Kennedy: The Classic Biography (126 page)

We could not even be certain that the blockade route was open to us. Without obtaining a two-thirds vote in the OAS—which appeared dubious at best—allies and neutrals as well as adversaries might well regard it as an illegal blockade, in violation of the UN Charter and international law. If so, they might feel free to defy it. One member of the group with a shipping background warned of the complications of maritime insurance and claims in an illegal blockade.

But the greatest single drawback to the blockade, in comparison with the air strike, was time. Instead of presenting Khrushchev and the world with a
fait accompli
, it offered a prolonged and agonizing approach, uncertain in its effect, indefinite in its duration, enabling the missiles to become operational, subjecting us to counterthreats from Khrushchev, giving him a propaganda advantage, stirring fears and protests and pickets all over the world, causing Latin-American governments to fall, permitting Castro to announce that he would execute two Bay of Pigs prisoners for each day it continued, encouraging the UN or the OAS or our allies to bring pressure for talks, and in all these ways making more difficult a subsequent air strike if the missiles remained. Our own people would be frustrated and divided as tensions built. One of the air-strike advocates, a Republican, passed a note to me across the table reading:

Ted—Have you considered the very real possibility that if we allow Cuba to complete installation and operational readiness of missile bases, the next House of Representatives is likely to have a Republican majority? This would completely paralyze our ability to react sensibly and coherently to further Soviet advances.

Despite all these disadvantages, the blockade route gained strength on Thursday as other choices faded. It was a more limited, low-key military action than the air strike. It offered Khrushchev the choice of avoiding a direct military clash by keeping his ships away. It could at least be initiated without a shot being fired or a single Soviet or Cuban citizen being killed. Thus it seemed slightly less likely to precipitate an immediate military riposte. Moreover, a naval engagement in the Caribbean, just off our own shores, was the most advantageous military confrontation the United States could have, if one were necessary. Whatever the balance of strategic and ground forces may have been, the superiority of the American Navy was unquestioned; and this superiority was world-wide, should Soviet submarines retaliate elsewhere. To avoid a military defeat, Khrushchev might well turn his ships back, causing U.S. allies to have increased confidence in our credibility and Cuba’s Communists to feel they were being abandoned.

Precisely because it was a limited, low-level action, the argument ran, the blockade had the advantage of permitting a more controlled escalation on our part, gradual or rapid as the situation required. It could serve as an unmistakable but not sudden or humiliating warning to Khrushchev of what we expected from him. Its prudence, its avoidance of casualties and its avoidance of attacking Cuban soil would make it more appealing to other nations than an air strike, permitting OAS and Allied support for our initial position, and making that support more likely for whatever air-strike or other action was later necessary.

On Thursday afternoon subcommittees were set up to plot each of the major courses in detail. The blockade subcommittee first had to decide what kind of blockade it recommended. We chose to begin with the lowest level of action—also the level least likely to anger allies engaged in the Cuban trade—a blockade against offensive weapons only. Inasmuch as the President had made clear that defensive weapons were not intolerable, and inasmuch as the exclusion of all food and supplies would affect innocent Cubans most of all, this delineation helped relate the blockade route more closely to the specific problem of missiles and made the punishment more nearly fit the crime. It also avoided the difficulty of stopping submarines and planes (which would have difficulty bringing in missiles and bombers even in sections).

The next question, and one that would recur throughout the next ten days, was whether to include “POL,” as the military called it—petroleum, oil and lubricants. A POL blockade, automatically turning back all tankers, would lead directly though not immediately to a collapse of the Cuban economy. Although these commodities could be justifiably related to the offensive war machine, it seemed too drastic a step for the first move, too likely to require a more belligerent response and too obviously aimed more at Castro’s survival than at Khrushchev’s missiles. We recommended that this be held back as a means of later tightening the blockade should escalation be required.

Our next consideration was the likely Soviet response. The probability of Soviet acquiescence in the blockade itself—turning their ships back or permitting their inspection—was “high, but not certain,” in the words of one Kremlinologist; but it was predicted that they might choose to force us to fire at them first. Retaliatory action elsewhere in the world seemed almost certain. The Soviets, we estimated, would blockade Berlin—not merely against offensive weapons, which would mean little, but a general blockade, including the air routes and all civilian access as well, thus precipitating another serious military confrontation for both powers. Other blockades were listed as a possibility, as well as increased Communist threats in Bolivia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti and elsewhere in Latin America. Inside Cuba a long and gradually tighter blockade would in time, it was predicted, produce both military and political action.

We then suggested possible U.S. responses to these Communist responses, advocating that Berlin be treated on the basis of its own previously prepared contingency plans without regard to actions elsewhere. These studies completed, we rejoined the air-strike subcommittee and the others in the conference room to compare notes.

Meanwhile, the President—with whom some of us had met both in the morning and afternoon of that Thursday—was holding a long-scheduled two-hour meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko prior to the latter’s return to Moscow from the UN. While all of us wondered whether this could possibly be the moment planned by the Soviets to confront Kennedy with their new threat, all agreed that the President should not tell Gromyko what we knew. Not only was our information incomplete after only two days, with new evidence coming in every day, but we were not yet ready to act—and Gromyko’s relay of our information to Moscow would bring on all the delays, evasions, threats and other disadvantages of a diplomatic warning. Alternatively, the wily Soviet Foreign Minister might decide to announce the build-up himself from the White House steps; and Kennedy felt strongly that, to retain the initiative and public confidence, it was essential that the facts first be disclosed to the people of the United States by their President along with an announced plan of action. He was anxious as the meeting approached, but managed to smile as he welcomed Gromyko and Dobrynin to his office.

Gromyko, seated on the sofa next to the President’s rocker, not only failed to mention the offensive weapons but carried on the deception that there were none. In a sense, Kennedy had hoped for this, believing it would strengthen our case with world opinion. The chief topic of conversation was Berlin, and on this Gromyko was tougher and more insistent than ever. After the U.S. election, he said, if no settlement were in sight, the Soviets would go ahead with their treaty. (“It all seemed to fit a pattern,” the President said to me later, “everything coming to a head at once—the completion of the missile bases, Khrushchev coming to New York, a new drive on West Berlin. If that move is coming anyway, I’m not going to feel that a Cuban blockade provoked it.”) Then the Soviet Minister turned to Cuba, not with apologies but complaints. He cited the Congressional resolution, the Reservists call-up authority, various statements to the press and other U.S. interference with what he regarded as a small nation that posed no threat. He called our restrictions on Allied shipping a blockade against trade and a violation of international law. All this could only lead to great misfortunes for mankind, he said, for his government could not sit by and observe this situation idly when aggression was planned and a threat of war was looming.

The President made no response, and Gromyko then read from his notes:

As to Soviet assistance to Cuba, I have been instructed to make it clear, as the Soviet Government has already done, that such assistance pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba and to the development of its peaceful economy…training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive. If it were otherwise, the Soviet Government would have never become involved in rendering such assistance.

Kennedy remained impassive, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Gromyko’s claim. He gave no sign of tension or anger. But to avoid misleading his adversary, he sent for and read aloud his September warning against offensive missiles in Cuba. Gromyko “must have wondered why I was reading it,” he said later. “But he did not respond.”

Two days earlier, the President had been informed, on the very day he had learned of the missiles, a similar deception had taken place. Chairman Khrushchev, upon receiving our new Ambassador to Moscow, Foy Kohler, had complained vigorously about reports that a new Russian fishing port in Cuba would become a submarine base. He would have held up the announcement of the port, he said, because he did not want to burden Kennedy during the campaign. He also wanted to state once again that all activity in Cuba was defensive. (The one ominous note in that otherwise genial conversation had been a sharp reference to the U.S. Jupiter bases in Turkey and Italy.)

As Gromyko arrived at 8
P.M
. that Thursday evening for a black-tie dinner on the State Department’s eighth floor, our group was meeting on the seventh floor (minus Rusk and Thompson, who were with Gromyko). McNamara and McCone, surprised to see a band of reporters as they drove up, replied in the affirmative when asked if they were there for the Gromyko dinner. Obviously they had been too busy to don formal wear.

In our earlier sessions that day the President had requested a 9
P.M
. conference at the White House. While we had been meeting for only three days (that seemed like thirty), time was running out. Massive U.S. military movements had thus far been explained by long-planned Naval exercises in the Caribbean and an earlier announced build-up in Castro’s air force. But the secret would soon be out, said the President, and the missiles would soon be operational.

The blockade course was now advocated by a majority. We were prepared to present the full range of choices and questions to the President. George Ball had earlier directed that the official cars conspicuously gathered by the front door be dispersed to avoid suspicion. With the exception of Martin, who preferred to walk, we all piled into the Attorney General’s limousine, some seated on laps, for the short ride over to the White House. “It will be some story if this car is in an accident,” someone quipped.

In the Oval Room on the second floor of the Mansion, the alternatives were discussed. Both the case for the blockade and the case for simply living with this threat were presented. The President had already moved from the air-strike to the blockade camp. He liked the idea of leaving Khrushchev a way out, of beginning at a low level that could then be stepped up; and the other choices had too many insuperable difficulties. Blockade, he indicated, was his tentative decision.

Work began that night on the details. State, Defense and Justice put their legal experts to work on the basis for a blockade proclamation. Defense asked the Chiefs to prepare an exact list of offensive weapons to be on the prohibited list, to consider the feasibility of blockading aircraft, to determine which Latin-American navies could join in the blockade and to consider whether any Cuban exile organizations should join as well. Also requested was a list of riot control equipment we could make available to the Latin Americans; and on the following day the Atlantic and Caribbean Commands were alerted against possible air attacks on the Panama Canal and other targets within reach of Castro. All U.S. ambassadors to Latin America who were away on leave or consultation were ordered back to their posts. At the conclusion of the Gromyko dinner after midnight, Rusk and Thompson discussed the night’s decision with Ball, Martin and Johnson.

But it was not a final decision; and on Friday morning, October 19, it seemed even more remote. Preparing to leave as agreed for weekend campaigning in the Midwest and West, the President called me in, a bit disgusted. He had just met with the Joint Chiefs, who preferred an air strike or invasion; and other advisers were expressing doubts. In retrospect it is clear that this delay enabled us all to think through the blockade route much more thoroughly, but at the time the President was impatient and discouraged. He was counting on the Attorney General and me, he said, to pull the group together quickly—otherwise more delays and dissension would plague whatever decision he took. He wanted to act soon, Sunday if possible—and Bob Kennedy was to call him back when we were ready.

Our meetings that morning largely repeated the same arguments. The objections to the blockade were listed, then the objections to the air strike. Those who had not been present the previous evening or days went through the same processes the rest of us had gone through earlier. I commented somewhat ungraciously that we were not serving the President well, and that my recently healed ulcer didn’t like it much either. Yet it was true that the blockade approach remained somewhat nebulous, and I agreed to write the first rough draft of a blockade speech as a means of focusing on specifics.

But back in my office, the original difficulties with the blockade route stared me in the face: How should we relate it to the missiles? How would it help get them out? What would we do if they became operational? What should we say about our surveillance, about communicating with Khrushchev? I returned to the group late that afternoon with these questions instead of a speech; and as the concrete answers were provided in our discussions, the final shape of the President’s policy began to take form. It was in a sense an amalgam of the blockade-air-strike routes; and a much stronger, more satisfied consensus formed behind it. Originally I was to have drafted an air-strike speech as well, but that was now abandoned.