For thirteen days in 1962 President Kennedy chaired a committee convened to decide what the United States should do about Russia’s (secret) deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
The tape recordings of these meetings are a central part of Abyss The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 by (Sir) Max Hastings. The background as you will remember is the Cold War, with Russia threatening to take over Berlin, then an enclave almost cut off from the West. It was not in the public domain but the US had nuclear superiority. Furthermore the US had been humiliated in a failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 – the Bay of Pigs as it became known.
Sitting around a table in the White House the Chiefs (the heads of the US army, navy, air force and marines) knew what would be best – to take out the Russian missile sites in bombing raids and then invade Cuba. The risk was Russian nuclear retaliation against the West, the prize was to establish the US and the democratic ideals of the West against Communism.
A small digression. In WW II Roosevelt took the advice of his Chiefs and seldom interfered. Conversely Churchill’s interventions cost lives but his other qualities eclipse this weakness. JFK soon rejected the bellicose advice from his Chiefs but had to tease out what could end the crisis. He humiliated the Russians in Cuba but withdrew US nuclear missiles from Turkey as a quid pro quo. Not much of a q p q actually as he’d already tried to do this but was asked not to hurt the feelings of the touchy Turks. Anyway it was a better plan to arm submarines with nuclear weapons and these subs were supposed to be difficult to locate and neutralise. I was about to write “sink” but I don’t suppose that’s the mot juste for a sub.
Hastings’ coverage of JFKs administration’s deliberations is extensive but so revealing. Obversely, to balance the book, Max has min material to play with from the Soviet Union so he pads this out not entirely successfully.
The Cuban Missile Crisis seems a Good Thing in that it did not end in a thermo-nuclear world war, the Americans (in white hats) seemed to get the better of the Ruskies (black fur hats) and democratic decision making trumped Soviet despotism.
Sorry, this is wrong. 20th and 21st century history demonstrates the errors made by Western governments: Suez, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Russia has made similar and even worse mistakes, costly in human life and the reputation of the regime. These ghastly cock-ups on both sides, I suggest, arise because the Chiefs confidently and often correctly predict military victory. JFK was on the money anticipating the result of overthrowing Castro – that is a lesson to be learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(to be continued)