In
the light of the recent revelation that Fomin was not acting on instructions
from the Kremlin, one can only conclude that the deliberations of Excom were
basically flawed. As Medland writes, before and during the crisis
‘intelligence experts seriously erred in believing that their assumptions
conformed to reality’ (1). The resolution of a nuclear crisis should ideally
not depend on the ‘best guess’ of experts. This is especially true when such
experts (Thompson and Bohlen), had previously informed the president that the
Soviets would never place nuclear weapons outside their borders. They were
forced to guess because there was no direct communication link between the two
leaders, so days would pass before messages could arrive. True enough, Kennedy
had informed the Soviets of the blockade in a national television address, but
this channel could hardly be used again for secret negotiations.
Yet for several years the Trollope ploy was regarded by many as a brilliant strategy.
However, it was viewed in rather a different light at the time: ’The desperate
nature of the strategy is reinforced by the fact that it was not expected to
work’ (2). Thus, one can agree with Nathan when he asserts that the Cuban
missile crisis has been a misleading model of how to handle such a crisis, even
while disputing
39
much
of the evidence he presents (3). Some members of Excom have now reinforced this
view: ’I think we could have done more then we did to discourage the conclusion
that this was a case of wonderfully coordinated and error-free “crisis
management”’ (4).
Given that this is so, it can only further encourage the argument that Kennedy
was irresponsible in the way that he conducted the dispute (5). However, this
really depends on how fraught with danger you believe the crisis to be. As
Cline writes: ’none of the informed officials I talked with at the time thought
that the chances of war were high’ (6). Yet there is also the suggestion that
President Kennedy personally believed that ‘There was perhaps a one in three
chance of it transpiring’ (7); and it was he who thought that appearances
contributed to reality. Whilst Medland believes that Kennedy was irresponsible
in the way he initiated the week of conflict, he goes on to say that ‘President
Kennedy acted responsibly during most of the week of the international crisis’
(8). Bundy also criticizes the television address of October 22 for raising
unnecessary tension (9).
Kennedy personally played a crucial role: ’the president exhibited great
restraint in his efforts to obtain removal of the missiles’ (10). It can be
argued that he would never have launched the air strike so desired by the
hawks. Yet
40
some
of his military advisers did not share his concerns and still called for an
attack even after Khrushchev had announced the withdrawal of the missiles. They
believed that the President had given in to the Soviets after refusing to
launch an invasion following the events of the last Saturday. This reveals a
further contrast with the Berlin blockade, for ‘U.S. decisions throughout the
crisis were strongly influenced by the overwhelming conventional superiority’
(11). The fact that they had the resources and were prepared for the attack on
Cuba, made the Joint Chiefs of Staff much more hawkish than they had been in
1948.
So, it is the conclusion of the Timewatch programme on the crisis, that Kennedy
saved the world from nuclear war ‘without knowing it’ (12). This is due to the
fact that were six short range tactical nuclear weapons on the island, ready to
be fired at an incoming American invasion force. They were in control of Soviet
generals in Cuba, not Khrushchev, and could have created thousands of
casualties.
Yet this conclusion involves a fundamental misreading of the situation: there
was nothing ‘accidental’ about Kennedy’s refusal to invade - he had been
actively trying to avoid an outbreak of nuclear war. And whilst McNamara claims
in the programme not to have known of the tactical nuclear weapons until the
Soviets revealed their presence in the late 1980s, there is nothing to say that
Kennedy had not known. Indeed,
41
as
Hilsman writes, Kennedy authorized the Navy to fly low-level reccnnaissancc
flights over Cuba, and it ‘was these pictures that also revealed for the first
time the presence of Soviet ground forces armed with tactical nuclear weapons’
(13).
There is also the suggestion that the President would have resorted to further
negotiations in the United Nations by use of the Cordelier Ploy (14). Just before
the resolution of the crisis, Kennedy asked Dean Rusk to telephone Andrew
Cordelier the former deputy UN Secretary General. Cordelier was to have
approached the contemporary Secretary General, U. Thant, with a proposal for
both superpowers to remove their missiles from Cuba and Turkey respectively.
This ploy was designed to conceal the President’s personal involvement in it,
for it could have been construed as a sign of weakness. Khrushchev’s retreat
meant that the ploy was never used. Although there was a high risk of nuclear
war in the crisis, this may have been necessary to frighten both superpowers.
As Bundy writes, ’the outcome of the crisis led to the end of pressure against
West Berlin’ (15). Another direct result was that both superpowers embarked
upon a new nuclear arms race, which, considering that the missile crisis was
caused by one, really questions how much the superpowers had learnt from Cuba.
However, the final conclusion must be ‘that the only really good way to
“manage” such a crisis is to avoid it’ (16).
2
Footnotes
(1) Medland, William J.,The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: Needless or
Necessary?, (1988) p.141.
(2
) Anderson , Paul A., 'Justifications and Precedents as Constraints in
Foreign Policy Decision-making’, American Journal of Political Science, 25
(1981) p. 756.
(3)
Nathan, James A., 'The Missile Crisis: His Finest Hour Now', World Politics,
(1975) p.256.
(4)
Bundy, McGeorge, Danger and Survival, (New York, 1988) P.459.
(6)
Cline, Ray S., 'Commentary: The Cuban Missile Crisis’ Foreign Affairs, 68
(1989) p. 191
(7)
Medland, Needless or Necessary?, p. 146.
(8)
Medland, Needless or Necessary?, p. 145.
(9)
Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 457-458.
(10)
Kahan, Jerome H. ; and Long, Anne K., ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Study of its
Strategic context', Political Science Quarterly, 87 (1972) . p. 582
(11)
Kahan, ‘Strategic Context', p. 585
(12)
Bennett, Jeremy, ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis II: “Eyeball-to-Eyeball’’,
Timewatch, BBC 1992.
(13)
Hilsman, Roger, To Move a Nation, (New York, 1967) p. 215.
(14)
Garthoff, Raymond L., Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, (Washington,
1987) p.95-96.
(15)
Bundy, Danger and Survival, p.460
(16)
Bundy, Danger and Survival, p. 460.
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