Michael Dobbs - One Minute to Midnight

The spy plane had almost certainly photographed the forward cruise missile positions near Guantanamo now equipped with tactical nuclear warheads aimed at the American naval base. The latest tracking data showed that the U-2 had made a sharp left turn at the eastern end of the island, and was flying along the northern Cuban coast back toward Florida. If the intruder was permitted to exit Cuban airspace, the Americans would soon possess up-to-date intelligence on Soviet military positions in eastern Cuba, including the plan to wipe out Guantanamo.

General Pliyev had left the command post to get some rest. In his absence, decisions were being taken by two of his deputies. Lieutenant General Stepan Grechko had overall responsibility for Soviet air defenses; Major General Leonid Garbuz was the deputy commander in chief for military plans. Both men knew that Pliyev had informed Moscow of his intention to shoot down American planes if an attack seemed imminent. They also knew that Castro had ordered Cuban anti-aircraft batteries to open fire on low-level planes. It was getting difficult to distinguish between reconnaissance flights and the start of an American bombing raid. A devastating U.S. attack was expected at any moment. The standing rules of engagement appeared to authorize the use of any weapons short of nuclear missiles to defend Soviet troops on Cuba.

“Our guest has been up there for over an hour,” Grechko complained. “I think we should give the order to shoot it down, as it is discovering our positions in depth.”

“We mustn’t allow our military secrets to fall into the hands of the Pentagon,” agreed Garbuz.

The two generals tried to call Pliyev by phone, but he could not be reached. In the meantime, the tracking reports showed that the U-2 had turned toward the north, and would soon be leaving Cuban airspace. There was not a moment to lose.

“Very well,” said Grechko. “Let’s take responsibility ourselves.”

They dispatched a coded order to the air defense division based in Camaguey, three hundred miles to the east. It was timed 10:16 in Havana, 11:16 a.m. in Washington.

“Destroy Target Number Thirty-three.”

In Washington, at the White House, the president had stepped out of the Cabinet Room to make some telephone calls. In his absence, other members of the ExComm were speculating about the reason for the sudden shift in signals from Moscow. It was difficult to explain why Khrushchev was now demanding the removal of American missiles from Turkey after his emotional-sounding letter on Friday fretting about “the knot of war.”

“We had one deal in the letter, now we’ve got a different deal,” complained McNamara. “How can we negotiate with somebody who changes his deal before we even get a chance to reply?”

“There must have been an overruling in Moscow,” speculated Bundy.

Other ExComm members reasoned that the impulsive Khrushchev had probably written the first letter himself and sent it “without clearance” from his colleagues. Perhaps there had been some kind of coup in the Kremlin, with the relatively moderate Khrushchev replaced by hard-liners or forced to do their bidding. Over at the CIA, officials noted that the premier had not been seen in public for two days. Nobody guessed the truth, which was that Khrushchev himself had detected a wavering in the U.S. position and decided to exploit it.

One thing was certain, said Llewellyn Thompson, the ExComm’s in-house Kremlinologist. The latest missive from Khrushchev was the official position of the Soviet leadership.

“The Politburo intended this one. ”

A U.S. Navy Crusader flew over the Soviet command post in El Chico almost at the same time the generals decided to shoot down Target Number 33. Moments later, it joined another reconnaissance plane that had taken a slightly southerly route, over the port of Mariel and an intermediate-range missile site at Guanajay. Antiaircraft guns opened up on the two jets as they skimmed the tops of the palm trees and swung northward, skirting the high-rise buildings of downtown Havana.

The low-level surveillance flights had a dual purpose: they were primarily intelligence-gathering missions, but they were also paving the way for bombing raids. As Robert McNamara explained to the ExComm, it was impossible for the Soviets and Cubans to distinguish a reconnaissance plane from a bomber until they were actually bombed. The goal was to “establish a pattern of operation that… cannot be differentiated from an attack.” The reconnaissance missions had the effect of reducing the warning time of a real attack to practically zero.

As the Crusaders were nearing the Cuban capital, another pair of jets entered Cuban territory over Mariel and headed westward toward the missile sites clustered around San Cristobal. The pilots got a clear view of the frantic activity below, and captured much of it on film. The canvas covers had been taken off many of the missile launchers. In some cases, the missiles were sitting on their launchers, but still in a horizontal position. Soviet soldiers were scrambling to finish the arched-roof storage bunkers for the nuclear warheads. Men dressed in checkered shirts were digging foxholes and trenches. Bulldozers and dump trucks were improving the roads leading to the launching positions.

Approaching the last of the missile sites, the pilots could see Cuban defenders running across a muddy field to their antiaircraft guns. Large paving stones had been placed in the mud to provide a pathway to the guns. A radar made a futile attempt to lock onto the moving target. By the time the Cubans swiveled their guns and trained them on the Crusaders, it was already too late. The Navy jets had disappeared in a cloud of exhaust.

At the R-12 missile site near Sagua la Grande, Soviet soldiers fired pistols at the Navy jets. More experienced officers shook their heads in disbelief. “First of all, don’t shoot at planes from a standing position,” a major named Troitsky, who was chief of the chemical defense unit, lectured the greenhorns. “Second, don’t use your pistol to shoot at a plane.”

Even in normal times, there was an almost hallucinatory quality to life in Castro’s Cuba. The sense of living in a dreamworld was heightened during the missile crisis when Cuba—and 7 million Cubans—was threatened with nuclear annihilation. The island was the center of international attention. At the same time, it was disconnected from the rest of the world, and functioned according to its own peculiar rhythms.

The few foreigners left in Havana were amazed by the calm in the eye of the hurricane. “The people at large show neither enthusiasm or panic,” reported Herbert Marchant, the British ambassador. “They have been buying up stocks of such things as paraffin, petroleum, coffee, but there has been no frenzied rush on the shops, and food supplies still seem to be adequate. Many fewer people than usual appear on the streets, but it has been raining heavily.” Apart from the antiaircraft guns along the shoreline, there was few public signs of serious military preparations. To the Italian journalist Saverio Tutino, Havana was “a city of children playing with pistols.”

“Of course we were frightened, but it was more complex than that,” recalled Edmundo Desnoes, the Cuban writer who later emigrated to the United States. “When you are in great danger and you feel righteous, it balances out somehow. Besides, we did not really know what it meant to be destroyed. We had no experience of World War II. The only images we had of massive destruction came from the movies.”

The Argentinean journalist Adolfo Gilly was unable to detect any sign of panic as he strolled through the streets of Havana on Saturday morning. He dropped in on the Ministry of Industry, hoping to meet with Che Guevara, but he was in Pinar del Rio. An assistant filled Gilly in on the latest news. “We are expecting the attack this afternoon between three and four o’clock,” he said, as if discussing the weather or the arrival of a foreign delegation. On the way down in the elevator, the journalist overheard a militiaman tell a colleague that he had been unable to shave that morning.