The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [415]
The president was speaking a midnight soliloquy into an unseen microphone, his words echoing through the room. He was not muttering about the burdens of power or the loneliness of leadership, but every sentence spoke to that point. “Dean Acheson, with whom I talked this afternoon, stated that while he was uncertain about any of the courses, he favored the first strike as … being most likely to achieve our results and less likely to cause an extreme Soviet reaction,” Kennedy said. Acheson had been secretary of State under Truman, and he spoke with the authority of a leading architect of cold war policy. The courtly Acheson was a revered figure whose advice Kennedy believed had to be carefully weighed.
“When I saw Robert Lovett later, after talking to Gromyko, he was not convinced that any action was desirable,” Kennedy then said. Lovett was equally one of Washington’s wise men, an architect of postwar international policy, and his opinion was the opposite of Acheson’s. “Bundy continued to argue against any action on the grounds that there would be inevitably a Soviet reprisal against Berlin,” Kennedy went on. The president had immense confidence in Bundy’s judgment, and his NSC adviser came down largely with Lovett, but they were in a minority. “Everyone else felt that for us to fail to respond would throw into question our willingness to respond over Berlin, would divide our allies and our country,” Kennedy said. “The consensus was that we should go ahead with the blockade beginning on Sunday night.”
Kennedy reserved most of his boldness for his speeches, and here as usual he sought what he considered solid middle-high ground. He had plumbed the ideas of a score or more of his advisers, and then decided to do what most of them wanted him to do. But as he turned off the tape recorder and left the empty room, whatever decisions he made would not bear the names of some distinguished committee or panel, but his signature alone.
The next morning, Friday, October 19, in the Cabinet Room, Kennedy got together with his advisers again. The Joint Chiefs had just come from their own meeting, where they had decided that a blockade was not enough; they now strongly recommended an enormous air strike against Cuba without advance notice. As this meeting started, General Taylor sought to grab the initiative and lay out the military chiefs’ plan. “I think the benefit this morning, Mr. President, would be for you to hear the other Chiefs’ comments,” Taylor said.
“Let me just say a little, first, about what the problem is, from my point of view,” Kennedy replied, subtly deferring the military’s presentation. In Washington those who set the agenda usually win. Until now the president had not dominated these sessions. His role had been to listen and to weigh. But this meeting had become potentially the crucial decision-making moment, and now the president defined the problem. He had a lawyerly ability to take a myriad of contradictory contributions and prune them away into a succinct, muscular presentation of the harsh choices that lay before them.
At his best, Kennedy was profoundly realistic and intellectually fearless about facing the foibles, weaknesses, and self-interests of men and nations. “First, I think we ought to think of why the Russians did this,” he said, stepping back to admire the skillful way Khrushchev had attempted to checkmate the Americans. “Well, actually, it was a rather dangerous but rather useful play of theirs. We do nothing; they have a missile base there with all the pressure that brings to bear on the United States and damage to our prestige.