Cuban Missile Crisis, Reviewed

For John, BLUF:  Back in 1962 there were up to 100 Soviet "tactical" nuclear weapons in Cuba, in addition to the nuclear missiles that we knew about.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

From The New York Times we have another article that serves to debunk some of what we have come to believe about the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It is an interesting read and suggests that at some levels we were closer to the use of nuclear weapons that we supposed.  In particular, there is a link to a three page Top Secret memo from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell D Taylor, to the President, "Evaluation of the Effect on US Operational Plans of Soviet Military Equipment Introduced into Cuba," dated 2 November 1962.

The New Yorker has an article on "Wise Man" Paul Nitze and the crisis, titled "We Will All Fry".  One gets the impression of people groping for a good answer, on both sides, except maybe for Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Then there is this piece in The New York Times, by historian and politician Michael Dobbs.♠  The title is "The Price of a 50-Year Myth".  Baron Dobbs asserts that we learned the wrong lessons and those wrong lessons have misinformed us ever since.

In the latest volume of his acclaimed biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert A. Caro repeats a long-standing but erroneous myth about the Cuban missile crisis. Drawing on early accounts of the crisis, he describes a confrontation on Oct. 24, 1962, between American destroyers and Soviet ships carrying nuclear missiles to Cuba. According to Mr. Caro, the Soviet vessels were “within a few miles” of the blockade line, but turned away at the last moment.

This was the moment when Secretary of State Dean Rusk, by his own account, uttered the most memorable line of the missile crisis:  “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.”

The “eyeball to eyeball” imagery made for great drama (it features in the 2000 movie “13 Days”), but it has contributed to some of our most disastrous foreign policy decisions, from the escalation of the Vietnam War under Johnson to the invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush.

Per the author's calculations, the ships were, in fact, not "within a few miles" but 750 miles apart.  No, I don't know what kind of miles.  But, the point is that while leaders on both sides were looking for a way to back away from nuclear confrontation, the rest of us were learning that hanging tough was the answer.

Kennedy was certainly bracing for an “eyeball to eyeball” moment, but it never happened. There is now plenty of evidence that Kennedy — like Khrushchev — was a lot less steely-eyed than depicted in the initial accounts of the crisis, which were virtually dictated by the White House. Tape-recorded transcripts of White House debates and notes from participants show that Kennedy was prepared to make significant concessions, including a public trade of Soviet missiles in Cuba for American missiles in Turkey and possibly the surrender of the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

And, there is the reference to the President having recently read the over-rated The Guns of August, one account of the run-up to World War One, by Barbara W. Tuchman.  But, the key lesson to be learned is that mistakes will be made by statesmen and others.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Here is Baron Dobbs' Home Page.