Gambling with Armageddon by Martin J. Sherwin

Author:Martin J. Sherwin [Sherwin, Martin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

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“Now it may end up with our having to invade Cuba,” the president conceded, but “we’ve done the best thing, at least as far as we can tell in advance.” It was not possible not to have reacted: “I don’t think there was anybody ever who didn’t think we shouldn’t respond” (anybody he had consulted, that is).

He had explained to all, he said (the Joint Chiefs were at this meeting), why he had chosen the blockade, even though, “as I’ve said from the beginning, the idea of a quick strike was very tempting, and I really didn’t give up on that until yesterday morning….After talking to General Sweeney…it looked like we would have all the difficulties of Pearl Harbor and not have finished the job. The job can only be finished by an invasion.”

If an invasion appeared necessary at the end of the week, the president was confident that the forces required would be ready. But conceding that waiting a week would make the military’s job more difficult, he said to the Chiefs: “We followed the course we have because…we are involved all around the world and not just in Cuba. I think the shock to the alliance might have been nearly fatal [had we decided to invade]. Particularly as it would have excused very drastic action by Khrushchev.”

Nevertheless, there remained the major problem of justifying the American reaction. Anticipating allied objections, Kennedy put the central question as much to himself as to his advisers: “Inasmuch as the Soviet missiles are already pointed at the U.S., and U.S. missiles are [pointed] at the U.S.S.R….What is the distinction between these missiles and the missiles which we sent to Turkey and Italy, which the Soviets put up with?”

State had prepared a secret briefing paper on that issue, and the president decreed that it be reviewed for declassification promptly and ready for distribution by that evening. “This is going to be one of the matters that are going to be most troublesome for our ambassadors,” he warned. “We ought to get it clear in the American press and others as to why we object to something that the Russians [accepted].”

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