Bolshakov however did not prove to be totally useless to the Kennedy administration in resolving the missile crisis. On October 23, Frank Holeman revealed to Bolshakov, that the United States was willing to make a swap, Soviet nuclear ballistic missiles on the island of Cuba, in exchange for American ballistic nuclear missiles in the NATO State of Turkey on the borders of the Soviet Union. Kennedy was looking to remove the missiles in Turkey anyway for they had become obsolete upon the development of a larger quantity of higher quality missiles.(Cheney p.94) However GRU office in Washington chose to sit on the information and not reveal it to Khrushchev and the Soviet presidium just yet. Through Kennedy’s Bolshakov connection, it was first revealed that the Kennedy administration was willing to make a swap of missile installation in respective Soviet and American allied states.(Brugioni p.224)
Bolshakov proved valuable in the months before the missile crisis to both the White House and the Kremlin. Both used him as a source of intelligence regarding the other superpower’s plans. Bolshakov was Bobby Kennedy’s initative in dealing with the Soviet Union.
Ultimately, however, Khrushchev and the Soviet Union used the Kennedy-Bolshakov channel in a deceitful manner, deceiving the intelligence agent himself. Bolshakov was used to cover Soviet-Cuban covert operations in the Atlantic Ocean and to reassure the Kennedy administration that the Soviets had no plans to install offensive nuclear weapons capable of wiping out the entire continental United States on the island of Cuba.
To the contrary, the Soviets had planned for months to turn the small island nation of Cuba and its six million people into a Soviet Island fortress only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. This fortress would be fully equipped with not just medium range, but intercontinental nuclear missiles, as well as a submarine base capable of supporting nuclear submarines. In addition an entire Soviet garrison of 50,000 troops would be stationed on the island equipped with the weapons and the defense systems required to keep this fortress operational and eventually impregnable.(Cheney p.102) Bolshakov was left completely in the dark about this situation, and intern so was the Kennedy administration.
The situation infuriated both Kennedy’s and as the missile crisis progressed, the brothers relied less on the channel as a means to reach Moscow. It appeared obvious that Bolshakov had no idea what kinds of weapons were being installed in Cuba. The Soviet deception through Bolshakov helped to set the tone for Bobby Kennedy at the first Ex Comm meetings in deciding exactly what to do about this devastating situation in Cuba. Bolshakov was Bobby Kennedy’s personal channel to Moscow and his friend. Moscow’s use of Bolshakov as a means of deceit and deception truly infuriated the younger Kennedy.
Kennedy was looking to get even. It was no surprise that when Kennedy entered the very first Ex Comm meeting on October 16, 1962 Kennedy sat in his chair ready to act as a hawk. (Fursenko & Naftali p.234) He was prepared to do what ever was necessary to remove those missiles from Cuba. If it meant an air strike followed by an invasion, so be it.
Bobby Kennedy and the Ex Comm Meetings
The beginning of the Ex Comm talks for Robert F. Kennedy were marked by humiliation. The humiliation that he was directly lied to by the Soviet Union through one of his closest contacts and the humiliation that Castro had once again made the United States look like a bunch of fools. He struggled in the early part of these Ex Comm meetings with that humiliation on his shoulders.
Robert Kennedy believed that the missiles in Cuba represented an extremely valuable bargaining chip for both the Soviets and the Cubans. His opinion was also shared by his brother the president of the United States.
Kennedy wondered whether Castro might not make new threats against Cuba’s neighbors, saying, “You move troops down into that part of Venezuela, we’re going to fire these missiles.”(Fursenko & Naftali p.235) The attorney general in the first meeting of Ex Comm was by far the strongest advocate for invasion. He understood his brother’s sensitivity toward the political impact of a U.S. reaction that was not considered commensurate to the crime. But Robert Kennedy also expected Khrushchev simply to reload his missiles if he lost his first group of missiles to an American air strike. The odds of destroying every missile cleanly and efficiently with just one simple air strike were next to impossible.(Fursenko & Naftali p.247)
Perhaps as a way of showing how an invasion could be made internationally acceptable, Robert Kennedy brought up the quick fix that he had been advocating off and on since the Bay of Pigs disaster. “We should also think of . . . whether there is some other way we can get involved in this through . . . Guantanamo Bay, or something, . . . or whether there’s some ship that, you know, sink the Maine again or something.”(Hinckle & William p. 278) Kennedy was indeed grasping for straws suggesting such farfetched and outlandish excuses for invading Cuba, under pretexts of questionable morality. However Kennedy was confused and extremely frustrated by the current situation. Much of what Kennedy suggests early on in the Ex Comm meetings were the venting of great frustration over the crisis. None the less his brother, the president of the United States took Bobby Kennedy’s lamentations very seriously. Bobby was still his closest advisor and John F. Kennedy felt the same frustration and confusion that his brother felt.
Initially most of the other members of Ex Comm barring the members of the actually military who were present, supported a much more peaceful way of dealing with the situation. Diplomacy was seen as an alternative means of dealing with such an explosive situation. Llewellyn Thompson advocated a naval blockade of Cuba.(Dolan & Scariano p.105) Believing it “very highly doubtful the Russians would resist a blockade against military weapons . . .”(Dolan & Scariano p.105) Thompson argued that the best way to avoid peace or at least legitimatize an invasion of Cuba was a combined stern coercion of blockade with a public demand that Moscow dismantle its missile sites in Cuba. Thompson realized that odds were this would not be enough to remove the missiles already existing in Cuba and would not prevent them from becoming operational in the near future. He suggested threatening to use force if Khrushchev ignored the U.S. demand. “I think we should be under no illusions that this would probably in the end lead to the same thing,” he said with some resignation. “But we would do it under an entirely different posture and background, and much less danger of getting into the big war.”(Fursenko & Naftali p.253)
In the beginning Robert Kennedy, still very much a hawk disagreed in entirely with Thompson. He saw the blockade as a “very slow death.”(Thompson p.123) Robert Kennedy envisioned that a blockade would last for months. He saw a great deal of conflict involved in a naval blockade anyway. The stopping of Russian ships by the American navy would cause chaos and possibly even retaliation by Russian ships. Russian ships would dare the American navy to stop them, and no doubt about it there would be ships that would attempt to run and break through any kind of naval blockade put into affect by the United States Navy. Russian planes that attempted to fly over the American blockade would have to me shot down which would lead to nothing more than an escalated mess.(Fursenko & Naftali p. 256-9) These at least were Kennedy’s arguments.
On October 19, the Ex Comm divided into two groups. There was the air strike team, which included Treasury Secretary Dillon, Bundy, CIA director John McCone, and the former secretary of state Dean Acheson who had now joined in on the Ex Comm meetings. Robert Kennedy chose to join this group. Favoring the blockade were Secretary of Defense John McNamara, Dean Rusk, Thompson, George Ball.(Blight & Welch p.235) The responsibility of the two groups was to generate by the end of the day position papers that made the strongest case possible for their preference. Over the next thirty-six hours, Robert Kennedy played a key role in bringing these two groups together. He considered himself apart of the air strike team, but his position on so drastic a measure was wavering. While he still saw the naval blockade as full of headaches and weaknesses, he saw the air strike position as even more dangerous.(Fursenko & Naftali p.263-4)
The reason he was wavering was not that agreed with Thompson or the others, rather he began to fully recognize the consequence of the alternative air strike. An air strike left little room for the Soviet Union and communist Cuba to manuver. In a situation such as the one placed upon them in an air strike, the two communist nations would seemingly have no choice but to fight back and defend themselves.(Blight & Welch p.229)
In the morning Bobby Kennedy argued that the U.S. airforce should simply go and make the attack without warning. Only after a full air strike was made against the Soviet Cuban positions on the island should the United States go to the Organization of American States. This was Kennedy’s view. By the evening of the same day, he was firmly against striking without warning. Kennedy realized the cowardlyness in such an attack. A similar surprise attack was made on the day of December 7th, 1945, a day that would live in infamy. There was no way Kennedy decided, that he would allow his brother to be compared with Tojo of Japan, in reference to the Japanese sneak on the American navy stationed in Pearl Harbor that eventually lead to American involvement in World War II. The United States was not in the tradition of cowardlyness.(Blight & Welch p.230) While he still was leaning towards an air strike or at least an eventual air strike over a naval blockade, he realized that the Soviet response to such a strike would be far more prepared if they were warned previously. None the less Bobby Kennedy had become dead set against a preemptive without warning strike on the island of Cuba. As a result, he had changed his mind about resorting to a blockade as a first step.(Thompson p.145)
By the time John F. Kennedy had arrived back at the White House after a scheduled cross country trip across the United States early Saturday morning, Bobby Kennedy was firmly locked into the blockade camp of Ex Comm. If a vote were to take place in Ex Comm, the air strike camp would lose. Robert F. Kennedy upon weighing the options of an air strike over taking the first step as an announced military blockade realized that the consequences of the air strike made the blockade far more appealing.(Fursenko & Naftali p.267) At least the blockade could buy time and allow the Soviets to retreat without a single shot being fired. It was President Kennedy who in fact needed convincing of the impracticality of an air strike as opposed to a naval blockade.
Kennedy would indeed take some convincing that the blockade would be a safer alternative to an outright surgical air strike on Soviet missile positions in Cuba. However in light of new CIA intelligence that intelligence agency understood that the operational status of the missiles and the possibility of hitherto undiscovered missile sites were the issues closest to the president’s heart and potentially most relevant to his final decision.(Hinckle & William p.287)
Thus with the help Bobby Kennedy bringing the Ex Comm group together and the shining of light onto newly found intelligence, the blockade camp carried the day. On Monday morning Kennedy would give a nationally televised address, followed by the imposition of a limited blockade a day later. Kennedy realized that the pentagon barring McNamara was against the decision, but was affirmed by General Taylor that the U.S. armed services would back the president’s decision completely.(Hinckle & William p. 293)
Robert Kennedy also argued that the pretext behind a naval blockade of the island of Cuba should be of a moral pretext. He argued that the pretext of a naval blockade should involve the deception of the Soviets in there placing of nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba despite American warnings of what would be the consequences of such an action. President Kennedy however rejected this moral pretext. Kennedy stated flatly why there was not an acceptable military option at this stage in the crisis. The Soviet Union’s mobile MRBM (medium range ballistic missile) bases “can be set up quite quickly,” and for this reason and this reason alone he was sure there were more on the island had previously been detected.(Cohen p.175)
Kennedy no longer believed the Soviets would act prudently in the event of war. After all it was not very prudent of the Soviet Union to seriously believe it could place nuclear missiles right under the nose of America and easily get away with it. Kennedy thought that maybe even the Soviets were itching for the fight. Right up till Kennedy’s address, the Soviets were unaware that the Americans had idea that the United States knew of the ballistic missiles in Cuba. However there were signs. Thus when the announcement of the naval blockade was made, the Soviets were not take completely off guard.(Fursenko & Naftali p.253)
During this first part of the Cuban missile crisis, prior to the Soviet knowledge of American awareness, Robert Kennedy played a crucial role in developing his brother’s position on how to handle the situation. Early on into the conflict, Kennedy was a clear and vocal hawk. His suggestion of sabotage and false pretexts in an attempt to trigger a legitimate invasion seem over the top. Yet as he cooled down, and sobered up to the realization that this conflict could very well lead to the advent of thermonuclear war, Kennedy began to realize the illogical reasoning behind triggering a war with such lethal consequences. His position gradually developed from that of an invasion to that of a surprise air attack to that of a warned air attack and finally to that of a blockade of Cuba without a single shot being fired.
Kennedy was very instrumental in quieting the hawks calling for an air strike and eventually championing the concept of a naval blockade. While not entirely accepting the effectiveness of the blockade, he did learn to appreciate the consequences of the other possible alternatives. As his position on the crisis evolved to that of a more rational one, so did that of the Ex Comm committee. This demonstrated a great character and leadership in the young attorney general. In the end everybody though not necessarily agreeing with it was willing to accept the idea of a naval blockade at least as a first step towards resolving the conflict.
While his brother the president disagreed with him on certain points, such as that of conducting the blockade under a moral pretext, at least he was able to help convince and restrain his older brother from a more aggressive action like an air strike that may result in a much more serious counter reaction. Even the CIA stated, the missiles found were at this time believed to be operational, and it was impossible to confirm that there were no other missile sites that the central intelligence agency was not aware of. These missiles might very well be pointed in the direction of Washington D.C.
Robert F. Kennedy and Anatoly Dobrynin
Perhaps Robert F. Kennedy’s most important role in the Cuban Missile Crisis would be played as the Washington representative in negotiations in an exchange for the removal of missiles out of Cuba. These negotiations would occur through a new channel, a more official channel of negotiation, through the Soviet Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin.(Hershbag p.8) It would be through these negotiations at the tensest interval of the crisis that a resolution to the entire affair would be achieved.
After the blockade was placed into effect, on October 23 some of the Soviet ships turned back upon reaching the blockade. However Khrushchev specifically ordered certain ships to run the blockade if necessary. The ships, which attempted to run the blockade, were able to do so. In the mean time both sides were preparing for war.(Blight & Welch p.255)
The United States was amassing an invasion force of 90,000 marines for a possible invasion of Cuba from bases on the eastern coast of the United States as well as additional marines from bases on the Pacific coast.(Blight & Fursenko p.238) However many of these marines would have to sail around Central America through the Panama Canal in order to reach the battlefield. They may not reach the scene of the conflict until at least a week later. The Pentagon had lowered the U.S. warning system from DEFCOM 5, which was peace to DEFCOM 2. DEFCOM 1 stood for all out war. Pentagon also warned American hospitals throughout the country to begin expecting large numbers of casualties. At this point in time U.S. reconnaissance planes were flying at treetop level over Cuba as a means of gathering in intelligence for an eventually amphibious landing of marines on the island.(Fursenko & Naftali p.238)
Soviet and Cuban forces on the communist island also had begun preparing for war. Khrushchev gave the ok to his general in charge of military operations on the island, General Issa Pliyev, to prepare his troops for a possible invasion and to defend him in the advent of an American air strike. Cuban forces under Fidel Castro were also taking steps toward the possibility of war and a coming invasion. Castro already assumed an American invasion would come only days after the blockade was initiated and proved ineffective. Castro sent his brother Raul Castro to prepare defenses in western Cuba. In eastern Cuba he relied on his most trusted advisor outside his own brother, Che Gueverra to handle military operations there. Castro believed the American invasion was inevitable and saw no reason not to fire on any American reconnaissance planes that violated Cuban air space. Both states were indeed preparing for all out war.(Hinckle & William p.278-287)