One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war (5 page)

There was still no evidence that the bigger missiles had arrived in Cuba, so they were a less immediate threat. But work on the original missile sites was proceeding rapidly. The CIA had identified three different medium-range ballistic missile regiments on the island. Each regiment controlled eight missile launchers, making twenty-four in all.

"Let's see," said Kennedy, reading aloud passages from the intelligence report. "Two of these missiles are operational now...missiles could be launched within eighteen hours after the decision to fire...yields in the low megaton range."

He had been dreading this meeting, but knew he must at least go through the motions of consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He felt that the generals had misled him over the Bay of Pigs, pushing him to support an ill-prepared invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro exiles. He was particularly mistrustful of the Air Force chief of staff, General Curtis LeMay, a cigar-chomping World War II hero with three thousand nuclear bombs under his command. "I don't want that man near me again," Kennedy had said, after listening to one of LeMay's blood-curdling briefings about bombing America's enemies back to the "Stone Age." Profane, tough, and brutally efficient, LeMay was the kind of man you wanted by your side when the fighting started, but not the type who should be making decisions about war and peace.

LeMay could barely contain himself as the president voiced his fears of a nuclear conflagration. Attempting to put himself in Khrushchev's shoes, Kennedy predicted that a U.S. attack on Cuba would inevitably be followed by a Soviet attack on Berlin. "Which leaves me with only one alternative, which is to fire nuclear weapons--which is a hell of an alternative."

Nonsense, retorted LeMay, speaking slowly as if addressing a somewhat dim pupil. It was the other way round.
Not
taking firm action in Cuba would only encourage the Soviets to try their luck in Berlin. A naval blockade of Cuba, as proposed by some of Kennedy's advisers, could send a fatal message of weakness.

"It will lead right into war. This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich."

There was a shocked silence around the table. LeMay's remark was an audaciously insulting reference to the president's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who had advocated a policy of negotiating with Hitler while serving as U.S. ambassador to London. LeMay was implying that JFK, who had launched his political career as the author of an anti-appeasement book called
While England Slept,
was about to follow in his father's footsteps.

LeMay's strategy for dealing with the rival superpower was based on a simple logic. The United States enjoyed overwhelming nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. However much Khrushchev might threaten and bluster, he had absolutely no interest in provoking a nuclear war that he was bound to lose. Thanks to the Strategic Air Command (SAC), the most powerful military force in the history of the world, America had "the Russian bear" by the balls. "Now that we have gotten him in a trap, let's take his leg off right up to his testicles," he told his associates. "On second thoughts, let's take off his testicles, too."

Kennedy's logic was very different. The United States might have many more nuclear bombs than its adversary, but "winning a nuclear war" was a pretty meaningless concept. As many as 70 million Americans could die in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. "You're talking about the destruction of a country," he told the Joint Chiefs. He wanted to avoid provoking Khrushchev into what McNamara called "a spasm response," an involuntary knee-jerk reaction that would end up in a nuclear exchange.

The commander in chief was shocked by the impertinence of the Air Force general. When LeMay told him that "you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time," Kennedy thought he hadn't heard right.

"What did you say?"

"You're in a pretty bad fix," LeMay repeated calmly, in his flat midwestern voice.

"Well, you're in there with me. Personally."

The reply provoked some strained laughter around the table. A few minutes later, LeMay assured the president that the Air Force could be "ready for attack at dawn" on Sunday, although the "optimum date" would be the following Tuesday. Kennedy left the room shortly afterward.

With the president gone, the generals felt free to dissect the debate. The hidden tape recorders were still running.

"You, you pulled the rug right out from under him," the commandant of the Marine Corps, General David M. Shoup, told LeMay.

"Jesus Christ, what the hell do you mean?" replied the Air Force chief, eager for praise.

The problem with politicians, said Shoup, was that they always tried to do everything "piecemeal." As a military man, he preferred settling matters with "that little
pipsqueak
of a place" once and for all.

"You go in there and friggin' around with the missiles. You're screwed. You go in and friggin' around with little else. You're screwed."

"That's right."

"You're screwed, screwed, screwed."

Later, in the privacy of his office, the president conducted his own postmortem on the performance of his generals. He was amazed by LeMay's blithe assurance that Khrushchev would fail to react to the bombing of the missile sites and the deaths of hundreds of Russians.

"These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor," he told his personal assistant and friend Dave Powers. "If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong."

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, NIGHT

Jack Kennedy had a keen appreciation for the vagaries of history. His experiences commanding a patrol boat in the Pacific during World War II, reinforced by the lessons from the Bay of Pigs, had taught him to mistrust the assurances of military leaders. He knew that there can be a huge gulf between the orders and wishes of the man in the Oval Office and how that policy is actually implemented on the ground. One of his lasting impressions from the war was that "the military always screws up everything."

The events of the next few days would confirm JFK's view of history as a chaotic process that can occasionally be given a shove in a desired direction, but can never be completely controlled. A president can propose, but ordinary human beings often dispose. In the end, history is shaped by the actions of thousands of individuals: some famous, others obscure; some in positions of great authority, others who want to tear down the established order; some who strive mightily to put themselves in a position to alter events, others who stumble onto the political stage almost by chance. The story of what would later become known as the Cuban missile crisis is replete with accidental figures whose role in history is often overlooked: pilots and submariners, spies and missileers, bureaucrats and propagandists, radar operators and saboteurs.

As the president agonized over what to do about the missile sites, two such humble Cold War warriors were steering a rubber dinghy through the mangrove swamps of western Cuba. Miguel Orozco and Pedro Vera had blackened their faces and were wearing military-style ponchos. Their backpacks contained explosives, fuses, a two-way radio set, an M-3 rifle, a couple of pistols, and enough food and water to survive for a week. The electric engine on the RB-12 dinghy was equipped with silencers. The little boat made practically no noise as it drifted through the winding canal.

They had known each other for years, having waged war together against the
barbudos
in the Sierra Maestra. Taller and wirier than his companion, Orozco had served as lieutenant in Batista's army. Vera was a former sergeant. Following the success of the Fidelista uprising, both men had fled Cuba and joined the CIA-trained, anti-Castro guerrilla force known as Brigade 2506. Orozco had helped transport Brigade members to the Bay of Pigs for the doomed invasion. Vera had taken part in a parachute attack on a road leading to the isolated Zapata peninsula before retreating in disarray when Castro's troops counterattacked. He had been lucky to escape alive, and spent more than a week at sea on a small raft before being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

They were headed south, up the Malas Aguas River, into the foothills of the low mountains that rise up along the northern Pinar del Rio coastline. Their target--an aerial tramway connecting the Matahambre copper mine with the port of Santa Lucia--was less than a dozen miles away as the crow flies. But the countryside ahead was terribly inhospitable: a mixture of swamp, poisonous undergrowth, and thick forest. It could take them another three or four days to reach their destination.

Every aspect of the operation had been painstakingly planned. The CIA had obtained detailed blueprints of the copper mine from the company's former American owners, whose property had been confiscated as a result of the revolution. It had used these plans to build a full-scale mock-up of the facility at "the Farm," a heavily forested training camp on the York River, across from Williamsburg, the colonial capital of Virginia. Back in August, Orozco had been flown to the Farm to practice blowing up the tramway and a nearby power line. His case officers believed this was safer than attacking the mine itself, which was almost certainly better protected. If the saboteurs succeeded in destroying the tramway, they could severely disrupt the extraction of copper. A CIA study rated the chances of success as "excellent."

"You do it," growled Rip Robertson, the Matahambre case officer, as he gave the saboteurs their final briefing in a safe house on Summerland Key, near Key West. "Or don't bother to come back alive."

A 150-foot "mother ship"--part of a secret CIA navy operating out of South Florida--ferried the saboteurs halfway across the ninety-mile strait of water. For this part of the trip, they were joined by another team of four Cubans who had been ordered to smuggle a thousand pounds of arms and explosives into the island for use by anti-Castro guerrillas. As they headed into Cuban territorial waters, the two teams went their separate ways. Smaller, much faster speedboats would take them the remaining part of the journey under cover of darkness.

Orozco and Vera boarded the
Ree Fee,
a sleek thirty-six-foot cabin cruiser capable of detecting and outrunning any Cuban coastguard vessel in the vicinity. A couple of miles from the shoreline, they transferred to the rubber dinghy.

When the channel finally became impassable, they scrambled to shore, deflating the boat and camouflaging it beneath a pile of branches. As team leader, Orozco checked the maps and compasses he had brought with him from Florida, and charted a course toward the mountains. Photographs taken from U-2 spy planes showed a 400-foot ridgeline rising above the swamp some three miles inland, on the other side of a rough dirt road. Their CIA case officers had assured them that the region through which they were passing was sparsely populated, and they were unlikely to run into anyone. But just in case, they had been issued with false Cuban identity cards and clothes manufactured in Cuba. Everything they wore, from shoes to ponchos, had been brought to the United States by refugees.

It was cloudy and humid as they put on thick rubber boots, strapped on their backpacks, and started wading through the mangrove swamp. The dark shapes ahead were silhouetted against a half-moon.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, MORNING

"If the Americans see us, they will certainly be afraid," joked Aleksandr Malakhov, head of the Communist Youth section for the 79th missile regiment, stationed near Sagua la Grande, a small provincial town in central Cuba.

He was standing on a makeshift podium--a large mound of dirt, more than three feet high. Not just any dirt, but dirt that had been transported in sacks halfway around the globe from Russia as a reminder of the
rodina--
the "motherland." For extra effect, the Komsomol secretary had found a long wooden pole, painted it red and white to resemble a frontier post, and placed it in front of the presidium. A sign hanging from the pole read: TERRITORY OF THE USSR.

WE WILL DEFEND CUBA AS OUR MOTHERLAND
,
proclaimed a nearby banner.

Several hundred officers and men had gathered in a field in front of the podium. Although they were standing in orderly ranks, their appearance could scarcely have been less military. They were wearing a strange assortment of clothes: checkered shirts, military trousers cut above the knees, heavy Russian boots with the tops sliced off and holes for ventilation in the tropical heat. Some soldiers were bare to the waist, others looked "like scarecrows," in Malakhov's opinion.

He had called the meeting to mark a special occasion: the 79th regiment had just become the first Soviet missile unit in Cuba to declare itself "combat-ready." Its eight missile launchers were in place, next to heavy concrete launching pads, all oriented northward, toward the imperialist enemy. Parked nearby, on canvas-covered trailers, were the R-12 rockets, thin and long like giant pencils. Fuel trucks and oxidizer vehicles were in position. The warheads themselves had still not arrived on site but they could be brought here in less than a day.

"We have completed the assignments of the first stage," said Malakhov, launching into his pep talk. "The Soviet soldier always remains true to his military oath. We may die a heroic death, but we won't abandon the people of Cuba to tortures and suffering at the hands of the imperialists."

Applause, whistles, and a volley of celebratory machine-gun fire greeted the Komsomol leader.

"Rodina ili smert. Patria o muerte."
("Motherland or death.")

"Venceremos."

The officers and soldiers of the 79th missile regiment might look like scarecrows, but they had accomplished an extraordinary logistical feat. Never before had a Russian army ventured this far from the
rodina,
let alone an army equipped with weapons capable of wiping out tens of millions of people. What is more, they had done it largely in secret. The first Soviet missiles had arrived in Cuba in early September, but were not discovered by U.S. spy planes until more than a month later. And even now, there was much that Washington did not know about the enemy force that had arrived, unannounced, in its own backyard.