[SPEAKER_00]: The Cuban missile crisis is the closest that the United States and Soviet Union ever came to an all-out nuclear war.
[SPEAKER_00]: After Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev sent nuclear weapons into Cuba, in an effort to gain strategic leverage on the Cold War chessboard, the United States was almost provoked into a military confrontation with the Soviets that could have easily gone nuclear.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we analyzed the Cuban Missile Crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did it get started?
[SPEAKER_00]: What exactly was it stake?
[SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly for our purposes, is there anything that the Cuban Missile Crisis can teach us about the assassination of President Kennedy?
[SPEAKER_03]: In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, they have formally charged the assassination question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess the hat of the husband man is the unclean.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also acting alone comes in my perfect spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mission answers the acting on the top of my mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Solving JFK.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Matt Crumpton.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ever since the Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1961, Nikita Cruzchev believed that the U.S. was going to invade Cuba and topple its new communist leader Fidel Castro, it was just a matter of when.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a response to this fear and to the proximity of American nuclear weapons in the UK, Italy, and Turkey to Moscow, cruise chef decided to put nuclear missiles on Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of May 1962, a small Soviet delegation visited with Castro and a few of his advisors,
[SPEAKER_00]: Castro approved of cruise cheves plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the summer and fall of 1962, the USSR sent 60 ballistic missiles and 42,000 Soviet troops more than 7,000 miles across the ocean to Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: On July 30th, Cruschev asked Kennedy to stop reconnaissance flights over Soviet ships in the Caribbean, quote, for the sake of better relations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy agreed so long as Cruschev didn't take any action towards Berlin.
[SPEAKER_00]: JFK was looking to build some goodwill and was eager to avoid a crisis with the Soviets too close to the November election.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris Chev responded that he would not take any action on Berlin, at least not until the election was over.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lack of American eyes over Soviet ships made it easier to not tip off the massive
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 31, 1962, undercover GRU agent and crucial back-channel messenger, Georgie Bolshikov, was getting ready to fly back to Moscow the next day when he got a call from his friend, attorney general Robert Kennedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bobby asked Bolshikov to meet him to say goodbye before he left for vacation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Bolshikov arrived at the Attorney General's office, he was told that President Kennedy was waiting for him at the White House and had a message for him to deliver to Kruschev.
[SPEAKER_00]: The President told Bolshikov that he thought the outlook for American Soviet relations was good.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted Kruschev to know that he had ordered a stop to American planes doing low flyovers
[SPEAKER_00]: on ships from the Soviet Union bound for Cuba, just like Kruschev had requested.
[SPEAKER_00]: The president then asked Bolshekov to pass his message along and wish him safe travels.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the meeting, Bobby Kennedy had much more to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Bolshekov, RFK said QUOTE.
[SPEAKER_00]: God damn it, Georgie?
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't premier cruise-chev realize the president's position?
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't the premier know that the president has enemies as well as friends?
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe me, my brother really means what he says about American Soviet relations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every step he takes to meet Premier Cruzchev halfway cost my brother a lot of effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Premier just took the trouble to be for a moment at least in the president's shoes, he would understand him in a gust of blind hate.
[SPEAKER_00]: His enemies may go to any length, including killing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bolshikov later recalled, quote, I had never seen Robert so open and frank before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the impression he told me what the president had left unstated.
[SPEAKER_00]: What RFK told Bolshikov is also consistent with what Soviet spokesman Mikhail Karlamov said President Kennedy told him during a meeting at the White House on June 26, 1961.
[SPEAKER_00]: After Carlimov asked the president why he wasn't moving faster on advancing Soviet relations, if it was really something he wanted to do, Kennedy responded, quote, you don't understand this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I move too fast on U.S. Soviet relations, I'll either be thrown into an insane asylum or be killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: In August of 1962, American intelligence noticed an increased build-up of Soviet military equipment going to Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: National security officials concluded that the Soviets were installing defensive anti-aircraft missiles with a 30-mile range.
[SPEAKER_00]: On September 19th, the CIA said it did not believe there were nuclear warheads in Cuba
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, quote, it would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date, and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would indicate a far greater willingness to increase the level of risk in US-Soviet relations than the USSR had displayed thus far.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 1st, the Defense Intelligence Agency learned about a truck convoy of 20 objects that were 65 to 70 feet long and resembled large missiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there were earlier reports of a similar nature that were determined to be false, this sighting was only marked as potentially significant.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 9th, President Kennedy approved a U2 mission over Cuba as soon as there was clear visibility which didn't happen until October 14th.
[SPEAKER_00]: That U2 mission took 928 photographs and provided conclusive evidence that three medium-range ballistic missile sites were under construction.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cameras also picked up 21-created medium-range bombers that could deliver a nuclear strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: At 845 AM on October 16, National Security Advisor Mick George Bundy let President Kennedy know the bad news about the findings from the U2 flight the day before.
[SPEAKER_00]: This marked the start of the 13-day period that would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: That morning at the Executive Committee meeting of the National Security Council, also known as Ex-Com, the focus was on eliminating the Soviet missiles from Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: The options being discussed were either a quote, sudden unannounced strike of some sort, or building up the crisis through a political track, quote, to the point where the other side has to consider very seriously about giving in.
[SPEAKER_00]: The military choices were an air strike against the missile installations, a large attack against many targets, a blockade, or an invasion.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the October 18xcom meeting, it became clear that there were now five missile sites with more intermediate range launching pads under construction.
[SPEAKER_00]: CIA Director John McCone reported that the Soviets could have 16-32 missiles ready to fire within about a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: The presence of these additional missile sites led the joint chiefs to urge a full-scale invasion.
[SPEAKER_00]: President Kennedy steadfastly resisted the idea of an invasion and thought it was the worst possible option.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later that day, President Kennedy kept his pre-scheduled meeting with Soviet ambassador Andre Gromico, where Gromico lied to the President's face and said that the missile sites in Cuba were being set up exclusively for defensive weapons.
[SPEAKER_00]: JFK considered pulling out the photographic evidence he had in his desk drawer to confront Gromiko, but he decided against showing his cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even Kennedy-Friend Georgie Bolshikov couldn't be trusted during the Missile Crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cruzchev had given Bolshikov false information on purpose, unbeknownst to Bolshikov, which Bolshikov then relayed to the White House.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a late night ex-comm meeting on the evening of Thursday the 18th, the president said, quote, ''Somehow we've got to take action.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question really is, what action we take, which lessons the chances of a nuclear exchange, which obviously is the final failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: He ultimately decided to attempt to resolve the crisis with a limited blockade, which he called a quarantine.
[SPEAKER_00]: On Friday, October 19th, before he left the White House for a scheduled campaign event in Cleveland, President Kennedy held a 45-minute morning meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Joint Chiefs unanimously favored a massive air strike on Cuba, with half of them also in favor of following it up with a land invasion.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Kennedy pushed back that America would risk losing West Berlin if they attacked Cuba, joint chiefs Chairman Maxwell Taylor acknowledged the dilemma, but said, quote, if we don't respond here in Cuba, we think American credibility is sacrificed.
[SPEAKER_00]: General Curtis Lamay then chimed in, quote, I see no other political solution than the preemptive bombing of missile sites and invasion of Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: This blockade and political action, this is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Kennedy emphasized that the Soviets would not just accept an American attack and that there would be a counter-response, this is how Lamay responded.
[SPEAKER_03]: call them out to you when they say, I'm sites down there, and they respond to statements about their statements, and they can't see what we would think actually, I guess I'll ask you weapons.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that a blockade of political call would be considered by a lot of our friends who have been able to make a free week response to this, and I'm sure a lot of our own set us free on the field at way too.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you couldn't catch that on the audio recording, Lamay tells the president that he's in a pretty bad fix.
[SPEAKER_00]: JFK says, you're right in there with me, personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the joint chief's meeting, Kennedy told his friend and advisor, Kenny O'Donnell, quote, these brass hats have one great advantage in their favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the president left for Cleveland, the ex-com met once again on Friday the 19th without him.
[SPEAKER_00]: During that meeting, there was a broad agreement that the president's blockade idea was not the best course of action.
[SPEAKER_00]: This included General Taylor and all of the joint chiefs, National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, and CIA Director, John McCone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sided with Kennedy about the blockade.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a nearly three-hour meeting the next day, the president decided to go with the blockade against the advice of the ex-com.
[SPEAKER_00]: The public facing part of the Cuban Missile Crisis kicked off on Monday, October 22nd, after President Kennedy gave a televised speech to the nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in the day, when he met with congressional leaders to preview the speech, the general feeling was that the blockade was seen as a weak response.
[SPEAKER_00]: JFK sent a letter to Cruzchev warning him to remove the missile bases via Ambassador Dobrennan one hour before his speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cruzchev responded that the U.S. was manufacturing a crisis as a pretext to invading Cuba, but the crisis was a real one for the president.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he gave his speech that Monday night, he told the world that Moscow had created nuclear strike capability in Cuba that could hit many American cities, especially in the Southeast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a clip from President Kennedy's famous Cuban Missile Crisis speech.
[SPEAKER_02]: My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out.
[SPEAKER_02]: No one can foresee precisely what course it will take, or what course or casualties will be incurred.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead, months in which both our patients and our will will be tested, months in which many threats and annunciations will keep us aware of our dangers.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.
[SPEAKER_02]: but the vindication of right, not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here in this hemisphere, and we hope around the world, God willing, that goal will be achieved.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, and good night.
[SPEAKER_00]: After hearing Kennedy's speech, Kruschev responded that a quarantine or limited blockade would be a, quote, gross violation of international norms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy argued that the Soviets started it by putting secret offensive weapons on Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: He then asked Cruzchev to quote, show prudence and do nothing to make the situation more difficult to control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attorney General Robert Kennedy told journalists, Frank Holman and Charles Bartlett to tell Georgie Bolshikov that the White House might be open to dismantling Jupiter missiles in Turkey if the Soviets removed the missiles in Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: But only after the Soviets already acted
[SPEAKER_00]: In a time of quiet and not when there is the threat of war, when the attorney general said the same thing to Ambassador Dobrennan, Dobrennan said that the Soviet ships were still coming and the threat of a blockade would not stop them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Around noon on Wednesday, October 24th, the American blockade was tested in a conflict that brought the Cold War nuclear powers face to face once again.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, two Soviet ships and one submarine were in transit to Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the last minute,
[SPEAKER_00]: cruise-chev ordered the ships to turn around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the generals and ex-com members suggested attacking the submarine because it did not appear to be turning around.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was later determined that the sub-they considered attacking was armed with a nuclear warhead as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: The retreat of the Soviet ships should have been a cause for celebration in the White House, but President Kennedy, knowing the proclivities of the Joint Chiefs, was worried that the Navy would not follow his directions and would sink a Soviet ship anyway even if it turned around.
[SPEAKER_00]: To address this concern, Secretary McNamara went to see Navy Admiral George Anderson,
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after the Soviets turned away from the quarantine line, McNamara wanted to confirm and reiterate the rules of engagement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Admiral Anderson responded that his local commanders would decide what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He then said, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: This incident led to Secretary McNamara forcing Admiral Anderson's retirement in August of 1963.
[SPEAKER_00]: We now know just how close the provocative actions of the U.S. Navy War to setting off a nuclear war.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Navy dropped depth charge simulators near the Soviet nuclear submarine that was approaching the quarantine line.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Soviets thought the depth charges were the beginning of a war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two of the three officers required to approve a nuclear strike from the submarine were convinced that they needed to fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Resilute Resistance of the Third Officer, Vice Admiral Vasili Arquipov, in hindsight, played a huge role in avoiding a potentially apocalyptic confrontation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the Soviet ships turning around did not mean that the crisis was over.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, 42 of the 60 ballistic missiles that had been planned for Cuba, and all of the nuclear warheads had already arrived before the blockade was implemented.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the evening of October 24th, Kennedy read an angry letter from Cruzchev about, quote, the folly of degenerate imperialism.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, Cruzchev had a three-hour talk with American businessman William Knox, the head of manufacturing titan, Westinghouse International, who was in Moscow for business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kruschev told Knox that he was not interested in the destruction of the world, but, quote, if we all wanted to meet in hell, it was up to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: While the Soviets avoided a military escalation by turning around from the blockade line, the Cuban missile crisis was far from over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Events that transpired on Saturday, October 27th came very close to setting off a larger and more deadly conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the day began on a positive note with a new letter from cruisechev saying he would withdraw weapons from Cuba if the U.S. removed its rockets from Turkey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite this apparent progress, two incidents on Black Saturday as it would come to be known, threatened to stifle any hopes of peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: A routine U-2 flight was scheduled that day to collect air samples near the sites of Soviet nuclear tests.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pilot, Charles Maltbe, lost his bearings in the northern lights and went a thousand miles off course and disobeyed airspace, headed directly towards a Soviet air base.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Maltzby regained his direction and returned to Alaska, there were six Russian jets chasing the plane before Maltzby could escape by ascending to above 60,000 feet, where Soviet planes couldn't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: When President Kennedy heard about this, he said, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from Maltsby's close call, there was a much more serious development on Black Saturday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Major Rudolph Anderson Jr's U2 was shot down during a flight over Cuba, killing Major Anderson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two Soviet officers gave the order to fire without Moscow's permission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cruise Chove, with later tell his son Sergei, that Anderson's death was the moment when he, quote, felt instinctively that the missiles had to be removed, that disaster loomed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real disaster.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Anderson incident almost forced Kennedy's hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: In an ex-com meeting earlier that week, the president had already committed to bombing a Soviet surface to air missile base in Cuba if an American U-2 was shot down, which is exactly what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of that prior approval, a Department of Defense contingency plan was already in motion,
[SPEAKER_00]: And the joint chiefs began to execute that plan as quickly as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: As American bombers were preparing their assault on Soviet missile bases in Cuba, Curtis Lame received an urgent call.
[SPEAKER_00]: The White House was ordering him to stop the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Lame hung up, he said, quote, he chicked out again.
[SPEAKER_00]: How in the hell do you get men to risk their lives when the surface to air missiles are not
[SPEAKER_00]: When an aide told LeMay that he would wait by the phone for the president's order, LeMay said, quote, it will never come.
[SPEAKER_00]: As of Saturday afternoon, the joint chiefs continued to urge President Kennedy to conduct a massive air strike by no later than Monday morning, followed by a ground invasion a week later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy continued to resist because he worried about losing Berlin and the conflict going nuclear.
[SPEAKER_00]: The president then brought in his brother to send a sensitive message to cruisechev.
[SPEAKER_00]: This time, through Soviet ambassador Dobrinin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bobby told Dobrinin that, quote, while there could be no deal over the Turkish missiles, the president was determined to get them out and would do so once the Cuban crisis was resolved.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Soviets revealed this pledge, the offer would become null and void.
[SPEAKER_00]: RFK then told Dobrenin quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: The president is in a grave situation and he does not know how to get out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are under very severe stress.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to ask you, Mr. Dobrenin, to pass President Kennedy's message to Chairman Kruschev through
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Kruschev for help in liquidating this conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not long after RFK spoke to Dobrennan, Chairman Kruschev was urging the need for a retreat in order to save the Soviet Union from an American nuclear strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had just received a message from Fidel Castro that a U.S. attack on Cuba was, quote, almost eminent.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the meeting,
[SPEAKER_00]: re-emphasizing the urgency to end the crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cruz Chav then dictated a letter accepting Kennedy's terms and broadcast it on Soviet radio, which was heard around 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, October 28th in Washington.
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon hearing cruise chives' acceptance of Kennedy's terms on the radio, most people in the White House celebrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: The joint chiefs, on the other hand, wrote a letter to the President recommending executing the air strikes that had already been planned for Monday morning anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: unless there was irrefutable evidence that the Soviets were actually removing the missile sites.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once the predicament in Cuba was over, JFK instructed that no statements be made or interviews given that, quote, would claim any kind of victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it was a triumph, it was a triumph for the next generation and not for any particular government or people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis enraged the same people in the US who were already upset about his handling of the Bay of Pigs.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, when the President met with the joint chiefs to thank them for their efforts, Navy Admiral Anderson said, quote,
[SPEAKER_00]: Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis Lamay called the settlement, quote, The greatest defeat in our history, and once again, urged a prompt invasion of Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Secretary McNamara, the president was, quote, Absolutely shocked and stuttering in reply.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the meeting,
[SPEAKER_00]: they wanted to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next time on Solving JFK, we analyze Cold War spy games to see what we can learn about the JFK assassination from Popov's mole and from Soviet defector, Yuri No Sinko.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you heard anything that you believe is out of context or if you have additional information to offer, you can let us know at solving JFK podcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please provide citations to the record for any fact that you're relying on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.
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