Day 12 Murphy’s Law says that “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. It dates back to an engineering meeting in 1877, but another pretty cool early variant of it, is magician Neville Maskeline’s note from 1908 on the difficulty of performing magic tricks, “It is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion, such as the production of a magical effect for the first time in public, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. ” In October 1962, both the US and the USSR are trying magic tricks involving nuclear weapons on a massive scale, and on the 27th of October it seems like almost everything that can go wrong, does go wrong.
This is TimeGhost With the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m Indy Neidell. Yesterday, Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers Nikita Khrushchev offered the US an olive branch in the form of trade off- removing Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba for guaranteed sovereignty of Cuba.
American President John F. Kennedy was once again seriously considering invading Cuba, and near the US naval blockade line around Cuba, two Soviet nuclear armed submarines were forced to surface and surrender to the US Navy after their batteries ran out. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Presidium wake up to some alarming telegrams from Cuba, sent by Ambassador Alexeev to Khrushchev and Defense Minister Marshal Malinovsky.
“In F. Castro’s opinion, the intervention is almost inevitable and will occur in approximately 24-72 hours. ” Castro demands that the Soviets make clear to the US that the Missiles belong to them and not the Cubans, to hopefully deter the US from invading.
But he also demands that the Soviets make public their alliance with Cuba, which they have not done. He seems to be wavering somewhere between morbid panic and suicidal euphoria. The Czechoslovakian ambassador reports, “If [USSR Ambassador] Alexeev confirms this information during the night hours, we will give the order to burn all classified materials except for the enciphered data, which we will destroy last.
At the same time I will order the emergency measures for informing and organizing our citizens, as per the emergency plan. ” The Chinese embassy reports: “Castro is firm. Even if Cuba were to be wiped out by a possible nuclear war, as Castro said, imperialism would be closer to facing its demise and global socialism would arrive sooner.
” The presidium is also in disarray. As they meet this morning, Khrushchev starts out by wondering if this whole thing wasn’t a mistake after all - they decide to revisit that issue at a later date. They have also received word from UN General Secretary U-Thant that they need to publicly acknowledge the existence of the missiles to not further worsen the situation.
They decide to make a public statement admitting that the missiles are there and they will remove them if the US removes its missiles in Turkey and Pakistan. Khrushchev leaves the meeting to dictate the public letter, which will first be transmitted to the US embassy in Moscow and to U-Thant. Malinowski immediately telegraphs orders to Agricultural Specialist Pavlov- aka General Pliev- to dial back his troop activities on Cuba and show restraint “Stop all work on deployment of R-12 [SS4] and R-14 [SS5]—you are aggravating the United Nations.
Camouflage everything carefully, work only at night. ” “We categorically confirm that you are prohibited from using nuclear weapons from missiles, FKR [cruise missiles], “Luna” and aircraft without orders from Moscow. ” Meanwhile in the White House, EXCOMM is meeting with the President again to find a response to the latest developments.
They talk about intercepts and surveillance missions when the President receives a news cable. Kennedy reads it aloud. “Premier Khrushchev told President Kennedy yesterday he would withdraw offensive weapons from Cuba if the United States withdrew its rockets from Turkey.
” Hmm. He didn’t. That’s how it is read by both of the associations that have put it out so far.
Reuters has the same thing. He didn’t . .
. He didn’t really say that, did he? No, no .
. . They may not be .
. . He may be putting out another letter.
—another paper. Most of this thing is Metro/City. What is our .
. . ?
Well our . . .
But anyway, they’ve got this clear about how this . . .
Let’s just go on then. Are you finished, Mr Secretary? to U Thant.
Pierre [Salinger]? Pierre? That wasn’t in the letter we received, was it?
No. I read it pretty carefully. It doesn’t read that way to me either.
Well therefore, is he supposed to be putting out a letter he’s written to me or putting out a statement? Putting out a letter he wrote to you. Well, let’s just sit tight on it.
We just have nothing to go on. Is it a different statement? You know I think we’d better get [the text].
[speaking to an aide] Would you check and be sure that the letter that’s coming in on the ticker is the letter that we were seeing last night? The confusion is total, later Defense Secretary McNamara complains: How can we negotiate with somebody who changes his deal before we even get a chance to reply, and announces publicly the deal before we receive it? Now, remember that those missiles in Turkey are obsolete and scheduled to be dismantled anyway - as are those in Pakistan, but no one is taking notice of that part of the offer, it’s not as important.
See, the problem is that they don’t want to get any of their NATO allies upset by giving them the feeling that they’re hanging them out to dry- Pakistan is not a NATO ally. They take a break. McNamara heads off to the Pentagon and President Kennedy goes back to The Residence.
At,11;45 McNamara calls from the Pentagon - they have a new problem. A U-2 spy plane has gone missing over Alaska and flown into Russian air space. This flight has nothing whatsoever to do with the crisis.
It’s supposed to be a routine flight to measure lingering radioactive fallout over the North Pole after the thermonuclear test over Nova Zemlya, which we mentioned on Day Zero. Despite this being a super modern airplane, in 1962 there’s no GPS, and radar navigation isn’t possible over the North Pole. Instead, the U-2s are piloting by the stars the same way that Magellan and Columbus did.
The pilot of this particular U-2 has gotten confused by an unusual amount of northern lights and is now 1,000 miles off course - 300 miles into Russian airspace. Also remember that US Strategic Air Command is still at DEFCON 2 - the defense readiness stage right before imminent nuclear war. To make the situation worse, the Russians have scrambled MiG fighter jets to shoot down the U-2.
In response, instead of informing the White House, Air Command have scrambled their F-102 fighter jets to protect the U-2. One of the jets is armed ONLY with a tactical nuclear missile. But since this is a gift that just keeps on giving, there’s more.
Instead of interrupting all upcoming flights, Air Command has let the next scheduled U-2 go up over the North Pole for its flight. Only after 90 minutes do they get the idea of informing the Pentagon, who immediately inform McNamara. McNamara is understandably furious - what if the Soviets misunderstand all of this as the initiation of nuclear war?
What if the F-102 pilot fires his nuclear missile by mistake? President Kennedy is notably cooler when he’s informed, reportedly wryly muttering “There’s always some son of a bitch who doesn’t get the word. ” In the end, the pilot of the U-2 runs out of fuel, but glides back into US airspace and ditches his plane on a private airfield, coming out unscathed, but deeply shaken.
Kennedy goes back to the EXCOMM meeting to discuss what to do about invasion plans, and which letter from Khrushchev to respond to. It doesn’t take long for another worrying message regarding another U-2 mission to come in. This time it IS relevant to the crisis.
A U-2 piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson Jr. , one of the most experienced U-2 pilots, has gone missing. Now things are getting too hot, so they decide that they can’t wait for a decision on how to deal with their NATO allies regarding the missiles in Turkey.
Instead, they decide to ignore the Khrushchev letter from today and reply to the letter from yesterday, and accept guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Cuba in exchange for a monitored withdrawal of the missiles. Then they start to look at when they have to take military action in case the Soviets don’t accept the deal. Low altitude flights have revealed that the Cuban Surface to Air missile sites are being taken over by Soviet troops, and they’re much more disciplined than the revolutionary forces of Cuba.
In fact, all of the flybys today have had flak fired at them much closer than any day so far. There’s a sense of urgency from the Joint Chief of Staff to strike now. What is the rush about this, other than the fact of when we have to make the strike?
I think the rush is what do we do. The U-2. The U-2 was shot down.
The fire against our low-altitude surveillance. A U-2 was shot down? Wright just said it was found shot down.
Was the pilot killed? This was shot down over Banes, which is right near a U-2 site in eastern Cuba. A SAM site [correcting Taylor’s slip].
The pilot’s body is in the plane. Apparently, this was a SAM site that had actually had the Fruitcake radar. It all ties in in a very plausible manner.
Well now, this is much of an escalation by them, isn’t it? Yes, exactly. And this, this relates to the timing.
I think we can defer an air attack on Cuba until Wednesday [October 31] or Thursday [November 1] but only if we continue our surveillance, and fire against anything that fires against a surveillance aircraft, and only if we maintain a tight blockade in this interim period. If we’re willing to do those two things, I think we can defer the air attack until Wednesday or Thursday and take time to go to NATO. How do we explain the effect of this Khrushchev message of last night and their decision [to shoot down U.
S. planes], in view of their previous orders [to fire only if attacked], the change in orders? We’ve both had flak and a SAM site operation.
How do we . . .
I mean, that must be— How do we interpret this? I don’t know how to interpret it. What?
They feel they must respond now. The whole world knows where we’re flying. That raises the question of retaliation against the SAM sites.
We think we—we have various other reasons to believe that we know the SAM sites [that shot down the U-2]. Two days ago… How can we send a U-2 fellow over there tomorrow unless we take out all the SAM sites? This is exactly the problem.
I don’t think we can. Did anyone see the pilot? Yes, sir.
And it’s on the ground? It’s on the ground. The wreckage is on the ground and the pilot’s dead.
While drafting the letter to Khrushchev, the conversation keeps returning to air strikes and invasion. Off and on there are expressions of shock and incredulity that the Soviets have actually shot down a US plane. It seems that the reality of the situation is finally sinking in.
Thing is, that’s the same sentiment that exists on the Soviet side. Although the commander of Operation Anadyr, General Pliev, was acting as ordered when he shot down the U-2, and Malinowsky knows this, he will soon cable him: “We believe that you were too hasty in shooting down the US U-2 reconnaissance plane; at the time an agreement was emerging to avert, by peaceful means, an attack on Cuba. ” In the recording of the EXCOMM meeting, the Kennedy brothers both leave the room at about the same time.
It is believed that this is the moment when they privately agree that Robert Kennedy will meet USSR Ambassador to the US Dobrynin that same evening and propose a secret deal to remove the Turkish missiles to resolve the crisis. The conditions are that this deal never becomes public, that the Americans get five months to do it, and it’s based solely on JFK’s word of honor. When RFK meets with Dobrynin at 7:15PM, Dobrynin will report back that Bobby Kennedy looked dead tired, like someone who had not slept for a long, long time.
Before that at EXCOMM, President Kennedy sums up his feelings about any further steps towards invasion at this point. We can’t very well invade Cuba, with all this toil and blood it’s going to be, when we could have gotten them [the Soviet missiles] out by making a deal on the same missiles in Turkey. If that’s part of the record, then I don’t see how we’ll have a very good war.
What neither the Americans, nor the Soviets know, and many of them will never know, is that while all of this political talk is going on, on board Soviet submarine B59 in the Caribbean on this very day someone is about to actually fire a nuclear weapon to launch Armageddon. Join us tomorrow on Day 13 when we conclude this series, and see exactly how close the world came to total destruction. And click subscribe to never miss our content.
Good night and good luck.
