusion that, by and large, the situation is quite satisfactory.” He added, “There is reason to believe that the United States has no current plans for an invasion of Cuba.”604
On October 19, President Kennedy met with General Maxwell Taylor and the Joint Chiefs in the Cabinet Room. The Joint Chiefs made the case for massive air strikes on Soviet missile sites and other military targets in Cuba. General Curtis LeMay, the new Air Force Chief of Staff, dismissed a naval blockade of Cuba as “almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich.” “[W]e don’t have any choice except direct military action,” LeMay declared. “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, particularly your mobile ones. Now, we can’t find them… and we’re going to take some degree of damage if we try to do anything later on.”
Admiral George W. Anderson, the new Chief of Naval Operations, predicted that a blockade would spark a broader military conflict, while General Earle Wheeler, the new Army Chief of Staff, argued that the Soviet missiles in Cuba posed a strategic threat to the United States. “[T]hey can achieve a sizeable increase in offensive Soviet strike capabilities against the United States…,” Wheeler asserted. “They do have ICBMs that are targeted at us, but they are in limited numbers. Their air force is not by any manner of means of the magnitude and capability that they probably desire. And this short-range missile course gives them a quantum jump in their capability to inflict damage on the United States.”
Kennedy told the Joint Chiefs that if the United States bombed targets in Cuba, Khrushchev would likely make a countermove in Berlin. “If we go in and take them out on a quick air strike, we neutralize the danger to the United States of these missiles being used…” Kennedy stated. “On the other hand, we increase the chance greatly… of their just going in and taking Berlin by force. Which leaves me only one alternative, which is to fire nuclear weapons—which is a hell of an alternative—and begin a nuclear exchange, with all of this happening.”605
On October 19, Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 11-18-62 assessed possible Soviet reactions to U.S. military intervention in Cuba. “If the U.S. takes direct military action against Cuba… [w]e do not believe that the USSR would attack the U.S., either from Soviet bases or with its missiles in Cuba, even if the latter were operational and not put out of action before they could be readied for firing.” The SNIE noted, “We believe that whatever course of retaliation the USSR elected, the Soviet leaders would not deliberately initiate general war or take military measures which in their calculation, would run the gravest risks of general war.” The report predicted that Khrushchev may try to hold Berlin “hostage to U.S. action in Cuba.” The Soviet Union might try to deny the West access to Berlin by sealing off the city with a blockade or signing a separate peace treaty with East Germany. The intelligence estimate also suggested that Khrushchev was likely to press for negotiations with Washington about the U.S. missiles in Italy and Turkey aimed at the USSR.
The SNIE warned that the missile crisis could spark an accidental war. The intelligence estimators stated, “We must of course recognize the possibility that the Soviets, under pressure to respond, would again miscalculate and respond in a way which, through a series of actions and reactions, could escalate into general war.”606 With the SNIE’s assessment of possible Soviet responses to U.S. military action in Cuba in hand, President Kennedy decided a naval blockade of Cuba was the least risky option.
On October 20, President Kennedy told the ExCom that he would impose a naval blockade, encircling Cuba with U.S. Navy warships. He authorized the Department of Defense to prepare for air strikes on missile sites in Cuba by October 22. He also instructed the Pentagon to make final preparations for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy’s decision came two days after a CIA evaluation of the missile threat in Cuba concluded that two missile sites west of Havana, with eight mobile launchers and sixteen MRBMs, “must be considered operational.”607
On October 21, General Walter C. Sweeney, commander of the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command, briefed Kennedy on air operations in Cuba. McNamara wrote in his notes on the meeting, “General Sweeney stated that he was certain the planned air strike would be ‘successful.’” McNamara noted, “[H]owever, even under optimum conditions, it was not likely that all of the known missiles would be destroyed.”
Taylor asserted grimly, “The best we can offer you is to destroy 90% of the known missiles.” Robert Kennedy again compared the proposed air strikes to “a Pearl Harbor type attack.” He said U.S. military action in Cuba “would lead to unpredictable military responses [by the Soviet Union] which could be so serious as to lead to general nuclear war.” Attorney General Kennedy again advocated a naval blockade of Cuba.608
Rusk stressed the importance of a “pause” after the blockade was imposed. The ExCom minutes stated, “The U.S. needed to move in a way such that a planned action would be followed by a pause in which the great powers could step back from the brink and have time to consider and work out a solution rather than be drawn inexorably from one action to another and escalate into general nuclear war.”609
With input from Bundy, McNamara, and Rusk, Sorensen began drafting a speech for President Kennedy. The minutes of an October 21 ExCom meeting stated, “The question of whether our actions should be described as a blockade or quarantine was debated.” Rusk noted “blockade” and “quarantine” were similar in meaning, but he preferred quarantine, “for political reasons.”
President Kennedy wanted to avoid declaring war on Cuba. Kennedy asked, “Now, to declare a blockade in Cuba, do we have to declare war on Cuba?” A chorus of ExCom members replied that it was common practice to declare war when imposing a blockade. A blockade was considered an act of war in international law. Kennedy said, “I think we shouldn’t assume we have to declare war.”610 Rusk later wrote, “To… allow for maximum flexibility, we hit upon a new term ‘quarantine,’ partly because no one knew exactly what a quarantine meant.”
On October 21, Kennedy invited UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson to join the ExCom, where Stevenson urged a diplomatic strategy. The minutes of the meeting stated, “Ambassador Stevenson said we should take the initiative by calling a UN Security Council meeting to demand an immediate missile standstill in Cuba.” Stevenson urged Kennedy to hold an emergency summit meeting with Khrushchev. He urged the administration to offer to withdraw the Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey and abandon the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, in exchange for the USSR’s removal of its missiles from Cuba.
The ExCom minutes reported, “The President disagreed, saying that we could not accept a neutral Cuba and the withdrawal from Guantánamo without indicating to Khrushchev that we were in a state of panic.” The minutes stated, “An offer to accept Castro and give up Guantánamo must not be made… He said we should be clear that we would accept nothing less than the ending of the missile capability now in Cuba, no reinforcement of that capability, and no further construction of missile sites.” Stevenson was out of step with the thinking of the ExCom, which had already ruled out a diplomatic strategy.
Meanwhile, President Kennedy anticipated the USSR’s reaction to his speech. The minutes of the October 21 ExCom meeting stated, “The President said he believed as soon as he finished his speech, the Russians would (a) hasten the construction and the development of their missile capability in Cuba, (b) announce that if we attack Cuba, Soviet rockets will fly, and (c) possibly make a move to squeeze us out of Berlin.”
Douglas Dillon was also apprehensive. According to the minutes of the October 21 ExCom meeting, “Secretary Dillon said in his view a blockade would either inevitably lead to an invasion of Cuba or would result in negotiations, which he believes the Soviets would want very much. To agree to negotiations now would be a disaster for us.”611
On October 22, President Kennedy broke the news about the Soviet missile deployment in Cuba in a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office at 7 p.m., which preempted regularly scheduled programming. Kennedy’s demeanor was grim and solemn.
“Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island… The purposes of these bases could be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”
Kennedy announced that the United States would impose a naval “quarantine” around Cuba. He declared, “All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back.” He said the quarantine would be coupled with increased U.S. aerial surveillance of Cuba. He warned Khrushchev that if a single missile were fired from Cuba, the consequence would be nuclear war. “It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
Then, the president delivered an ultimatum. “I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and stable relations between our two nations,” Kennedy said. “He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction—by… withdrawing these weapons from Cuba—by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis—and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.”
Following Kennedy’s speech, the television networks broadcast news clips of U.S. warplanes taking off from air bases and troop trains transporting GIs to the southeastern United States in preparation for an invasion of Cuba.612
Kennedy’s announcement of a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba set in motion a perilous chain of events. U.S. warships were already steaming toward Cuba. The Joint Chiefs issued an order to fleet commanders, outlining the rules of engagement for the naval encirclement of Cuba. The objective was to prevent Soviet merchant vessels from delivering more missiles and nuclear warheads to the island.
The U.S. Navy history of the blockade states, “The order listed prohibited items, general rules for engagement between U.S. forces and ships and aircraft of other registry or ownership, details for conducting searches, a concept of the operations, and the plan for the defense of Guantánamo naval base.” All told, more than 150 U.S. naval vessels, 250 aircraft, and 30,000 military personnel were mobilized, to form a circle around the island with a 500-mile radius from Cape Maisí in eastern Cuba. One hundred fifty-six U.S. bombers were readied in Florida to hit targets in Cuba at a moment’s notice.613
On October 24, as the U.S. blockade of Cuba took effect, the readiness of the Strategic Air Command’s (SAC) nuclear strike force—B-52 bombers, land-based ICBMs, and submarine-based ballistic missiles—was increased from Defense Condition (DefCon) 3 to DefCon 2, one level below imminent nuclear war. SAC Commander General Thomas Power later wrote, “This action by the nation’s primary war deterrent force gave added meaning to the President’s declaration that the United States would react to any nuclear missile launched from Cuba with a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”614
At the same time, the Department of Defense made final preparations for an invasion of Cuba. The 250,000-man invasion force included 90,000 troops which would take part in an amphibious landing in Cuba. On October 22, McNamara advised Congressional leaders he had reviewed the invasion plan “with the President over the past ten months on five different occasions. We’re well prepared for an invasion and as well prepared as we could possibly be.”615
On October 23, Secretary of State Rusk addressed a special meeting of the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington. Rusk charged that Cuba had become an offensive military threat to the Western Hemisphere. The OAS voted 19 to 0 to support the U.S. blockade of Cuba. (Uruguay abstained.) New York Times reporter Tad Szulc called the OAS vote “the greatest display of Western Hemisphere solidarity since the days of World War II.”616
Other allies offered varying degrees of support. President Charles de Gaulle of France instructed the French delegation at the United Nations to back the U.S. blockade. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany voiced support of the U.S. action. But British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan held back from endorsing the quarantine in the face of fierce criticism of the U.S. move in the House of Commons and the British press. Canada announced a ban of stopovers at Canadian airports by Soviet planes bound for Cuba or the Caribbean.617