The world never came closer to nuclear war than in October 1962 when the Soviet Union attempted to place nuclear weapons in Cuba. "The Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons," Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said later, "and now they would learn just what it feels like╔"
On October 16, President John F. Kennedy received photographic evidence that the Soviets were building missile launchers in Cuba. From the beginning, Kennedy was determined to remove the missiles from Cuba even if it meant war. While Kennedy accepted the assessment of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the missiles would not change the strategic balance of power, he would not let the Soviet Union push him or the United States around.
On October 22, President Kennedy dispatched a harsh letter to Khrushchev via Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin. The president reminded the Soviet leader that he had been warned by Kennedy at their summit at Vienna that "the United States could not tolerate any action on your part which in a major way disturbed the existing overall balance of power in the world." As for the Cuban missiles, Kennedy said sternly, "I must tell you that the United States is determined that this threat to the security of this hemisphere be removed."
An hour later, the president informed the nation on television that "unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation in that imprisoned island" of Cuba. He said the missiles could hit any city between Peru and the Hudson Bay. He announced three steps: a "quarantine"-a euphemism he used because a naval blockade was regarded as an act of war-on shipments of military equipment into Cuba; a warning that "further action will be justified" if the quarantine fails to end the threat; and a pledge that any attack on any country in the Western Hemisphere by a missile from Cuba would require "a full retaliatory strike upon the Soviet Union."
The president ordered 56 American warships to encircle Cuba, a dozen Polaris submarines with nuclear missiles to rush toward the coast of the Soviet Union, the Strategic Air Command's bomber fleet to go on alert and military personnel to prepare more than two hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles in the United states for firing. Kennedy's speech stunned the world and people waited anxiously for the next move.
The emergency meeting of the Security Council began the day after the speech with US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin exchanging insults and accusations. While Stevenson condemned the Soviet Union for carting missiles into Cuba, Zorin condemned the United States for its blockade of the island. Each introduced resolutions condemning the other. On the third day, while television cameras recorded it all, Stevenson rose in rebuttal.
"I want to say to you, Mr. Zorin, that I do not have your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language and for double talk," Stevenson began. "And I must confess to you that I am glad I do not╔ The other day, Mr. Zorin, I remind you that you did not deny the existence of these weapons. Indeed, we heard that they had suddenly become defensive weapons. But today, again if I heard you correctly, you now say they do not exist, or that we haven't proved they exist, with another fine flood of rhetorical scorn. All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no- don't wait for the translation-yes or no."
Despite the solemnity of the mood, many ambassadors could not stifle their laughter at the sudden demand by Stevenson for a reply without waiting for the interpretation. "I am not in an American court of law," Zorin relied, "and therefore do not wish to answer a question put to me in the manner of a prosecuting counsel. You will receive the answer in due course in my capacity as representative of the Soviet Union."
"You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now," Stevenson said, "and you can answer 'Yes' or "No.' You have denied that they exist-and I want to know whether I have understood you correctly."
"Please continue your statement, Mr. Stevenson. You will receive the answer in due course."
"I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision," Stevenson said. "And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room."
It was time to show the world the U-2 photographs of the Soviet missile sites in Cuba. The Americans, Harlan Cleveland recalled, had made "a very good tactical decision not to use them in the opening speech, to wait until we were challenged, and then roll them out as rebuttal. Zorin absolutely fell like a ripe apple into our hands because he said, in effect, 'Who says there are missiles in Cuba?'... And then at a signal-I mean we had this all worked out ahead of time-doors flew open, easels were rolled in and so forth-it was a media event of the first water. And I think that the drama of that... worked, as far as anything can work in politics, perfectly, and was very persuasive to everybody, including U Thant."
In the meantime, Secretary-General U Thant intervened in the crisis, addressing an identical appeal to Khrushchev and Kennedy for suspension of the arms shipments and the quarantine for two to three weeks "to give time to the parties concerned to meet and discuss with a view to finding a peaceful solution of the problem." This elicited some byzantine responses. Ambassador Zorin swiftly dismissed the appeal and castigated U Thant for failing to put all the blame on the United States. But an embarrassed Zorin discovered a few hours later that Khrushchev had accepted the appeal. Kennedy, on the other hand, rejected it but decided to use U Thant to ward Khrushchev off confrontation. Stevenson persuaded U Thant to ask Khrushchev in a second letter to instruct his ships to stay away from the American interception area "for a limited time only." The wording, in fact, was drafted at the State Department, Assistant Secretary Cleveland revealed years later. Khrushchev accepted U Thant's proposal, the first indication to the White House that he was seeking a way out of the crisis. Kennedy, answering a second appeal from U Thant, grudgingly agreed not to bother the Soviet ships if they stayed back.
But the real negotiations were going on in reams of pages transmitted between Kennedy and Khrushchev. On October 27, however, a rambling, obviously rushed letter arrived from Khrushchev. "If the President and Government of the United States were to give assurances that the USA itself would not participate in an attack on Cuba and would restrain others from this kind of action, if you would recall your fleet, this would immediately change everything."
Before Kennedy could reply to this letter, another letter from Khrushchev, broadcast over Radio Moscow, reached the White House. Khrushchev now demanded that the United States remove its missiles from Turkey. President Kennedy chose to reply to the earlier letter and, at least publicly, ignore the latest one. If Khrushchev would dismantle and remove all his missiles from Cuba, Kennedy wrote, the United States would end the quarantine and pledge not to invade Cuba. On October 28, the reply came from Khrushchev. He trusted President Kennedy's pledge of no invasion and had issued an order to dismantle, crate, and return the missiles to the Soviet Union. The crisis was over.
From United Nations: The First Fifty Years, by Stanley Meisler. Copyright 1995 by Stanley Meisler. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
