One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war

by Michael Dobbs

  Colonel Nikolai Beloborodov, commander of the Soviet nuclear arsenal on Cuba, at the helm of Indigirka, the first Soviet ship to arrive in Cuba with nuclear warheads. [MAVI]

  Previously unpublished photograph of the nuclear storage site at Managua, south of Havana, which was used to store the warheads for the tactical FROG/Luna missiles. Labels show the single security fence, the entrances to the bunker, and an antiaircraft site on top of the hill. Photograph shot on October 26 by U.S. Air Force RF-101 on Blue Moon Mission 2623. [NARA]

  Previously unpublished photographs of raw intelligence film from Blue Moon Mission 5025 on Saturday, October 27, showing frames before and after the pilot detected enemy antiaircraft fire. Frame 47 shows the San Cristobal MRBM Site No. 2. A fraction of a second later, in frame 48, the pilot turns sharply to the left to escape over the mountains. A photograph of a clock embedded in the film (see inset) shows the precise time of the incident, 20:22:34 GMT, which was 16:22:34 Washington time, or 15:22:34 Cuban time. [NARA]

  The Soviet cruise missile known as FKR, or frontovaya krylataya raketa, was aimed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base during the Cuban missile crisis. The FKR was an unpiloted version of the MiG-15 jet fighter and could deliver a 14-kiloton nuclear warhead. [Cuban government photo produced for the 2002 Havana Conference]

  U.S. Marines guarding Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had no idea that nuclear cruise missiles were stationed in hills fifteen miles away. [Distributed by the Pentagon]

  Photograph of the Banes SAM site, taken by the RF-101 pictured above on October 26. [NARA]

  Previously unpublished intelligence film of a U.S. Air Force RF-101 overflying the Soviet SAM site at Banes on October 26. The following day, October 27, a U.S. Air Force U-2 piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down by two missiles fired from this SAM site. Discovered by the author at the National Archives, the consecutive frames were cut and pieced together with Scotch tape by CIA analysts. [NARA]

  Flying right wing on Blue Moon Mission 2626, this U.S. Air Force RF-101, numbered 41511, took the photograph shown on front page from its left camera bay. [NARA]

  Colonel Georgi Voronkov (left), commander of the SAM regiment in eastern Cuba, congratulates officers responsible for shooting down Anderson's U-2. The officer on the right, with a pistol, is Major Ivan Gerchenov, commander of the Banes SAM site. [MAVI]

  Previously unpublished map of U-2 pilot Captain Charles Maultsby's overflight of the Soviet Union, found by the author in State Department Archives. [NARA]

  Air Force photo of Captain Maultsby. [Photo provided by Maultsby family]

  Another U-2 pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was shot down over Cuba while Maultsby was in the air over the Soviet Union. [Photo provided by Anderson family]

  The mood was very different across the Potomac at the Pentagon, where the Joint Chiefs were busy refining their plans for a massive air strike against Cuba followed by an invasion. Curtis LeMay was already furious with Kennedy for postponing the planned attack until Tuesday. The Air Force chief wanted his fellow generals to go with him to the White House to demand an attack by Monday at the latest, before the missile sites became "fully operational."

  Tickertape of the Radio Moscow broadcast was distributed around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday. The chiefs reacted with dismay. LeMay denounced Khrushchev's statement as "a charade," and a cover for keeping some weapons in Cuba. Admiral Anderson predicted that the no-invasion pledge being offered to Cuba by Kennedy would "leave Castro free to make trouble in Latin America." The generals were unimpressed by McNamara's argument that Khrushchev's concessions left the United States in "a much stronger position." They drafted an urgent message to the White House dismissing the Soviet move as "an insincere proposal to gain time" and warning that "there should be no relaxation of alert procedures."

  "We have been had," Anderson told Kennedy when they finally got together.

  "It's the greatest defeat in our history," insisted LeMay. "We should invade today."

  Fidel Castro was at home in Vedado. He heard about the dismantling of the Soviet missile sites in a telephone call from the editor of Revolucion, Carlos Franqui. The Associated Press teletype was reporting the text of the letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy that had just been broadcast over Radio Moscow. The newspaper editor wanted to know "what should we do about this news?"

  "What news?"

  Franqui read the news bulletin over the phone and braced himself for an explosion.

  "Son of a bitch! Bastard! Asshole!" Fidel went on in this vein for some time, "beating even his own record for curses." To vent his anger, he kicked a wall and smashed a mirror. The idea that the Russians had made a deal with the Americans "without even bothering to inform us" cut him to the core. He felt deeply "humiliated." He instructed President Dorticos to call the Soviet ambassador to find out what had happened.

  Alekseev had been up late the night before. He was still in bed when the telephone rang.

  "The radio says that the Soviet government has decided to withdraw the missiles."

  The ambassador had no idea what Dorticos was talking about. There was obviously some mistake.

  "You shouldn't believe American radio."

  "It wasn't American radio. It was Radio Moscow."

  11:10 A.M. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28

  The report reaching the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs was startling. An air defense radar had picked up evidence of an unexplained missile launch from the Gulf of Mexico. The trajectory suggested that the target was somewhere in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.

  By the time the duty officers at NORAD had figured out where the missile was headed, it was already too late to take any action. They received the first report of the incident at 11:08 a.m., six minutes after the missile was meant to land. A check with the Bomb Alarm System, a nationwide network of nuclear detonation devices placed on telephone polls in cities and military bases, revealed that Tampa was still intact. The Strategic Air Command knew nothing about the reported launch.

  It took a few nerve-wracking minutes to establish what had really happened. The discovery of Soviet missiles on Cuba had resulted in a crash program to reorient the American air defense system from north to south. A radar station at Moorestown just off the New Jersey Turnpike had been reconfigured to pick up missile launches from Cuba. But the giant golfballlike installation was still experiencing teething problems. Technicians had fed a test tape into the system at the very moment that an artificial satellite appeared on the horizon, causing radar operators to confuse the satellite with an incoming missile.

  A false alarm.

  The ExComm began meeting at 11:10 a.m., after JFK returned from church, just as NORAD was clearing up the confusion about the phantom missile attack on Tampa. Aides who had expressed doubts about Kennedy's handling of the crisis a few hours earlier now vied with each other to praise him. Bundy coined a new expression to describe the divisions among the president's advisers that had erupted in dramatic fashion on Saturday afternoon.

  "Everyone knows who were the hawks and who were the doves," said the self-appointed spokesman for the hawks. "Today was the day of the doves."

  To many of the men who had spent the last thirteen days in the Cabinet Room, agonizing over the threat posed by Soviet missiles, it suddenly seemed as if the president was a miracleworker. One aide suggested he intervene in a border war between China and India that had been overshadowed by the superpower confrontation. Kennedy brushed the suggestion aside.

  "I don't think either of them, or anybody else, wants me to solve that crisis."

  "But, Mr. President, today you're ten feet tall."

  JFK laughed. "That will last about a week."

  Kennedy drafted a letter to Khrushchev welcoming his "statesmanlike decision" to withdraw the missiles. He instructed Pierre Salinger to tell the television networks not to play the story up as "a victory for us." He was worried that the mercurial Soviet leader "will be so humiliated and angered that he will change his mind."

  Exerci
sing restraint proved difficult for the networks. That evening, CBS News broadcast a special report on the crisis "brought to you by the makers of Geritol, a high potency vitamin, iron-rich tonic that makes you feel stronger." Seated in front of a map of Cuba, correspondent Charles Collingwood tried to put the latest developments in perspective. "This is the day we have every reason to believe the world came out from under the most terrible threat of nuclear holocaust since World War II," he told viewers. He described Khrushchev's letter to Kennedy as a "humiliating defeat for Soviet policy."

  Bobby Kennedy had missed the early part of the ExComm meeting because of a hastily arranged meeting with the Soviet ambassador. Dobrynin officially conveyed Khrushchev's decision to withdraw the missiles from Cuba and passed on his "best wishes" to the president. The president's brother made no attempt to conceal his relief. "At last, I am going to see the kids," he told the ambassador. "Why, I've almost forgotten my way home." It was the first time in many days that Dobrynin had seen RFK smile.

  On instructions from Moscow, Dobrynin later attempted to formalize the understanding on removing the American missile bases in Turkey with an exchange of letters between Khrushchev and Kennedy. But Bobby refused to accept the Soviet letter, telling Dobrynin that the president would keep his word but would not engage in correspondence on the subject. He confided that he himself might run for president one day--and his chances could be damaged if word leaked out about a secret deal with Moscow. Despite the determination of the Kennedy brothers to avoid creating a paper trail, dismantling of the Jupiters would begin as promised, five months later, on April 1, 1963.

  AFTERNOON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28

  Khrushchev's letter to Castro explaining the reasons for his decision to withdraw the missiles reached the Soviet Embassy in Havana several hours after the Radio Moscow broadcast. When Alekseev tried to deliver the letter, he was informed that Fidel had left town and was "unavailable." In fact, Castro had no desire to meet with the Soviet ambassador. He was furious with Khrushchev for "abandoning" Cuba at the climactic moment of its showdown with America.

  Fidel did pay a brief visit to Soviet military headquarters in El Chico in an attempt to get more information. General Pliyev confirmed that he had received an order from Moscow to dismantle the missiles.

  "All of them?"

  "All."

  "Very well," Castro replied, struggling to contain his anger. He stood up. "Fine. I'm leaving now."

  To demonstrate his disapproval of the Soviet decision, Fidel drew up a list of five Cuban "demands" as a precondition for any settlement with the United States. They included an end to the economic blockade, a halt to "all subversive activities," and a U.S. withdrawal from the Guantanamo Naval Base. He also made clear that Cuba would not accept any international "inspections" of its territory.

  As news spread of the Soviet climbdown, Cubans poured into the streets to vent their anger. Once ubiquitous posters proclaiming "Cuba is not alone" disappeared from walls. There were shouts of "Russians go home" and "Jrucho' maricon" ("Khrushchev is a queer"). Soon the crowds had invented a new chant:

  Nikita, Nikita,

  Lo que se da no se quita.

  Nikita, Nikita,

  What you give, you can't take away.

  Russian soldiers in Cuba were as confused as their Cuban hosts. Many went out and got drunk. A CIA agent in Pinar del Rio described numerous cases of Soviet soldiers selling "watches, boots, and even eyeglasses to raise cash for liquor." Many were happy to be finally going home, but others broke down and cried, according to a dispatch from the Czech ambassador to Havana. "Some experts and technicians refused to work further and there were many cases of drunkenness in old Havana."

  Most bewildered of all were the commanders who had spent the last three months shipping some of the most powerful weapons known to mankind halfway around the world and targeting them on cities like Washington and New York. The commander of the missile troops, Major General Statsenko, found it difficult to understand what Moscow wanted from him. As his men labored to fulfill Khrushchev's order to dismantle the missile sites, he vented his frustration to a representative of the Soviet General Staff.

  "First you urged me to complete the launch sites as quickly as possible. And now you are criticizing me for dismantling them so slowly."

  Over the next few days and nights, Fidel prepared his people for a long struggle ahead. He went back to la colina, the hilltop campus of the University of Havana that had been the scene of his early struggles against Batista, to urge students "to tighten your belts and perhaps even to die" in defense of their homeland. Cuba risked becoming "an abandoned island without oil and electricity," he warned. "But we prefer to go back to primitive agriculture than accept the loss of sovereignty."

  But even as he fulminated against the Soviets, Castro remained the practical politician. "We won't make the same mistake twice," he told his youthful followers. Cuba would not "break with the Russians" so soon after "breaking with the Americans." Anything was preferable to being driven back into the arms of Uncle Sam. In order to save his revolution, Fidel was willing to make the supreme sacrifice: he would swallow his pride.

  Back at the White House, after the rest of the ExComm had left, JFK found himself alone with Bobby. Together, they reviewed the events of the previous thirteen days, and particularly the final day, Black Saturday, when the world had seemed to teeter on the brink of nuclear war. There had been many times over the last twenty-four hours when Kennedy, like Abraham Lincoln before him, had reason to ask himself whether he controlled events or events controlled him.

  History, Kennedy understood, does not always flow in predictable directions. Sometimes it can be hijacked by fanatics of various descriptions, by men with long beards, by ideologues living in caves, by assassins with rifles. At others, it can be yanked from its normal path by a combination of chance events, such as an airplane going astray, the misidentification of a missile, or a soldier losing his temper. Statesmen try to bend the chaotic forces of history to their will, with varying degrees of success. The likelihood of an unpredictable event occurring that can change the course of history is always greater at times of war and crisis, when everything is in flux.

  The question the world confronted during what came to be known as the Cuban missile crisis was who controlled history: the men in suits, the men with beards, the men in uniform, or nobody at all. In this drama, Kennedy ended up on the same side as his ideological nemesis, Nikita Khrushchev. Neither man wanted war. They both felt an obligation to future generations to rein in the dark, destructive demons they themselves had helped to unleash.

  Much of the relief felt by Kennedy on the afternoon of Sunday, October 28, was due to the fact that he and Khrushchev had succeeded in regaining control of historical events. After threatening to erupt in nuclear conflagration, the Cold War would settle back into its familiar rhythm. Men of common sense and reason had defeated the forces of destruction and chaos. The issue now was whether the victory for order and predictability would be long-lasting or fleeting.

  Casting around for an appropriate historical precedent, JFK thought of one of his predecessors. On April 14, 1865, five days after accepting the South's surrender in the Civil War, Lincoln decided to celebrate his moment of triumph by paying a visit to Ford's Theatre, to see a production of Our American Cousin.

  "This is the night I should go to the theater," said Jack.

  Unsure whether to be amused or protective, Bobby played along with his brother's macabre joke.

  "If you go, I want to go with you."

  Some of the characters in this story were quickly forgotten; others were destined for fame and notoriety. Some were disgraced; others rose to positions of great influence. Some led long and happy lives; others had their lives cut short by tragedy. But all were marked in a lasting way by "the most dangerous moment" in history.

  The two CIA saboteurs, Miguel Orozco and Pedro Vera, spent seventeen years in Cuban jails before being sent back to the United States.
The man who smuggled them into Cuba, Eugenio Rolando Martinez, was arrested at the Watergate Hotel in June 1972 while breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

  Charles Maultsby was forbidden by the U.S. Air Force from flying anywhere remotely near the North Pole or the Chukot Peninsula. He died of prostate cancer in 1998.

  Viktor Mikheev, the Russian soldier killed while preparing a nuclear missile attack on the Guantanamo Naval Base, was buried in Cuban military uniform in Santiago. His remains were later transferred to the Soviet military cemetery in El Chico. His family was told only that he died "performing his internationalist duty."

  George Anderson was dismissed from his position as chief of naval operations in August 1963 and appointed U.S. ambassador to Portugal.

  William Harvey was removed as head of Operation Mongoose after the missile crisis and sent as CIA station chief to Rome, where he drank heavily.

  Dmitri Yazov became Soviet defense minister in 1987 and led a failed coup against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991.

  John Scali served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Nixon.