Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [82]
No one said anything for a minute. No one was especially keen to agree with Khrushchev that he’d made a mistake.
“Comrade Chairman,” Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky said eventually, “our best information is that the Americans would not be ready to mount an invasion for several days. For a start, they do not have enough ships in the Caribbean to support such an action.”
“So they’ll send in their planes,” Khrushchev said. “And we’re not ready for air strikes. They’ll take us out in a single swipe. Then invade.”
“Will they? Will they kill hundreds, perhaps thousands, of our people, knowing that we would then have to retaliate?”
Khrushchev was silent for a moment. I’d like to imagine that the shadows inside the Kremlin deepened.
“Tragic,” he said eventually, quietly. “They hit us; we respond; it all ends up in a big war. Are we ready for that?”
Malinovsky shrugged: an articulate gesture.
Silence fell. Khrushchev broke it.
“So, how about this: we announce a defense treaty with Cuba immediately. Over the radio, so that the CIA hears it, loud and clear. We transfer control of all Soviet nuclear weapons to the Cubans. We can’t really do that, of course, because only Biryuzov and his people know how to use the damned things. No matter. Fidel will then announce that he will use them to defend his country from imperialist attack. The Americans believe that he’s crazy enough to do just that. So do I, as a matter of fact. They’ll mess their pants. They’ll hold off. What do you think?”
Malinovsky said, “With respect, Nikita Sergeyevich, I think we should do nothing until we hear what Kennedy says. The gutless playboy might well be bluffing.”
By contrast, in Havana, on Monday afternoon, Fidel Castro put his defensive forces on red alert and ordered his reserve forces to report to their regional headquarters. Then, energized by crisis, he went to the offices of the newspaper Revolución and dictated the next day’s headline: “¡Patria o Muerte! ¡Venceremos!” (The Motherland or Death! We Shall Overcome!)
As it turned out, the Kremlin did not have to wait for JFK’s speech.
At six o’clock Washington time, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, arrived, as requested, at the State Department. There, he was handed the text of the speech that Kennedy would make in less than an hour’s time, along with a private message to Khrushchev, which warned the Soviet leader that he should not underestimate America’s will and determination to unleash all manner of hell in order to maintain peace.
Poor Dobrynin went as white as a graveyard lily. For security reasons, the Kremlin had told him nothing about what was going on in Cuba. He went shakily back to his embassy and wired JFK’s speech and letter to Moscow.
When Nikita Khrushchev read them, his mood climbed back up the graph. He returned to the meeting, waving a triumphant fist in the air.
“We’ve saved Cuba,” he announced. “Kennedy, the coward, has announced a sea blockade. Which he has no right to do. No matter what they might think, the Yankees do not own the high seas. They are pirates now. Aggressors. We have them by the balls.”
There was applause.
Then Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, head of the Soviet Navy, spoke up.
“This is very good news, Comrade Chairman. The brave captains of our merchant fleet will be resolute in the face of this illegal act by the Americans. However, there is the problem of our submarines.”
“What about them?”
“We don’t know exactly where they are,” Gorshkov admitted. “They might be outside or inside the American blockade.”
“So radio them,” Khrushchev said. “Tell them what’s happening.”
“Unfortunately, Comrade Chairman,” Gorshkov said, “communications with our submarines are unreliable. We can only be sure of clear signals when they surface.”
“And if they surface,” Malinovsky said, “they might find themselves face-to-face with an American warship.”
“Shit,” Khrushchev said.
The Oval Office of the White House had been improvised into a television studio. At seven