Thirteen Days (17 page)
Authors: Robert F. Kennedy
consequences of deception by
demands of
J. F. Kennedy's basis for action with
letter from Foreign Office of (Oct. 27)
naval base for
preventive attacks on
reciprocal withdrawal of missiles and
refusal of, to recognize blockade
turning of ships of
use of SAMs by
Spanish-American War
Stalin, Joseph
State Department
charges in function of
draft reply to Khrushchev by (Oct. 27)
Khrushchev's October 26 letter and
missiles in Turkey and
post-invasion government for Cuba and
“Status quo, rules of the precarious,”
Stevenson, Adlai
as advocate of reciprocal withdrawal
confrontation with Zorin of
as member of Ex Comm
Strategic Air Command, deployment of
Sweeney, Gen. Walter C., Jr.
Synopsis of events
Â
Tass
Taylor, Gen. Maxwell
as member of Ex Comm
preparations for invasion and
Thompson, Llewellyn
Tojo, Hideki
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Touré, Sekou
Truman, Harry S
Tuchman, Barbara
Turkey
attack on
implications of invasion for
removal of missiles from
Â
U Thant
United Nations
confrontation at
moratorium suggested by
United States Information Agency (USIA)
Â
Victory, meaning of
Vienna (Austria), summit meeting in
Vietnam War
Â
War
incidence of undeclared
See also
Congress, war making as prime example of incompatibility between presidency and; Nuclear war;
specific wars
War of 1812
Warsaw Pact
Wilson, Donald
Wilson, Woodrow
World War, First
World War, Second
World War Three
Â
Zorin, V. A., confrontation with
*
According to Theodore Sorensen, “The odds that the Soviets would go all the way to war, he [John Kennedy] later said, seemed to him then âsomewhere between one out of three and even'” (
Kennedy
[New York: Harper & Row, 1965], p. 705).
*
Other accounts supplement his discussion. For these accounts, see p. 175. In the paragraphs that follow, we have drawn on some of them.
*
According to memoirs attributed to Khrushchev, “Our goal wasâ¦to keep the Americans from invading Cuba, and, to that end, we wanted to make them think twice by confronting them with our missiles” (
Khrushchev Remembers
[Boston: Little, Brown, 1970], p. 496). This account avoids any discussion of the deception involved.
*
Maxwell D. Taylor,
Swords and Ploughshares
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1972).
*
Dean Acheson, “Homage to Plain Dumb Luck,”
Esquire
, February, 1969.
*
The preceding paragraphs are adapted from Graham T. Allison,
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).
*
U.S., Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations, 88th Cong., 1st sess.,
Hearings
, Part I, Testimony of Richard E. Neustadt, March 11, 1963, p. 97.
*
The preceding paragraphs are adapted from Neustadt,
op. cit
.
*
If one includes all instances in which American armed forces were used by Executive discretionâmilitary as well as presidentialâagainst the forces and persons of other countries without a declaration of war, the list numbers over one hundred. For a partial listing, see U.S., Department of State,
Right to Protect Citizens in Foreign Countries by Landing Force
, memorandum of the Solicitor for the Department of State, 3rd rev. ed., 1934. Among the more important were Polk's occupation of the Mexican border territory, Wilson's interventions in Mexico and Siberia, and interventions in the Dominican Republic by no fewer than four Presidents.
*
See Warren F. Kimball,
The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease 1939â1941
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), pp. 67â71; also Robert E. Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins
(New York: Harper, 1948), pp. 174â76.
*
On Friday, Oct. 26, Khrushchev sent two letters to President Kennedy. The first, not made public, apparently took the “soft” line that Russia would remove its missiles from Cuba in return for ending of the U.S. quarantine and assurances that the U.S. would not invade Cuba. The second took a harder line seeking the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in return for taking Russian missiles out of Cuba. [A notation from
Congressional Quarterly
]