When the United States learned in October 1962 that missile bases were being built in Cuba, the world braced for nuclear war. The Soviet Union already had many missiles pointed at the U.S. The U.S. had many missiles pointed at them. Now, that equilibrium was disrupted. How to avert mutual destruction, while standing strong against the Soviets?
Ted Sorenson, special counsel and speechwriter for President Kennedy, was invited to campus last October to share his insights as a presidential insider, for the “Looking at the American Presidency” series.
During the talk, he spoke of his role during those pivotal days during the crisis — days when the White House received messages from Soviet Premier Khrushchev and Sorenson was tasked with drafting a message in reply, while the world watched and waited.
Hear how the crisis reached its climax — and resolution.
Running Time: 4:19 minute
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Sorenson Audio Transcript
So Bobby [Kennedy, the attorney general] and I went down to my office not that far from the Cabinet Room where the meeting was taking place and I set out to draft the most difficult letter as a lawyer I ever drafted in my entire life. If I said the wrong thing, if I provoked Khrushchev, if I offended him, if I did not seem to be responsive, who knew what he might do? In those days, unlike what I’m told is true today, in those days the Cabinet Room where we were sitting was not a reinforced concrete bunker. And if the Soviets had “smart” guided missiles, as we did, a well-targeted missile could have destroyed the Cabinet Room and everyone in it or near it. So that letter was clearly one where I had to proceed with great care – to say nothing of the fact that the attorney general’s steely gaze over my shoulder was watching every word that I drafted.
Now, conventional Washington thinking, which hasn’t changed much since then, would say, “Oh, you don’t communicate with your adversary. You certainly don’t negotiate with your adversary.” Well yes you do, if you want to make any progress, if you want to try to change the situation. I always like to quote Prime Minister Rabin of Israel, who said, “Of course I negotiate with my enemy. Who else would I negotiate with?”
Well, Bobby Kennedy delivered that letter – Well, first the President after he approved it, it was passed around the table at ExComm, they approved. He had me call it in over the phone to Ambassador Stevenson in New York; he approved it. Bobby then took it to Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, much in the same way that the speech of October 22, that night, had been handed to Dobrynin by Secretary of State Rusk about thirty minutes before it went on the air, and at the same time that it was sent to every single U.S. ambassador around the world, with instructions to take it in to the head of government to whom he was accredited. Bobby was instructed to accompany the letter with two oral messages: one was “We were trying to be agreeable. It’s time to have an agreement and do it fast, before the hawks rise and insist on bombing, invasion and all of that, which President Kennedy did not want to do, but we’d better reach an agreement now.” The second oral message was that the president regarded the missile bases in Turkey as outmoded, provocative, unnecessary, and – he was not going to make a deal, for the reasons I mentioned, to get them out – but if it was any assurance and comfort to Chairman Khrushchev, he could be told definitely that they would be out of there in a matter of months. And that was never announced. And in fact, Soviet history files indicate that that second oral message never reached Khrushchev in time. But the other oral message and the letter did, and so did a simultaneous letter from [Cuban leader] Castro, sent through the Soviet ambassador to Havana, in which Castro said to Khrushchev, “I know the Americans are going to invade, so I think you should fire those missiles right now.” … Anyway, I woke up the next morning, turned on my bedside radio as I did every morning, and Khrushchev had sent another public message, this time saying that he was withdrawing the missiles, under U.N. [United Nations] inspection.