DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Norman Polmar

Author:Norman Polmar [Polmar, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2006-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

12

“Until Hell Freezes Over!”

A great nation such as yours would not take such a serious step if there was any doubt. I need no such evidence. For our purposes, the missiles are there.

President Charles de Gaulle

October 22, 19621

From the first moments of the Cuban Missile Crisis, secrecy had been at the core of the Kennedy administration’s response to the Soviet missile deployment to Cuba. Then, on the evening of October 22, 1962, and with almost no public warning, President Kennedy’s television address had thrown a nuclear confrontation into the public forum. Within the United States, the reaction ranged from deep concern to extreme fear, including panic buying at some supermarkets in the southeastern part of the country. There was also great skepticism regarding the validity of Kennedy’s charges in foreign newspapers, on radio, and on television. It was a matter of public record that the CIA had used the media and United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson as part of the cover plan for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. The Kennedy administration’s decision to make secrecy the overriding consideration during the ExComm deliberations the previous week now required a major public relations effort.

Public relations campaigns were central to John Kennedy’s approach toward politics and life, as they were to most of the men surrounding him. Throughout his career, Kennedy had believed that one should be able to justify action with a good legal case. Debate skills come naturally to lawyers and politicians, and it was not surprising that many in the Kennedy administration would view the diplomatic effort to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba as a sort of contest.2 Now they would have to sell the public on the reality of the missiles in Cuba and on the rightness of U.S. actions in forcing their removal. The challenge was difficult because much of the world already viewed American intentions toward Castro and Cuba with great suspicion after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson is generally credited with pointing out during the ExComm sessions that the Soviets respected a good legal case. This idea became the core of the worldwide American sales effort to get the missiles out of Cuba.3 The task fell mainly to individuals and organizations that were completely uninformed of the crisis prior to Kennedy’s speech on October 22. These people had to alert the international community to the danger of the Anadyr missile deployment and to the absolute need to remove the weapons from Cuba.

Tuesday, October 23: The Morning After

In 1962, the press still respected the privacy of political leaders, resulting in a much more intimate intercourse between the two communities. President Kennedy often called reporters, like Hugh Sidney of Time magazine, for their opinions and reactions. Kennedy actively socialized with journalists. In return, the reporters chose not to report on Kennedy’s alleged extramarital affairs and liaisons, most of his health problems, and other matters of private interest; it was a level of regard almost unthinkable in today’s journalism.

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