ON LEARNING OF the shoot-down Moscow immediately responded to the Soviet command in Cuba: “You were hasty. Ways of the settlement have been outlined.”1 In one key respect Nikita Khrushchev was no different from John F. Kennedy: from the start of the crisis both feared that a single incident might cause them to lose their grip on the situation. In an interview, Sergei Khrushchev, son of the premier, emphasized a similar view that his father worried something unexpected could lead to disaster. “Once a first shot is fired the two leaders [Kennedy and Khrushchev] lose control and different people, with different logic, take over.”2
Premier Khrushchev now realized this very thing was starting to happen and that he and Kennedy had to come to an agreement. And that agreement could not wait for a day or two—at the very brink of nuclear war, if there was not an agreement in hours, the chances for a peaceful resolution would in all likelihood be gone. Sergei Khrushchev later wrote that the death of Rudy Anderson jolted his father into thinking the whole conflict could now explode. “It was at that very moment—not before or after—that father felt the situation was slipping out of his control.”3
AT THE WHITE House, JFK was in the midst of the most stressful day of his presidency and even his life. And it was only early afternoon. He may have allowed his mind to wander briefly back to the desperate moments of his past—the loss of his brother Joe and his beloved sister Kathleen (or “Kick,” as the family called her). He might have thought about his many brushes with death on the operating table and in the dark waters of the South Pacific. The images of lost seamen Harold Marney and Andrew Jackson Kirksey may have flashed before his eyes. President Kennedy was no stranger to death, which is why he had fought so hard to preserve life. He understood that the decisions he made in the next few minutes and hours would decide the course of human history. Would anyone be alive to record them?
Discussion of the new proposal/letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy, which added the additional demand that the United States remove its missiles from Turkey, dominated the morning ExComm meeting. That upsetting news was exacerbated when the president next learned of Chuck Maultsby’s foray into enemy airspace, followed by the CIA summary of the situation in Cuba. The CIA update painted a bleak picture: “Detailed analysis of October 25 low-altitude photography confirms rapid pace of construction on the MRBM and IRBM sites. San Cristobal MRBM Sites 1, 2 and 3 and Sagua La Grande Sites 1 and 2 are considered fully operational.”4
The president was now almost out of time to take action. Way back when he first learned about the missiles, he had asked when they would be operational and ready to fire and calculated that he would have to remove them before that time. Now the time had come. Yet the most recent letters from Khrushchev held out some hope of a settlement, and he extended his own self-prescribed deadline for attacking the missiles. The Joint Chiefs felt differently. They crafted a written recommendation to the president that he order massive air strikes on either Sunday, October 28, or at the latest Monday, October 29. President Kennedy held his ground and did not give the final approval. But the 4 p.m. ExComm meeting would throw a new emergency at him, one that would again call for a decision that could result in war.
The meeting started with a discussion of the firing on the Crusaders and possible scheduling of nighttime reconnaissance. At three different times in a two-minute period, the president said, “I think we better wait” with regard to the night flights. He was making his orders crystal clear—he didn’t want anyone implementing a new tactic and later claiming he hadn’t heard the president say, “Wait.” One person going rogue could lead to disaster, and Kennedy wanted everyone on the same page, with clear instructions.
Across the world, inside his offices at the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev had similar fears. The night before, he asked his fellow Presidium members to join him for a night at the theater. There was a concert of Cuban musicians in Moscow, and Khrushchev thought a public outing would help dispel the growing worry and concern of the Russian people.
“Let’s show both our own people and the entire world, that as far as we are concerned, the situation is still calm,” Khrushchev told his advisors.5
Now, a few hours later, the situation was anything but calm. In fact, it was close to exploding. Khrushchev’s generals urged him to hold fast—not to give in to the escalating situation or yield an inch to America’s demands. The Soviet premier asked his military men if such a strategy would result in the deaths of 500 million human beings. The generals, according to Khrushchev, had little interest in discussing the apocalyptic body count. Instead, they worried that the Chinese or other Communist nations might accuse the Soviets of appeasement or weakness. “What good would it have done me in the last hour of my life to know that though our great nation and the United States were in complete ruin, the national honor of the Soviet Union was intact?”6
Back in Washington, the president and some members of ExComm were discussing a potential compromise. Llewellyn Thompson, former ambassador to the Soviet Union, talked about the pitfalls of removing US missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets doing the same in Cuba, but JFK was thinking two steps ahead.
THOMPSON—Mr. President, if we go on the basis of a trade, which I gather is somewhat in your mind, we end up it seems to me, with the Soviets still in Cuba with planes and technicians and so on, even though the missiles are out. And that would surely be unacceptable and put you in a worse position.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—Yeah but our technicians and planes and guarantees would still exist for Turkey. I’m just thinking about what we’re going to have to do in a day or so, which is 500 sorties, and 7 days, and possibly an invasion, all because we wouldn’t take the missiles out of Turkey.
We all know how quickly everybody’s courage goes when the blood starts to flow, and that’s what’s going to happen to NATO. When we start these things and they grab Berlin, everybody’s going to say: “Well, that was a pretty good proposition.”
The president did not oppose removing the missiles from Turkey because he could move a Polaris-firing submarine into position off the Turkish coast to replace the land-based missiles. Importantly, President Kennedy used the word “blood” or “bloody” more than once during the meeting, trying to remind the group what the loss of life really meant. He had seen the blood flow firsthand in his PT-109 days, while some others in the group had never experienced the horrors of war up close and personal.
The meeting went on for a considerable period, with most every member offering an opinion and suggesting the response wording to Khrushchev’s two proposals. Bobby Kennedy and Mac Bundy recommended only responding to the first proposal (that the Americans promise not to attack or invade Cuba and the Soviets remove the missiles) rather than the second proposal that also demanded the United States remove its missiles from Turkey. The president conceded that approach was worth a try but doubted it would work on its own. And he feared that if it didn’t work, more time would have been wasted, and all the nuclear missiles in Cuba would be operational.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—The point of the matter is that Khrushchev is going to come back and refer to his thing this morning on Turkey. And then we’re going to be screwing around for another 48 hours. I think we’ve got to make the key of this letter the cessation of work [on the missiles].
For this reason the president felt their response had to somehow include consideration of removing missiles from Turkey. At this point he was beginning to formulate his plan to extend a private offer to Khrushchev. He thought that without the private offer, Khrushchev would balk, and he would have to launch an attack on Cuba without having had the chance to make his very best proposal. He wanted to lead with a strong offer, and if the premier rejected it, he was not going to stand by for two more days “screwing around” while the work on the missiles was finalized. He wanted an answer by tomorrow, or he was going to attack.
A few minutes later the president drove the point home about work being halted on the missiles:
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—That’s why we’ve got to end [the letter to Khrushchev] with saying, whatever we’re going to do, that we’ve got to get a cessation of work.
BUNDY—That’s right, Mr. President. But I think Bobby’s notion of a concrete acceptance on our part of how we read last night’s telegram [Khrushchev’s first proposal] is very important.
A few moments later, General Maxwell Taylor broke into the discussion.
TAYLOR—Mr. President, the Chiefs have been in session during the afternoon on probably the same issues as we have over here. The recommendation they give is as follows: That the big [air] strike Oplan [Operation Plan] 312 be executed no later than Monday morning, the 29th unless there is irrefutable evidence in the meantime that offensive weapons are being dismantled and rendered inoperable. That the execution of the strike plan be followed by execution of 316, the invasion plan, 7 days later.
The words were no sooner out of Taylor’s mouth than Bobby quipped, “Well, that was a surprise.” There was weary laughter rather than an argument. The Kennedy’s didn’t always agree with Taylor’s hawkish views, but they respected the man, and Taylor was always professional, unlike General LeMay.
Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon backed up Taylor by reminding everyone that US low-level reconnaissance planes had taken antiaircraft fire.
DILLON—Well, also, we’re getting shot at as we go in for our surveillance. The Cubans are not just talking about it.
A minute later Robert McNamara asked if they were going to stop low-level surveillance flights because of “intense ground fire.”
Taylor jumped in and said, “I wouldn’t worry. I wouldn’t pay any attention.”
Then, seconds later, Taylor drove the point home again: “And we must not fail on surveillance. We can’t give up 24 hours at this stage.”
Whether reading the transcripts or listening to the tapes, one can’t help but wonder if Taylor hadn’t ordered that Jerry McIlmoyle’s close call with two SAMs remain a secret. He might have felt that nothing should interrupt the intelligence gathering, based on which targets would be selected for the massive air strikes he advocated initiating within the next forty-eight hours.
Incredibly, neither McNamara nor Taylor had yet mentioned that a SAM had most likely shot down Major Rudy Anderson’s U-2. The meeting droned on for several more minutes until that tragedy—a potential game changer—was announced.
MCNAMARA—I think the rush is what we do. A U-2 was shot down. They fired against our low altitude surveillance.
Bobby was stunned. He and the president were hearing this for the first time, whereas the Pentagon had found out several hours earlier.
ROBERT KENNEDY—A U-2 was shot down?
MCNAMARA—Yes. [unclear] said it got shot down.
ROBERT KENNEDY—Was the pilot killed?
TAYLOR—It was shot down over Banes, which is right near a SAM-2 site in eastern Cuba. [unclear] saying the pilot’s body is in the plane. Apparently this was a SAM site that actually had the Fruitcake radar [missile guidance radar]. It all ties in a very plausible way.
The president’s response to this news was somewhat subdued.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—Well now, this is much of an escalation by them isn’t it?
Paul Nitze, assistant secretary of defense, said stridently, “They fired the first shot!”
McNamara suggested continuing surveillance but firing back if the other side shot first. But the president brought the discussion back to the downed U-2, wondering why Moscow would shoot one down at this particular time, especially with the Soviets offering to make a deal.
The president, as poised as he’d been for almost two full weeks, struggled to grasp this new information.
General Taylor took the opportunity to remind everyone that ExComm had agreed, just a couple days earlier, to respond to a U-2 shoot-down by eliminating the SAM site that fired on it.
TAYLOR—They [the Soviets] feel they must respond now. The whole world knows where we’re flying. That raises the question of retaliation against the SAM sites. We think we—we have various other reasons to believe that we know the SAM sites [that fired on Anderson]. Two days ago—
Taylor never completed this last sentence. We can’t help but wonder if he knew about the firing on McIlmoyle and was about to mention it. We will never know for sure.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—How can we send a U-2 fellow over there tomorrow unless we take out all the SAM sites?
TAYLOR—This is exactly the effect.
MCNAMARA—I don’t think we can.
UNIDENTIFIED—It’s on the ground?
TAYLOR—It’s on the ground. The wreckage is on the ground and the pilot’s dead.
As the group discussed their options, McNamara grew more and more hawkish and proposed taking out several SAM sites using the low-altitude flights while continuing the Crusader surveillance missions but grounding the U-2s. Backing up this call for action, Taylor chimed in, “They started the shooting.”
Was the intel reporting solid? Had the shooting been a deliberate escalation? Were the Cubans involved or just the Soviets? Uncertainty reigned. It seemed the Soviet Union was prepared to go to war. The ExComm members had no way of knowing that the Russians on the ground in Cuba had fired the SAM without consulting their superiors in Moscow, and once again the incident was leading exactly to the outcome Kennedy had warned about: miscalculations, incorrect interpretations, and breakdowns in command and control that could lead to war. Bobby Kennedy later explained the despair and tension that filled the Cabinet Room that afternoon. “There was the feeling that the noose was tightening on all of us, on Americans, on mankind, and that the bridges to escape were crumbling.”7
The more hawkish members were obviously looking for the president to authorize some type of retaliatory strike, but instead Kennedy held his cards close and did not give the go-ahead. In effect, the president reversed his earlier stance and deliberately held back on unleashing the might of the US Air Force. At perhaps the most critical moment in the crisis, Kennedy refused to succumb to pressure. Instead he would use every last minute to avoid more bloodshed and keep his options open.
WORD OF JFK’s reversal reached General LeMay at the Pentagon. His air force fighter jets were fueled and ready to launch in retaliation for Rudy Anderson’s death. Upon learning the president’s decision, he immediately turned to an aide and said in disgust, “He’s chickened out again. How in the hell do you get men to risk their lives when the SAMs are not attacked!”8
Instead the Pentagon issued a statement that a reconnaissance plane was missing and presumed lost over Cuba and that a search by air and sea was under way. They did not specify that the missing plane was a U-2, nor did they mention retaliation.9
THE TAPES AND transcripts of the ExComm meeting on October 27 (which would become known as “Black Saturday”) clearly reveal that the group members were exhausted, oftentimes speaking over or snapping at each other. The exchanges included a healthy dose of confusion and frustration. A wide range of human emotions was on display. ExComm members even speculated that maybe Anderson wasn’t shot down but instead had a mechanical failure. To this point, Treasury Secretary Dillon sarcastically responded, “If the plane is on the ground there, it was shot down. It didn’t just come down and land.”
President Kennedy left the room during the latter half of the meeting, but the tape recorder continued to run. With the president gone, Vice President Lyndon Johnson became more vocal. He voiced strong disagreement with nighttime reconnaissance flights.
JOHNSON—I’ve been afraid of these damned flares ever since they mentioned them. Just an ordinary plane going in there at 2 or 300 feet without arms or an announcement. There was four of them [Crusaders in the morning] that had to turn back because of fire. Imagine some crazy Russian captain doing it. The damn thing [the flare] goes blooey and lights up the skies. He might just pull a trigger.
While McNamara then talked about the likelihood of reconnaissance flights being fired on the next day and US air strikes in response, followed “almost certainly [by] an invasion,” Johnson seemed to back up President Kennedy’s thoughts about a deal. “If you’re willing to give up your missiles in Turkey why don’t you… make the trade there and save all the invasion, lives and everything else?”
The group was split about removing the missiles from Turkey. Some felt they might be able to arrange a deal with Khrushchev without committing to such a withdrawal (in keeping with Khrushchev’s Friday letter), while others, including the president, determined that addressing the Saturday letter (demanding removal of the Turkish missiles) was the key to a peaceful resolution. The conflicting letters had all members of the group wondering just who was in charge in Moscow. Their differing tone and even style led to speculation that the military had overthrown Khrushchev and taken over.
The president ultimately found a compromise between the two opinions (although he did not announce this specifically to the ExComm group). He would publicly answer in the affirmative Khrushchev’s Friday letter proposing to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade or threaten Fidel Castro. But because President Kennedy felt the Kremlin would reject this solution (and that he could not afford to defer military action much longer with work on the missile sites going on around the clock), he would make a private promise to Khrushchev that he would guarantee the eventual dismantling of the missiles in Turkey, perhaps months from then. He would also insist that Moscow keep this verbal assurance secret to give him time to work it out with the Turkish government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This also helped the president on the political front: keeping Turkey out of the public arrangement would lead the American voters to believe he had secured a better deal with Moscow and a clear win for the president.
WHILE THE EXCOMM meeting continued, the president and Bobby Kennedy managed a private discussion, apparently in the Oval Office. The president approved the letter to Khrushchev crafted by Bobby and speechwriter Ted Sorensen agreeing to promise no invasion of Cuba in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles, with no promise regarding Turkey. The president instructed Bobby to meet with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that evening and privately convey US willingness to eventually remove the missiles in Turkey as well as the need to reach an agreement within hours, or the president might take military action.
The brothers discussed the death of Major Anderson, and the president commented on how it’s “always the brave and the best who die.”10 JFK had seen this firsthand in the Solomon Islands years before. He went on to say that while politicians and officials pontificate and dine with their wives and families, young men on the front lines perish. And once again, JFK mentioned how war was rarely intentional but rather the result of miscalculations and that neither the Americans nor the Soviets wanted a conflict that would “accomplish nothing [and would] engulf and destroy all mankind.”11
When the president and Bobby returned to ExComm at 7:20 p.m., the marathon meeting was still going strong, albeit disjointedly. President Kennedy still had not authorized retaliation for Anderson’s death, and Treasury Secretary Dillon, angered that the Soviets were getting the upper hand, pressured him for action.
DILLON—It would probably be more effective, and make more impression on him [Khrushchev] if we did do what we said we were going to do before, and just go in and knock out just one SAM site.
The president showed his exhaustion by asking a question posed and answered earlier.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—But we don’t know where it [the U-2] was shot down yet, do we?
Four seconds of tape are excised as classified, but Kennedy was clearly given the location of the wreckage again. Then the president wondered if they could be certain that Anderson hadn’t crashed due to mechanical failure. An unidentified voice said, “Havana has announced it, that he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.”
A tired Kennedy replied, “Oh they have, I didn’t know that.”
Still, the president refused to authorize a morning strike. Just a couple minutes later, he explained why he worried about escalating the crisis just now.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—We can’t very well invade Cuba with all the toil and blood it’s going to be, when we could have gotten them [the Soviet missiles] out by making a deal on the same missiles in Turkey. If that’s part of the record then I don’t see how we’ll have a very good war.
The president then suggested the group “meet at 9 pm and everybody can get a bite to eat, and then come back and see whether we send this message.”
Next, President Kennedy asked a few of the members to stay behind and join him in the Oval Office. There, he explained that Bobby had set up a secret meeting with Dobrynin, and the group deliberated one last time on exactly what the attorney general should say to the ambassador. Bundy, one of those attending this informal meeting, later said they agreed that the message should be simple: “No Soviet missiles in Cuba, and no U.S. invasion.” Otherwise American military action was unavoidable. Dean Rusk proposed the exact wording for the other part of the oral message: “We should tell Khrushchev that while there could be no deal over the Turkish missiles, the President was determined to get them out and would do so once the Cuban crisis was resolved.”12
Bobby then left for his meeting with the Soviet ambassador, which would take place in the attorney general’s office at the Justice Department. The small group gathered in the president’s office knew the thinly veiled ultimatum that Bobby was to deliver would be the president’s last offer. If Khrushchev didn’t accept it, the bombs would likely start falling within the next day or two.