The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [412]
“Soviet-controlled nuclear warheads,” Bundy replied, ever the professor. “That’s right,” Kennedy said, though that was not quite what he had asked. “But what is the advantage of that? It’s just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMS in Turkey. Now that’d be goddamn dangerous, I would think.”
“Well, we did, Mr. President,” Bundy replied. That exchange, if Khrushchev could have heard it, would have richly vindicated his decision. The proximity of nuclear weapons aimed at them was precisely what he wanted Americans not simply to know but to feel.
From this day forward Bobby participated in all the important discussions. Bobby was all for contemplating action, even staging an incident as a pretext for invasion. “Let me say, of course, one other thing is whether we should also think of whether there is some other way we can get involved in this,” he said, “through Guantánamo Bay or something. Or whether there’s some ship that … you know, sink the Maine or something.”
“I think any military action does change the world,” Bundy said later in the meeting. “And I think not taking action changes the world. And I think these are the two worlds that we need to look at.”
By doing nothing, the whole nature of the geopolitical world would change almost as much as if they destroyed the Cuban missile bases and invaded the island.
The following evening, the president and first lady drove in the presidential limousine to a dinner party at Joseph Alsop’s home in Georgetown. Kennedy had told his wife nothing about the missile crisis, and he was in an apparently carefree mood this lovely fall evening. The acerbic conservative columnist gave the best parties in Washington, other than those at the White House. This evening he had a sterling sixteen-member guest list that included the attorney general; French Ambassador Hervé Alphand; Phil and Katherine Graham of the Washington Post; the new American ambassador to France, Charles “Chip” Bohlen, and his wife Avis; and Bundy.
As the distinguished group stood chatting on Alsop’s terrace, Kennedy and Bohlen sauntered nonchalantly off by themselves into the garden, walking back and forth beneath the spreading magnolias in animated conversation. Bohlen had been the State Department’s leading Sovietologist, and it was exquisitely bad timing that he was about to fly off to a new ambassadorial post in Paris.
It was not only in the Kremlin that the tiniest of events were analyzed for hidden meaning. As the guests pretended to socialize aimlessly, many eyes were on the pair of guests pacing back and forth in the farthest reaches of the garden. The French ambassador became increasingly intrigued, his curiosity turning to nervousness as the discussion went on and on until finally the pair returned. Over dinner Kennedy was a charming raconteur, laughing and smiling, seemingly oblivious to anything but the pleasures of a social evening.
By the time the Ex Comm met the next morning, Thursday, October 18, at 11:00 A.M. in the Cabinet Room, CIA analysts had discovered IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic missile) sites for missiles that they believed were twice the size and twice the power of the MRBMs, capable of hitting most of the United States. By then opinion had hardened among the president’s advisers. McNamara asked for swift action, and General Taylor, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for a full-scale invasion of Cuba. These were not mindlessly bellicose reactions, but reasonable military solutions, given how many more Americans would die if the military attacked after the Soviets had their missiles in place ready to launch.
As Kennedy saw the hard physical evidence of the photos and heard the calls for action, he thought of the political dimensions of this problem. “If we wanted to ever release these pictures to demonstrate that there were missiles there,” he asked, “it might be possible to demonstrate this to the satisfaction of an untrained observer?”
“I think it would be difficult, sir,” replied Lundahl. To the untrained eye, the