Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

Whatever the reason for the Soviet missile buildup in Cuba, once begun, in August 1962, it proceeded with amazing speed. The White House was suspicious by the beginning of September, and on the 24th of that month President Kennedy obtained from the Congress permission to call up 150,000 reservists, but aerial photography did not show missile placements until October 15th. Soviet high altitude AA rockets (SA-z’s) had been identified in Cuba in August, and Ilyushin-28 jet bombers in September.

The week of October 14-21 was one of steadily increasing crisis within the United States government, although no public announcement was made before the President’s speech of Monday, October 22, 1962. This speech established a “quarantine on all offensive equipment under shipment to Cuba,” demanded dismantling of the missile sites, and withdrawal of Soviet forces under threat of stronger action by the United States, and announced that “any missile launched from Cuba against any nation shall be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring full retaliation.”

The effects of this speech were explosive. To the world it began six days of crisis in which the two Superpowers hung on the brink of nuclear war. In reality the situation was quite different. The crisis, in fact, was an almost perfect example of a diplomatic crisis and of how such a crisis should be handled.

The pattern for a classic diplomatic crisis has three stages: (1) confrontation; (2) recognition; and (3) settlement. The confrontation consists of a dispute, that is, a power challenge in some area of conflict; Stage 2 is recognition by both sides of the realities of the power relationship between them (always much easier when only two states are involved); and Stage 3 is a yielding by the weaker of the two accompanied by an effort by the stronger to cover that retreat by refusing to inflict a humiliation or obvious triumph over the weaker. As Metternich said, “A diplomat is a man who never allows himself the pleasure of a triumph,” and does so simply because it is to the interest of the stronger that an opponent who recognizes the victor’s strength and is reasonable in yielding to it not be overthrown or replaced by another ruler who is too ignorant or too unreasonable to do so. The crisis of October 1962 was conducted along these lines in a masterly fashion by President Kennedy, except for a few minor blemishes caused by some of his subordinates.

The power situation throughout the missile crisis was overwhelmingly in favor of the United States (by at least a 4 to 1 ratio). The Kremlin could do nothing to defend Cuba if we attacked it, since its missiles and jet bombers there were not yet ready. Moreover, the Kremlin could expect devastation of the Soviet Union itself, if it pushed the Cuban project. It was a mark of Kennedy’s masterful analysis here that he ignored Cuba and made the crisis a simple USSR-USA confrontation. In doing so, he placed the issue on a pure power basis, and made rubbish of the clutter of unrealities accumulated on the American foreign policy scene since 1945: NATO, our allies elsewhere, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States were not consulted before decision and action; they were informed afterward (chiefly on October 23). When informed and asked to back the White House, they could neither decide nor act.

The dominant fact in the whole situation was the overwhelming character of America’s power and the fact that this was known both to the White House and to the Kremlin, but was largely unknown, and certainly unpublicized, to the world. Around the Soviet Union’s border were 144 Polaris, 103 Atlas, 159 Thor, Jupiter, and Titan missiles; 1,600 long-range bombers, many of them constantly in the air with nuclear bombs. When the President’s speech began the public crisis, five divisions of the United States Army Strategic Reserve, totaling about 100,000 men, plus 100,000 air force and an equal number of naval and marine personnel had been mobilized or alerted, the First Armored Division had been flown from Texas to the east coast, 90 naval vessels, including 8 carriers, were on patrol to blockade, a Cuban invasion command had been assembled in Florida, and 2,700 relatives of military personnel had been evacuated from Guantanamo.

Under such pressure Khrushchev wilted (it might almost be said that he panicked) on Friday, October 26th. Only eight days before, on October 18th, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko had made a personal visit to the White House and, without mentioning the Soviet activities in Cuba, had threatened Mr. Kennedy: The Soviet Union was unable to postpone any longer the conclusion of a peace treaty with the (East) German Democratic Republic, yielding to it control over the access routes to Berlin. The President had listened and dismissed the foreign minister without saying anything about the missile buildup in Cuba, which was already under discussion within his government. But a week later the world could think of nothing else except the missile buildup and the American response.

As Washington waited for the Kremlin’s reaction to the President’s speech, work on the missile sites continued, Soviet vessels were approaching the American naval patrol around Cuba, and the American government was approaching its allies, the UN, and the OAS. Before the public crisis began on Monday, the Administration recognized that its blockade was illegal, that the United States itself had once fought a war for free navigation of the seas, and that we recognized blockade only in connection with a declared war. As a concession to this, the American action was called a “quarantine” not a “blockade.” The chief point of concern was: Would the Soviet accept it or would their vessels precipitate war by trying to break through? The test came on Thursday, October 25th, at the end of three days of confused activity in other corners of the stage.

On Tuesday, October 23rd, as the United States took its case to the UN and the OAS, reactions came from its allies and world opinion. Both reactions were adverse, but most states made it clear that they would not oppose the American action. Although the British government, like the rest of our allies, supported the American action, public opinion in England, including The Guardian, The Times, and the leaders of the Labour Party, flung back at us the criticism the Eisenhower Administration had made of the British attack on Suez six years earlier: ignoring the United Nations, deceiving and bypassing one’s allies, resorting to violent rather than peaceful procedures in international disputes, and risking nuclear war before negotiations have been exhausted. Pakistan and India, unable to agree on anything else, were united in their criticism of Kennedy’s irresponsible exposure of the world to the risk of war. Sweden flatly rejected the blockade.

In these same days, the twenty other Latin American states voted to support the American blockade of Cuba, and Argentina offered to provide ships to participate in it, but several states indicated that they would not support an American invasion of Cuba if the blockade failed to enforce removal of the missiles.

The United Nations, as might be expected, was not so successful in reaching any agreement. Three resolutions were introduced, submitted by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the forty neutrals (out of 105 member states), but it was impossible to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote for any one of them, and none came to a vote.

In the meantime, for two days the important question hung unanswered: What would the Soviet ships do when they reached the blockade? The first, a tanker, was challenged by an American destroyer on Thursday, was acknowledged, and gave the necessary information that it was carrying no arms to Cuba. Within a few hours, it became clear that twelve of twenty-five Soviet ships en route to Cuba were turning back. The Kremlin had backed down.