The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [330]
About six hours later, Dennison replied: “Evacuation of wounded is completely out of the question without overt involvement of U.S. forces. Furthermore, I know of no haven in some place ‘inaccessible to news hawks.’”
The president attended the annual congressional reception that evening resplendent in white tie and tails. He waltzed with his wife and danced the social minuet. Just before midnight, he left and arrived to meet with the same tired men he had seen so many times these past two days.
The situation was desperate. Bissell and Burke implored the president to take some action. He could send two jets from the Essex to down Castro’s planes, or at least have them fly over the beachhead as a sign of support, or if not that, bring in a destroyer to shell the tanks that were killing the men of the brigade.
“Burke, I don’t want the United States involved in this,” Kennedy said, his voice charged with anger.
The president went to his office and sat there downcast, as close to crying as O’Donnell had ever seen him. As for Bobby, he was on a manic rant, pacing back and forth, consumed with emotion. “We’ve got to do something,” he told his brother late at night. “They can’t do this to you!”
There precisely in those words lay the difference between the two men. For Bobby, politics always had a human face, and he saw Castro as attacking not the brigade but his brother, as surely as if he were stomping on Kennedy. Kennedy, as desperate and hopeless as he may have felt, was never a man to indulge in open self-pity and perceived the potentially devastating impact on his whole presidency.
This was precisely the moment Kennedy had feared most when he had signed on to the CIA plans. He did not see himself as a cowardly, cynical politician who would let men die in the sands, but he had preoccupations beyond those of the men here this evening. The president was playing with a chessboard as big as the world, not just with one or two pieces. He knew that the Soviets could make their countermove anywhere. “We are sincerely interested in a relaxation of international tension, but if others proceed toward sharpening, we will answer them in full measure,” Khrushchev had just written Kennedy.
At around four in the morning the president got up from his desk and walked out into the darkness of the south grounds and paced by himself there for forty-five minutes or more. Kennedy believed that democracy’s most crucial creations were its leaders. A great man made history and was not merely its temporary steward.
Kennedy could have heeded the call of the right wing and backed the brigade to the hilt, with shiploads of marines standing by and the might of America ready to crush Castro, running the risk of a world war and brushfire conflicts elsewhere. He could have listened to those on the left who would have sent an olive branch to Castro instead of fifteen hundred fighting men and ended the covert operations in Cuba. Instead, on national security issues he was a moderate conservative worried about communism in Cuba but worried about nuclear conflagration too. He had treated the invasion plan as if it were a piece of legislation, placating the CIA here, moving toward the State Department there, seeking an accommodation that would please everyone. He had attempted to pare the operation down, and even as it was, if much of the brigade had been able to escape into the Cuban wilderness, he would not have had his whole administration held hostage to this issue.
No matter how one turned the issue over, looking for light, all one found was darkness. He felt he had to do something or he would suffer the Republicans’ accusations of dishonor and worse. That was perhaps a tinsel treasure to weigh against the lives of these men, but Kennedy was convinced that it was better “to put the guerrillas on the beach in Cuba and let them fight for Cuba than bring them back to the United States and have them state that the United States would not support