Khrushchev later recalled the exchange that made up his mind:
When I asked the military advisers if they could assure me that holding fast would not result in the death of five hundred million human beings, they looked at me as though I was out of my mind or, what was worse, a traitor. The biggest tragedy, as they saw it, was not that our country might be devastated and everything lost, but that the Chinese or Albanians would accuse us of appeasement or weakness. So I said to myself: To hell with these maniacs. If I can get the United States to assure me that it will not attempt to overthrow the Cuban government, I will remove the missiles.103
At 4 p.m. Moscow time (8 a.m. EST), one hour before Radio Moscow broadcast Khrushchev’s acceptance of Kennedy’s offer to the world, Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky ordered the missile sites dismantled. “Remove them,” he directed, “as soon as possible. Before something terrible happens.”104
Khrushchev’s acceptance reached Washington at 9 a.m. local time: “Esteemed Mr. President: I have received your message of October 27, 1962. . . . In order to complete with greater speed the liquidation of the conflict dangerous to the cause of peace . . . the Soviet Government . . . in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as ‘offensive,’ and their crating and return to the Soviet Union.”105
Kennedy’s response, broadcast over Voice of America, marked the end of the crisis: “I welcome Chairman Khrushchev’s statesmanlike decision to stop building bases in Cuba, dismantling offensive weapons and returning them to the Soviet Union. . . . I think that you and I, with our heavy responsibilities for the maintenance of peace, were aware that developments were approaching a point where events could have become unmanageable. So I welcome this message and consider it an important contribution to peace.”106
President Kennedy carefully avoided turning the outcome into a public humiliation for the Soviet Union. “He instructed all members of the ExComm and government,” his brother wrote, “that no interview should be given, no statement made, which would claim any kind of victory. He respected Khrushchev for properly determining what was in his own country’s interest and what was in the interest of mankind. If it was a triumph, it was a triumph for the next generation and not for any particular government or people.”107
The missiles and bombers in Cuba were quietly dismantled and shipped back to the Soviet Union. Castro, who learned of the outcome on the radio, was so enraged by the Soviet capitulation he broke a mirror. Humiliated by being shunted to the sidelines during the crisis, and resentful at being used as a pawn and then having the missiles suddenly and publicly withdrawn, he refused to comply with the implementation of Kennedy and Khrushchev’s agreed protocol for the removal of the missiles and would not let UN inspectors on the island to verify their dis armament. As a result, President Kennedy never issued a formal commitment not to invade, although he respected the understanding, and subsequent administrations abided by it. The Turkish Jupiter missiles were quietly removed the following year and replaced with more modern and accurate Polaris submarine-borne ballistic missiles stationed in the Mediterranean. The Jupiter-missile trade remained one of the most closely kept secrets of the U.S. government until the posthumous publication of Robert Kennedy’s memoirs seven years later.
The crisis led to a realization on both sides that the world must not come this close again to catastrophe. During the crisis, President Kennedy told Lord Ormsby-Gore, the British ambassador to the United States, “You know, it really is an intolerable state of affairs when nations can threaten each other with nuclear weapons. This is just so totally irrational. A world in which there are large quantities of nuclear weapons is an impossible world to handle. We really must try to get on with disarmament if we get through this crisis . . . because this is just too much.”108 The crisis prompted Kennedy and Khrushchev to take steps to pull back from the brink. The leaders installed a “hot line” between the White House and the Kremlin to provide direct and instantaneous communication in the event of future standoffs. The United States and the Soviet Union took the first steps toward disarmament shortly after, signing the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the summer of 1963.
The crisis also brought home to the Soviets their strategic inferiority in nuclear weapons. At the time of the crisis, the United States had a seventeen-to-one advantage over the Soviet Union in nuclear weapons. Within a decade the Soviets had reached parity with the United States.
Neither of the leaders remained in power for long after the crisis. President Kennedy was assassinated a little more than a year later, on November 22, 1963, while campaigning in Dallas. Khrushchev was overthrown in a bloodless coup two years after the crisis, in October 1964. The Presidium faulted him for “harebrained brained scheming, hasty conclusions, rash decisions and actions based on wishful thinking.”109 Khrushchev’s name was stricken from all official references, and he lived the rest of his life in Moscow as a pensioner under close KGB surveillance, dying of natural causes on September 11, 1971.
“The final lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Robert Kennedy wrote, “is the importance of placing ourselves in the other country’s shoes. During the crisis, President Kennedy spent more time trying to determine the effect of a particular course of action on Khrushchev or the Russians than on any other phase of what he was doing. What guided all his deliberations was an effort not to disgrace Khrushchev, not to humiliate the Soviet Union, not to have them feel they would have to escalate their response because their national security or national interests so committed them.”110
Unknown to the Americans at the time, in the event of invasion, Soviet commanders in Cuba were authorized to use nuclear weapons at their discretion. Had President Kennedy chosen the military option, Theodore Sorensen wrote, “we now know that it would have produced a nuclear war. Such an air strike and invasion, we have learned, would have brought in response an immediate nuclear assault upon our forces by Soviet troops in Cuba, equipped with tactical nuclear weapons and authorized to use them on their own initiative, thereby precipitating the world’s first nuclear exchange, initially limited perhaps to the tactical weapons level, but inevitably and rapidly escalating to an all-out strategic exchange.”111
McGeorge Bundy wrote, “In that final sense the teaching of these great events, as the participants learned it and also as it has been learned by others, was not how to ‘manage’ a grave crisis, but how important it is not to have one. We must make it our business not to pass this way again.”112
Chapter 8
The Reykjavik Summit
1986
In the twenty-four years that followed the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet and American strategic nuclear arsenals grew twentyfold, and with both forces prepared to launch on several minutes’ notice, the world lived under constant threat of nuclear annihilation. The superpowers made little progress despite years of arms-control talks, and a series of accords such as the Nuclear Test Ban, Anti-Ballistic Missile, and Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties imposed limits on testing, antimissile systems, and certain types of delivery vehicles, but failed to curb the growth of missiles and warheads. By 1985, midlevel talks in Geneva on strategic reductions stalled, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze called the traditional arms-control process “a well-travelled road that led no where.”1 world’s nations,” Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev explained, “were at an impasse. It seemed that the confrontation between East and West would go on forever.”2 “There seemed to be no way out,” Shevardnadze wrote, “except to slash the Gordian knot—and destroy the world in the process.”3
Both countries struggled under the weight of massive defense spending. In the United States, President Ronald Reagan embarked on a three-trillion-dollar military buildup that caused record deficits. In the Soviet Union, the military consumed over 30 percent of the nation’s gross national product, and it became evident to the c
ountry’s leadership that the arms race was bankrupting the Soviet system. “When I became head of state,” Gorbachev wrote, “it was already obvious that there was something wrong in this country. . . . Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”4 A steep fall in the price of oil, which provided most of Russia’s hard currency, temporarily forced it to stop hard currency payments. The Soviet Union had fallen to fiftieth in the world in infant mortality rates, three times higher than the United States, and life expectancy was on par with Mexico, Brazil, and Costa Rica. “We can’t go on living like this,”5 Gorbachev said to his wife the night before the Politburo appointed him general secretary of the USSR in March 1985. “The rush toward the abyss,” he wrote, “had to end.”6
Reagan and Gorbachev met briefly in November 1985 in Geneva. The meeting produced only a joint statement that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”7 and an agreement to meet again, but Soviet leaders left impressed by Reagan’s sincerity and sensed an opportunity for meaningful dialogue. “We saw,” Shevardnadze wrote, “that Reagan was a person you could deal with, although it was very hard to win him over, to persuade him of the other point of view. But we had the impression that this is a man who keeps his word and that he’s someone you can deal with and negotiate with and reach accord.”8
On September 15, 1986, Gorbachev wrote a four-page letter to President Reagan. Delivered by Shevardnadze during a visit to Washington, it complained of the deterioration in relations and stressed the need for the two leaders to exert a stabilizing influence to prevent the situation from disintegrating further. Gorbachev spoke of “the spirit of candor which is coming to characterize our dialogue,” and wondered whether “the US leadership is at all prepared and ready to seek agreements which would lead to the termination of the arms race and to genuine disarmament?” He pointed out that despite the ongoing Geneva talks, “we still have not moved an inch closer to an agreement on arms reduction.” “I have come to the conclusion,” the Soviet premier wrote, “that the negotiations need a major impetus; otherwise they will continue to mark time. . . . They will lead nowhere unless you and I intervene personally. . . . An idea has come to my mind to suggest to you, Mr. President, that, in the very near future . . . we have a quick one-on-one meeting, let us say in Iceland or in London, maybe just for one day, to engage in a strictly confidential, private, and frank discussion (possibly with only our foreign ministers present). The discussion—which would not be a detailed one, for its purpose and significance would be to demonstrate political will—would result in instructions to our respective agencies to draft agreements on two or three very specific questions, which you and I could sign during my visit to the United States.”9
Reagan embraced the offer. “If such a meeting was to be held,” Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz explained, “I told the president privately, we should prefer Reykjavik, an isolated city where the host government would not interfere in what would surely be tense marathon negotiations and where ceremony would be at a minimum.”10 Reagan accepted on condition that Gorbachev release a half dozen imprisoned political dissidents and allow the return of Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow bureau chief of U.S. News & World Report, whom the KGB had seized on trumped-up espionage charges. The day after Daniloff’s release on September 29 President Reagan announced that he would meet Gorbachev in Iceland, on October 11 and 12. In his press conference announcing his acceptance, Reagan framed it as a preliminary meeting “in the context of preparations for the General Secretary’s visit to the United States.”11
On October 4, Gorbachev laid out his goals to the Soviet team preparing for Reykjavik. If a new arms race began, he told them, “the pressure on our economy will be inconceivable.”12 He emphasized that to achieve lasting progress, there had to be advantages for the Americans as well. “Nothing will come out of it,” he said, “if our proposals lead to a weakening of US security.”13 Gorbachev addressed the Politburo a couple of days before his departure for Reykjavik and told them “intermediate” solutions would not be enough. “If they impose a second round of arms race upon us,” Gorbachev warned, “we will lose.”14
Reagan looked forward to the meeting. “Years before,” he observed, recalling his experience as head of the actors’ union, “when I’d sat across the bargaining table from the executives who ran the Hollywood studios, I’d learned a few lessons about negotiating: You’re unlikely to ever get all you want; you’ll probably get more of what you want if you don’t issue ultimatums and leave your adversary room to maneuver; you should-n’t back your adversary into a corner, embarrass him, or humiliate him; and sometimes the easiest way to get some things done is for the top people to do them alone and in private.”15
President Reagan arrived in Iceland on Air Force One on Thursday evening, October 9. Gorbachev and the Soviet team arrived by air the following day and settled into their accommodations on a 360-foot-long Soviet cruise ship anchored offshore. On Saturday morning, the Soviet and American motorcades made their way through driving rain to Hofti House, a two-story, white wood clapboard building about a mile outside downtown Reykjavik, perched on a windswept outcrop of land overlooking the ocean. The building, widely rumored to be haunted, had served previously as a French Consulate and the British ambassador’s residence, but the British sold it after mysterious noises, paintings inexplicably falling off their hooks, and doors opening by themselves led them to look elsewhere for embassy housing. The Icelandic government, which had taken over Hofti House, maintained it for conferences and entertaining visiting dignitaries, and despite its unusual history, Soviet and American advance teams had chosen it because of its remote location and commanding view of the harbor.
Reagan and Gorbachev arrived promptly at 10:30. After a brief greeting and photo opportunity for more than thirty-five hundred journalists gathered on the front lawn, the two leaders went indoors to a small room on the building’s first floor, where Shultz and Shevardnadze joined them. Gorbachev began by handing Reagan a proposal for the United States and Soviet Union to cut their strategic nuclear forces in half. As Gorbachev later wrote:
Our proposals to cut strategic nuclear arsenals boiled down to the following: negotiations were stuck in endless discussions, the argument was going round in circles and getting nowhere. What was needed was a new approach. We therefore suggested cutting each of the three groups (ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers) by 50 per cent. It was the first time that the Soviet Union had agreed to such a big reduction in its ground-based ICBM force. This was our most powerful strategic weapon and was considered a major threat by the Americans. It was not meant as a one-sided offer, since the United States were supposed to cut by 50 per cent their major striking force—their nuclear submarines and their strategic bombers, in which they were superior to us. The logic was simple: to reduce the arsenals which guaranteed nuclear deterrence to a much lower level.16
Gorbachev also proposed eliminating Soviet and American intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe, while allowing France and Britain, whose combined 194 warheads lay technically outside of NATO’s command structure, to retain theirs. He suggested freezing existing levels of nuclear missiles in Europe with a range of less than one thousand kilometers (known as short-range INF missiles), an offer less generous than it appeared, as the Soviets had 120 deployed in Europe and NATO had none. In return Gorbachev asked for a commitment from the United States not to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty for at least ten years. Finally, Gorbachev suggested a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. “Gorbachev,” Shultz remembered, “was brisk, impatient, and confident, with the air of a man who is setting the agenda and taking charge of the meeting. Ronald Reagan was relaxed, disarming in a pensive way, and with an easy manner. He could well afford to be, since Gorbachev’s proposals all moved toward U.S. positions in significant ways.”17
A prime Soviet concern
was the presence of NATO intermediate-range missiles in Europe, which Gorbachev called “a pistol held to our head.”18 Deployed in response to Soviet SS-20 INF missiles in Eastern Europe, the U.S. Pershing II ballistic missiles targeted the most densely populated part of the Soviet Union. The Soviets feared the modern Pershing IIs, with their high accuracy and short flight times to the USSR, would be used as first-strike weapons. “Since the American missiles would take a maximum of five minutes to reach their targets,” Gorbachev observed, “we were practically unprotected against a possible strike.”19
Restraining American efforts to establish an anti-missile defense was another Soviet priority. To counter the Soviet threat, Reagan in March 1983 had launched an initiative to develop a space-based system to track and destroy incoming missiles during an attack, called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Many, including the head of Soviet space research, questioned whether it could be made to work, but Soviet policymakers were consumed by the fear that SDI would militarize space and allow the United States to launch a first strike without fear of retaliation.
Great Negotiations Page 20
