David Coleman - The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Based on the Secret White House Tapes

T HE F OURTEENTH D AY

JFK and the Aftermath
of the Cuban Missile Crisis

DAVID G. COLEMAN

CONTENTS

D ESPITE ALL THE SCHOLARLY ATTENTION focused on JFKs presidency and the Cuban missile crisis in the past half-century, we are still learning new things. In the relatively short time since this book was originally published, new historical evidence has been become available that sheds further light on themes and episodes discussed in this book.

The occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, in October 2012, brought with it a wave of new books and conferences that explored new perspectives and added new information to our understanding of that most studied of crises. Max Holland and David Barrett drew on declassified intelligence documents to offer new information and analysis of U-2 surveillance of Cuba in the lead-up to the crisis and analyzing in depth the intelligence postmortems. Their book reveals intense political battles within the intelligence and military communities to shape the understanding of the crisis, battles that raged simultaneously with the public political ones discussed in this book.

A surprisingly large number of documents from fifty years ago remain classified and are still off-limits to historians. The diligent efforts of groups such as the National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project continue to pry those classified documents loose. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the crisis, the National Security Archive published important freshly declassified details of Operation Hot Plate, the military plan developed by the U.S. Air Force in the weeks after the missile crisis to bomb the Soviet IL-28s in Cuba if diplomacy failed to convince Khrushchev to remove them. The group also published for the first time estimates of casualties in the event of a U.S. invasion of Cuba. If nuclear weapons were not used, the Pentagon estimated 18,500 U.S. casualties in the first ten days. Strikingly, and for the first time that has so far come to light, General Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, directly addressed the impact of the presence of the Soviet Luna tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba might have on U.S. invasion plans. If Cuban leaders were foolhardy enough to use nuclear weapons against a U.S. invasion force, Taylor wrote, the U.S. could respond immediately with overwhelming nuclear force. And though he could not provide a specific number, the use of tactical nuclear weapons would have led to a far higher numbers of casualties.

F IFTY YEARS after his presidency came to a violent end, John F. Kennedy basks in a mostly golden light of nostalgic popular memory. Most Americans alive today had not yet been born on that fateful day in Dallas, but his name still resonates. If JFK was alive to contest the next presidential election, he might well win; polls have repeatedly shown that if Americans could choose any president to run the country today, Kennedy comes in first by a comfortable margin.

But nostalgia tends not to favor nuance, and along the way the real JFK has become obscured. In part, that was the way Kennedy himself wanted it. He went to considerable lengths to avoid being boxed in, publicly, privately, and politically. The pragmatism that he wore so proudly meant that he liked to keep distance between himself and a decision. He preferred to have control over when to show his hand. That presents obstacles to the historian trying to understand the real JFK and is part of what makes the White House tapes so important.

Despite all the scholarly attention over the years on the Cuban missile crisis and JFKs presidency, there are things we still dont know. For example, we dont yet know the full extent of the Operation Mockingbird, the secret CIA program to spy on American journalists, a program that, thanks to the secret White House tapes, we now know was authorized directly by the president himself. And historians still debate why Nikita Khrushchev decided to secretly send nuclear missiles to Cuba, a decision that pushed the two world superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. But as historians continue to study the period and new historical evidence becomes available, we continue to inch toward a better understanding of the real JFK, of how he avoided what British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan called in the days after the crisis a kind of super Munich, and of what really happened when the world faced the all-too-real prospect of nuclear armageddon.

H E WAS ALMOST TWO YEARS into his presidency, and it had not gone as well as he had hoped. It had not been a failurethere were still impressive successes that his supporters could trumpetbut on balance his administrations record was decidedly mixed. After a remarkable flourish of oratory eloquence that characterized his inaugural address, John F. Kennedy endured bruising battles on Capitol Hill, difficult encounters with Americas superpower archrival, confrontations with big business, growing restlessness about the tentative pace of progress toward civil rights, and some serious, self-inflicted foreign policy wounds. It created the impression that the president, dashing and young and inspiring as he might be, was unsure in his footing. All in all, it was an inauspicious start to a presidency.

The fall of 1962 marked a turning point. The Cuban missile crisis of late October was the cold wars most dangerous nuclear crisis. It was also a defining moment of Kennedys presidency and a watershed of the cold war.

His handling of that most dramatic and perilous of challenges played a key part in elevating him into the pantheon of great American presidents in nearly every public poll since, putting him in the ranks of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, although an assassins bullet robbed him of the opportunity to build on his slender record of accomplishments. As Americans look back over their countrys modern history, more than eight in ten rank Kennedy as the countrys best president since World War II. It is a lead he has held comfortably; after Kennedys 85 percent retrospective approval rating, Ronald Reagan comes in second, with 75 percent. Moreover, that mark is a significant improvement, by 27 points, over the last poll conducted while he was in office and an 18-point improvement over his average rating in polls taken throughout his presidency. For Kennedy, retrospect has been kind.

Several factors have contributed to that, none more so than the tragic circumstances of his death, an event that amounted to a national trauma. The youth and grace of his young family reflected glamour. At their best, his words could be inspirational and timeless. And there is nostalgia for a pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate generation of president. But to those factors has to be added his impressive, careful handling of the Cuban missile crisis, remembered as decision making par excellence, as a moment when, with a steady hand, Kennedy avoided the devastation of nuclear war without yielding to Soviet aggression.

Half a century later, it is easy to imagine that that is the only way the Cuban missile crisis could have been remembered. But that this became the prevailing narrative was by no means a sure thing.

The crisis itself is famously remembered as a thirteen-day crisis. Robert Kennedy chose Thirteen Days for the memoir of the crisis originally conceived for his 1968 presidential campaign. Much later, there was a Hollywood movie of the same name. But those thirteen days cast a long shadow. For months thereafter, new battles raged at home and abroad. At stake for Kennedy were his prospects for reelection in 1964 and ultimately his legacy.