Warnings from the Cuban Missile Crisis - Why Who's President Matters
History demonstrates the importance of who serves as President of the United States:
[font size="1"]Message gone awry: A letter listing the names and nationalities of detained journalists is dropped from the ninth floor of The Capri hotel but lands on a guard outpost causing the arrest of two of North's friends.[/font size]
Warnings from the Cuban Missile Crisis
Exclusive: Amid the trivia of American politics, voters can forget that they are entrusting the winning candidate for President with the nuclear codes, the power to annihilate all life on the planet, a reality that reporter Don North witnessed up close a half century ago in the Cuban missile crisis.
By Don North
October 14, 2012
ConsortiumNews.com
Saturday, Oct. 27, 1962, now known as “Black Saturday” was the day I arrived in Havana to report on the Cuban missile crisis, completely oblivious that 50 years later it would be considered “the most dangerous moment in human history,” the day we came closest to nuclear Armageddon.
My rendezvous with this existential crisis began on Oct. 22, in a New York bar where I had arranged to meet friends and incidentally to watch a TV address by President John F. Kennedy that was supposed to have something to do with Cuba. I had visited Cuba as a freelance journalist six months earlier and was fascinated by the country.
Kennedy’s TV address was a shocker. “Unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island,” Kennedy said looking grim. A hush fell over the bar and waiters stopped serving to hear his words.
SNIP...
Declassified Soviet sources have confirmed the missile was not cleared to fire by the Kremlin. Furious, Krushchev ordered no further firings take place without his direct orders. In Washington, Air Force Gen. Curtis Le May ordered rocket-carrying fighters readied for an attack on the SAM site. The White House ordered Le May not to attack unless he had direct orders from the President.
“He chickened out again,” Le May growled. “How in hell do you get men to risk their lives when the SAMs are not attacked?”
SNIP...
On “Black Saturday,” Oct. 27, 1962, one sub B-59, commanded by Captain Valentin Savitsky, had been chased for two days. His batteries were low and he had not been able to communicate with Moscow. Temperatures in the sub reached as high as 140 degrees, food was spoiling in the refrigerators and water was low and rationed. Carbon dioxide levels were becoming critical and sailors were fainting from heat and exhaustion.
Submerged several hundred feet the sub came under repeated attack from the USS Randolph dropping practice depth charges. The explosions became deafening. There is no greater humiliation for a submarine captain than to be forced by the enemy to surface. Forty years later, a senior sub officer on B-59, Vadim Orlov, described the scene as Captain Sevitsky lost his temper.
“Savitsky became furious. He summoned the officer in charge of the nuclear torpedo, and ordered him to make it combat ready. ‘We’re going to blast them now,’ said Savitsky. ‘We will perish ourselves, but we will sink them all. We will not disgrace our Navy.” Fellow officers persuaded Savitsky to calm down and a decision was made to surface in the midst of four American destroyers.
CONTINUED...
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/10/14/warnings-from-the-cuban-missile-crisis/
PS: This is why I am a Democrat today. Thanks to JFK keeping a cool head and encouraging Krushchev to do the same, it's why all of us are here today.
PPS: This is why I support President Barack Obama for re-election. No offense Mitt, it's not even close.
PPPS to Moderators: ConsortiumNews allows DU to publish extended excerpts and entire articles, if needed.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Changing a little quote from "the final failure" to "the prime failure" implies nuclear warfare is survivable. Well, maybe if you join Phil Zelikow, and his bosses Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, in a secure undisclosed radiation-proof hideout. But, for the rest of us, not so much.
What JFK Really Said
The author checked the Cuban-missile-crisis transcript in The Kennedy Tapes against the recorded words. He discovered "errors that undermine its reliability for historians, teachers, and general readers
by Sheldon M. Stern
The Atlantic, May 2000
EXCERPT...
An unforgettable moment in these unique historical records concerns JFK's apprehension that military action in Cuba might touch off the ultimate nightmare of nuclear war, which he grimly describes at a meeting on October 18 as "the final failure." Brian McGrory, of The Boston Globe, who listened to this tape with me in 1994, after it was declassified, used those words in the lead of his article on the newly released tapes. But when I checked the transcript recently, I was unable to find "the final failure." Certain that the editors must be right, since they had technically cleaner tapes, I listened again; there is no question that Kennedy says "the final failure." The editors, however, have transcribed it as "the prime failure."
SNIP...
The participants then discuss evidence that work on the missile sites is continuing. They debate whether to add petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) to the list of quarantined materials immediately, or to wait twenty-four hours to see if talks proposed by UN Secretary-General U Thant produce a breakthrough. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, suggests that they "leave the timing until we've talked about the U Thant initiative." The inaccuracy in The Kennedy Tapes is especially bizarre in this case, with Bundy saying "leave the timing until we've talked about the attack thing." These last two examples—"the destroyers " and "the attack thing"—could easily leave a reader wondering what in the world these men were talking about. (Three days later, on October 29, U Thant was mentioned again. JFK asserts, "We want U Thant to know that Adlai is our voice." But The Kennedy Tapes transcribes this line as "We want you to know that Adlai is our voice."
October 27 saw the darkest moment in the crisis. An unconfirmed report was received at midday that a U-2 spy plane had been shot down over Cuba by a Soviet SAM missile, and the pilot killed. On the tape of the late-afternoon meeting Kennedy discusses whether to order an air strike on the SAM sites if the incident is repeated (a delay that produced consternation at the Pentagon). He declares that two options are on the table: begin conversations about Khrushchev's proposal to swap Soviet missiles in Cuba for U.S. missiles in Turkey, or reject discussions until the Cuban crisis is settled. Kennedy chooses the first, with the caveat that the Soviets must provide proof that they have ceased work on the missile sites. He repeatedly refers to "conversations" and "discussions" and concludes, "Obviously, they're not going to settle the Cuban question until they get some conversation on Cuba." Incredibly, The Kennedy Tapes substitutes "compensation" for "conversation." It's easy to imagine how Cold War veterans like Rusk, Bundy, and McCone would have reacted to any suggestion of compensation for the Soviets in Cuba.
On October 29, the day after Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, the President and his advisers, relieved but not euphoric, conclude that surveillance and the quarantine will continue until the missiles have actually been removed. After a lull in the meeting, during which the conversation turns to college football, the President observes, "I imagine the Air Force must be a little mad," referring to the division of responsibility for aerial photography between the Air Force and the Joint Chiefs' photo-reconnaissance office. The Kennedy Tapes transcribes this as "I imagine the airports must be looking bad," which must leave many readers scratching their heads: the removal of the missiles had nothing to do with Cuban airports. Kennedy then ponders why, in the end, the Soviets decided to back down. He notes, "We had decided Saturday night to begin this air strike on Tuesday." No effort was made to conceal the military buildup in southern Florida, and Kennedy wonders if the impending strikes pushed the Russians to withdraw their missiles. The Kennedy Tapes, however, has JFK saying "We got the signs of life to begin this air strike on Tuesday," making his shrewd speculation unintelligible.
ONE particular error, among scores not cited above, seems to epitomize the problems with these transcripts. On the October 18 tape Dean Rusk argues that before taking military action in Cuba, the United States should consult Khrushchev, in the unlikely event that he would agree to remove the missiles. "But at least it will take that point out of the way," The Kennedy Tapes has Rusk saying, "and it's on the record." But Rusk actually said that this consultation would remove that point "for the historical record." The historical record is indeed the issue here.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/what-jfk-really-said/306407/
Gee. With Zelikow around, no wonder Karl Rove bragged about being history's actor.
My cousin served on the Kete, and perished with the rest of the crew off the shore of Japan. That, on its maiden war patrol. Nobody knows what happened to the Kete. It just disappeared, undoubtedly due to enemy action.
I have an interest in WWII submarine warfare, so it is possible that I've heard of your relative, especially if he served at the early period, the first two years (of which I am more interested).
Thanks.
From an unpublished article...
THE MIRACLE OF OCTOBER:
Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis
by:
Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight
EXCERPT...
4. The Lessons of October, 1962
While the world of 1962 is some ways increasingly remote, and the U.S.-Soviet Cold War in which it occurred has disappeared, many of the lessons of October 1962 are surprisingly relevant just now. Some may even be more relevant now than at any time since the crisis. We have identified four such lessons that we believe are distressingly pertinent to the world at the outset of the 21st century, especially the world of post-September 11, 2001.
First, recognize that their will be unintended consequences of our actions. Outcomes which may appear highly unlikely at the outset of a confrontation or conflict may become probable by its conclusion. It is essential, therefore, that policymakers take time to fully analyze, evaluate and debate all alternative courses of action. Differences of view among the president's advisers must be forced to the surface and fully explored.
Second, try to empathize with the mindset of your adversaries. Recognize that decisions to initiate action leading to highly undesirable outcomes is entirely possible by our opponents, especially when they misunderstand our objectives. Fidel Castro, and his Cuban and Soviet colleagues on the island of Cuba, believed they were acting rationally when in October 1962 they prepared for, and even sought the initiation of, nuclear war. They had concluded, wrongly but with some reason, that an American invasion was inevitable and that they were helpless without the "equalizers"--the nuclear weapons--and thus they would use them. While these decisions would, if implemented, have led to total devastation, the decisions themselves were the logical outcome of the perverse, desperate situation in which they found themselves, and which they had played an unwitting part in creating.
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Third, we must try to empathize with our allies and the allies of our adversaries. In the current case, we must recognize that the U.S. is hated by some Arabs and other Muslims, and that this will affect the actions of our allies and our opponents. We must try to minimize unintended consequences of our actions by probing deeply the roots of such hatreds--by trying to see our actions as others see them.
Fourth and finally, recognize that the Cuban missile crisis demonstrated that human beings endeavoring to manage military operations are even more fallible than the rest of us are in our daily lives. We all make mistakes in our daily lives. The point is to try not to make the same mistake twice--to learn from our mistakes. But a mistake involving the use of nuclear weapons is likely to lead to unprecedented devastation, yielding little or no opportunity to learn from mistakes leading to the nuclear attacks. It was therefore concluded at January 1989 Moscow conference on the Cuban missile crisis that the indefinite combination of human fallibility and the existence of nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations. On this basis, we believe that, with appropriate verification procedures in place, we must move to eliminate nuclear weapons.
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CONTINUED...
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache
lrBAoYm2M8J:www.watsoninstitute.org/cuba/OctMiracle.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgQci1EC52IzDBEO22PwJ4EpZo_724vEV7EcAQFPH2tUBAEbALEdyxXeA6LqsPN__A6EU9e9isf0sziUDjcbmny7KUtqyRvthEeye0k8HKaSj9bplUPilKWZmU-Obab_YkwKgZJ&sig=AHIEtbRm8_f6vkvyf-J8JEJUBOlx-CqZCA
The way of war, the march for empire, cannot continue forever. Thanks to Cheney and Rove outting CIA NOC agent Valerie Plame and exposing all of Brewster, Jennins & Associates, there may be more nukes around than resources to safeguard them. That's where the idea of a New Frontier -- the peaceful exploration of space -- came in. Today, more than ever, we could use more of the Vision Thing.
Good read from Time:
The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50: America and Cuba Still Frozen in 1962
Raúl Castro's decision this week to let Cubans travel freely outside their communist island is a reminder of the jaded cold-war policies Washington and Havana adopted after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet standoff
By Tim Padgett | @TimPadgett2 | October 17, 2012
...
Then again, if this is a season of 50th anniversaries, it’s also a U.S. election season—a reminder that Washington is still terrified of conservative Cuban-American voters in the swing state of Florida. A reminder that Havana still hasn’t grown beyond its anti-yanqui dogma and paranoia. A reminder that both the U.S. and Cuba are still frozen in 1962, to the detriment of the Americas.
Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/10/17/the-cuban-missile-crisis-at-50-america-and-cuba-still-frozen-in-1962/
"We have the international institutions and diplomatic skills, models and best practices today to resolve conflict without war. What is needed is the collective will and leadership to take this stand. The future of the planet depends on it. The choice is ours."
Regarding that time: Going by what we've learned about Operation NORTHWOODS (PDF) and the various suggested first strike plans put before Kennedy by CIA Director Dulles and JCS Chairman Lemnitzer, as well as the first strike suggested by Sen. George Smathers, doesn't it seem like a big coincidence that the evidentiary trail of crumbs connected Oswald to was Cuba?
