Everything you ever wanted to know about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but were afraid to ask

[Music] Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History magazine, Britain's best-selling History Magazine. I'm Illy Cawthon. In today's episode, the latest in our everything you wanted to know series, we'll be discussing one of the key events of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our expert is Professor Mark White from Queen Mary University of London, and putting the questions to him was our editor, Rob Atter. So today, I'm joined by Professor Mark White, who is a historian based at Queen Mary University of London. He's an expert on the American Presidency in the Cold War era, and his specialisms include John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and indeed, he's written three histories of the crisis, including the book Missiles in Cuba. Now, as with all of these episodes, the questions I'm going to be asking Mark are taken from popular internet search queries, as well as some that you've submitted on our various social media platforms. And so, let's begin at the beginning with one of the internet search queries, which is, what were the causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Thanks, Rob. It's a really interesting question, and I understand of that issue has changed, as I'd say, for the first quarter century or so after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the consensus among scholars and also the public at large was that there really wasn't a debate over this. The causes were obvious. It was Soviet aggression, Soviet duplicity. The Russian leader and Nikita Khrushchev in the spring of 1962 made the decision to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the coast of Florida, from the coast of the United States. And this clearly is what caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. But from the late 1980s onwards, some historians began to challenge that view and to consider why Khrushchev made that decision. And what some historians have argued is that Khrushchev decided to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba in response to what Kennedy had done. So it's a sequential issue. And in particular, what some historians have emphasized is the fact that John F. Kennedy, early in his presidency, carried out a policy of marked aggression towards Friedrich Castro and basically tried to overthrow him, notably at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, and also with Operation Mongoose, there were also US assassination attempts. And so Khrushchev had always maintained that the main reason why he had put missiles in Cuba was to deter a US invasion of Cuba authorized by Kennedy that he regarded it as inevitable. And so from the late 1980s onwards, some historians began to find that argument believable. Now it's a complex issue. So for example, one could argue, Khrushchev could have just deployed Russian troops in Cuba without deploying nuclear weapons, and that would have been enough to deter a US attack. But what some people feel is that had Kennedy not carried out a policy of marked aggression towards Friedrich Castro and also had not carried out the biggest peacetime increase in US multi-spending in history up to that point, Khrushchev would not have put nuclear missiles in Cuba, and therefore there would not have been a Cuban missile crisis. So it's a very debatable point now. And then coming on to another search query, which is essentially what were the key events of the crisis itself? So in the spring of 1962, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba. The story goes that he was strolling along the Black Sea coast with his defence minister Malanovsky. Malanovsky pointed out, well, you know, just across the horizon there, across the Black Sea and Turkey, the US has nuclear missiles, Jupiter missiles. That can strike Soviet citizens. And Khrushchev apparently responded by saying something to the effect, well, maybe we can give the US a taste of its own medicine by putting missiles in Cuba. So seems that was the juncture spring 1962 when Khrushchev decides to put nuclear missiles in Cuba. Then during the summer and early autumn of 1962, he carries out what is called Operation Anadir. This was the operation to deploy nuclear missiles, but also conventional weapons and also troops in Cuba. Now, during the late summer and early autumn, the US knew this was going on. The press was reporting on it, Congress was debating it, Kennedy was having to discuss the issue at press conferences. But Kennedy's assumption and indeed of his whole administration was that no nuclear missiles were going in. Conventional weapons, troops were no nuclear, and indeed no nuclear missiles did go in until September. On the 14th of October, the CIA, 14th of October 1962, the CIA sent over a reconnaissance plane, spy plane that took detailed photographic evidence that evidence was brought back to CIA headquarters, interpreted, and what it established was that Soviet nuclear missiles were in Cuba. John Kennedy was lying in bed on the morning of Tuesday the 16th of October in the White House, and his national security adviser George Bundy informed him about what the CIA had established. There were nuclear missiles in Cuba. That, the morning of Tuesday 16th of October 1962, is the start of the Cuban missile crisis. So the question for John Kennedy is, how do I respond? What do I do about this? And he made two key decisions right from the start. John was to keep it secret, to not tell Congress, to not tell the media, to not tell the world. What he was concerned about was that if he did that, whilst he was making his mind on how to respond, that would give crushed off the initiative, and he could therefore take some counteraction, maybe in Berlin, maybe in Turkey. So he keeps it secret. The second thing is, he sets up a special committee, which is known as the XCOM Group, basically senior foreign and defense officials, who would give him advice during the crisis. The XCOM committee would meet every day, often more than once, and advise him on how to handle it. So the Cuban missile crisis divides into two. The first week, which is the secret private phase of the Cuban missile crisis, where Kennedy is mulling over how to respond with his advisors. Now at the start of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy himself, John Kennedy himself, but also most of his advisors believe that he would have to respond by military action with an air strike. And that what the service had done was reprehensible, and this was the appropriate response. But during the course of that week, a debate emerged in the XCOM Group between those who supported the air strike, and those who supported a naval blockade, established U.S. naval blockade around Cuba, this would stop the Russian sending in more missiles. It wouldn't take it out of the missiles that were already there, but at least it would stop them from sending in more missiles, and it would buy some time to negotiate a settlement, hopefully. And John Kennedy came to support that view. And on the evening of the 22nd of October, 7pm eastern standard time, he delivered a speech on television and by radio to the American people, but in effect to the world in which he said two things. One, I need to let you know that there are Russian missiles in Cuba. Two, I am responding by establishing a naval blockade. So that's it. That's the end of the first week of the Cuban missile crisis. At that moment, the Cuban missile crisis becomes a public affair. So the second week of the Cuban missile crisis, which lasts from that point on the evening of the 22nd until the morning of the 28th, is when the Cuban missile crisis is public knowledge, world knowledge, and the world teeters on the brink of nuclear war with that fear, with that concern. During that second week of the crisis, there are a number of different strands to it. One is the XCOM meetings continue. So Kennedy continues to get advice from the XCOM group. Secondly, their secret diplomacy going on. So for example, Bobby Kennedy meets on a couple of occasions with the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Dubreenin, on the 23rd and on the 27th of October. Thirdly, there is a correspondence going on between Kennedy and Crusher, where they send letters to each other. And basically, for the early days of the second week, just accused the other of causing this crisis and not offering any kind of settlement. A key moment is on the morning of the 24th, because once Kennedy decides to establish the blockade, the big issue is, will the Russians respect it? Will Crusher respect it? And the morning of the 24th is a moment of incredibly high drama, because Kennedy is sitting around with his top advises. When the news comes in, that two Soviet ships and also a submarine are approaching the blockade line. The question is, will they stop head back to Russia or will they try and force through the line? If it's the latter, if they try and force through the line, you are then talking about a military engagement on the seas, between American forces and Soviet forces, you are talking about potentially World War III. And at the very last minute, the news comes through, that the Soviet ships had stopped dead in the water. And this is the moment, the famous moment, when the Secretary of State Dean Russ turned to McGeorge Bundy, who is the National Security Advisor and said, were eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked. The ships turned around and head back to the Soviet Union. So at that point, Kennedy knew the blockade had been effective. In the sense that the Soviets wouldn't send in any more missiles, that's still left the question of, how do you get the missiles that are already there? A turning point is a remarkable personal, very emotional letter sent by Crusher off to Kennedy on the 26th of October, the evening of the 26th, in which he offers a deal. He says to Kennedy, "Have you promised not to invade Cuba? I will take the missiles out of Cuba." Great, it looked like a settlement to the crisis was inside, but what money the waters was when, in the following morning, the morning of the 27th, a second letter arrived from Crusher. Before Kennedy had been able to respond to the first, much more formal in tone and changing the terms of the settlement. Crusher now said, you're going to have to promise not to invade Cuba and also remove your missiles, US missiles from Turkey, the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. This impelled Kennedy on the horns of a dilemma. How do I respond to these two different letters? And it remains an adding-matic question, why did Crusher off do this? Why did he send two different letters with two different offers within a matter of hours? Was it a case of hardliners and the Kremlin imposing themselves on him and compelling him to send that second letter? That seems unlikely. Nevertheless, the question for Kennedy was how to respond. And famously, he decided to respond in the end by responding to the first letter. So he responds later on the 27th of October by saying to Crusher off, "Love your letter the 26th. Let's settle the crisis on that basis. Our promise not to invade Cuba, you'll take the missiles out." However, to increase the likelihood of sovied acceptance, he sent Bobby Kennedy to speak to the sovied ambassador to Brenan that evening, and what Bobby Kennedy told the Brenan off the record early was, "In addition, we will remove our missiles from Turkey." But this has to remain a secret part of the settlement. If you divulge this to the press, to the world, the deal is off. What Bobby Kennedy also emphasized to the Brenan was how close they were to war, that those tremendous pressure on John Kennedy to carry out military action. So, you know, Kennedy and his advisors go to bed that night feeling that perhaps World War III is around the corner. I mean, I think this was the big question. What if Crusher would come back to Kennedy and said, "That's all fine, but the deal on the Jupiter's removing the missiles from Turkey has to be public, not private. Would Kennedy have gone to war on the basis that part of the deal had to remain secret? We don't know." But the following morning, the morning of the 28th, letter came from Crusher off saying that he accepted Kennedy's offer. And that was it. The Cuban missile crisis was over and the morning of the 28th had lasted 13 days. Of course, there was still loose ends to tie up, but basically, that was it. And the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War epoch was over. Well, Mark, that was a really, really fantastic summary of the crisis. And so, coming on from that, we had a question actually that really is a response to your last point from Chris Riley on Instagram who said, "Was this the closest that the Cold War got to getting hot?" I think so. I mean, that's its reputation in history as the most dangerous moment of the Cold War, the closest we've come to World War III. And I think that's an entirely appropriate point of view. Because the thing to remember about the Soviet deployment in Cuba, as I said earlier, was that it involved nuclear missiles and conventional weapons, but it also involved troops. There were more than 40,000 Russian troops on the island at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. And it is the case that the start of the missile crisis, I mean, it's very interesting if you look at the evidence that we have, because this is one of the interesting things about the Cuban missile crisis that Kennedy taped the meetings, those XCOM meetings. We had a little button under his desk, and he could press it and activate the recording device. We have verbatim accounts of these XCOM meetings. And a lot of those records would be classified in the 1990s. And so, we have a very precise understanding of what Kennedy said and what he intended to do. And if you look at what Kennedy said on the first day of the Cuban missile crisis in the XCOM group on the 16th of October, his view was unequivocal. He was going to respond militarily. He was going to respond with an air strike. He made this clear at various times during the two XCOM meetings on the 16th of October. And most of his advises agreed with that point of view. So, let's play out the scenario that Kennedy decides to go with what his initial inclination was, which is with an air strike on Cuba, to destroy the missile sites, the Soviet missile sites. If he does that, he's not only going to potentially destroy some missiles, he's also going to kill Russian troops. Crush Joe is going to have to respond somewhere as a matter of credibility. With a nuclear strike, possibly move on West Berlin, possibly, but had Kennedy gone with the air strike, Russian troops would have been killed. And that would seem likely that war would ensue. Yes, I think this is the closest we've come to World War III. And then on a related note, we had a question from Christina Levinson on Twitter, who wanted to know, did people understand how close the world came to nuclear war? Yes. So, once John Kennedy gives his speech to the nation on the evening of the 22nd of October 1962, telling the American people there were Soviet missiles in Cuba and he was responding with the blockade, it was public knowledge. And there was a poll taken the following day to gauge American public opinion in response to Kennedy's speech. And it said that one in five Americans thought that World War III would be a consequence or would follow on from Kennedy's establishment of the blockade. People understood the gravity of the situation and elsewhere in the world. And a lot of people thought it would lead to war. Okay, and so we had quite a specific question on Instagram from LK Whitehead, who wrote, "Were the green berries really suited up and sitting at Fort Bragg waiting for the signal to invade?" Well, an interesting part of the history of all of this is what happens before the Cuban missile crisis. And one of the things that had happened before the Cuban missile crisis was that the Kennedy administration developed contingency plans to attack Cuba. The origins of this planning go back to the Eisenhower years, but those plans were updated during the Kennedy presidency. Now, it's not easy to gauge the significance of them. The US has contingency plans for everything. I think it's one historian wants to put it, you know, they probably has contingency plans for what we do if we invade Canada. And of course, these things are not likely to happen. But in this case, the plans seemed serious. And there's a quite brilliant article written back in 1990 by a historian called James Hirschberg in which he presented evidence that we hadn't seen before on whether Kennedy was seriously planning to attack Cuba even before the Cuban missile crisis started. And as part of this, there were practice military operations, whether the US military staged military operations in the Caribbean. And there's one occasion, possibly infamous occasion, where the US military announced that it was staging a practice military operation in the Caribbean to storm an island. And the aim of this practice operation was to liberate the island from a fictional dictator called Ortsack O-R-T-S-A-C. Read that backwards. And you'll know who the practice operation was aimed at. So the US had been preparing all these plans to carry out an air strike on Cuba, invade Cuba, blockade Cuba, actually carried out practice operations. So what's the Cuban missile crisis starts? The US military is very well prepared to carry out military action. Indeed, it does make me think whether one reason why Kennedy's and his advisors were inclined at the start of the missile crisis to plump for military action was because the military preparations before the missile crisis for such action had been so extensive. And in the first day of the Cuban missile crisis and the XCOM meetings, there was talk about, you know, how well prepared are we to carry out an attack now? And officials saying we're very well prepared, we're ready to go. Well, the missile crisis has just started. Why is the US military already ready to go? Well, they're already ready to go because of the cream missile crisis preparations. And so, yeah, during the missile crisis, the US military prepares and is authorised by Kennedy and the Secretary of Defense, or McNamara, to prepare for an attack. So Southern Florida is reinforced militarily. The US military base on Cuban soil at Guantanamo is fortified, strengthened. US destroyers, four US destroyers are placed between Florida and between Cuba. The Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on 20 October authorises four tactical air squadrons to be ready to carry out an air strike. And then I think it's on the morning of the 24th of October, the US military moves to DEF CON-2. That's the defense readiness condition. The readiness of the military to go to war. DEF CON-2 is the closest you can be to going to war. DEF CON-1 is war. So the US military moved to DEF CON-2 during the crisis. So yes, the military was absolutely ready to carry out an air strike, other military action against Cuba, and Kennedy had authorised them to do so. And then sticking with Kennedy, we had a question from, I'm sorry if I've pronounced the name wrong, but Lanny or Laney Blackman, who is an Australian high school teacher on Twitter. And she asked, "There are different views out there on how well JFK led during the crisis. To what extent did he make the key decisions and lead XCOM and who else is important?" He certainly made the key decisions. He's president of the United States. He solicits advice from his senior officials. And they included notably his brother, Bobby Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, who was attorney general. But from the spring of 1961 onwards, after the Bay of Pigs invasion, was given a major position on foreign policy issues as well, including Cuba. And there are other senior officials as well that Kennedy listens to. So he listens to advice. His advice is given options, but he certainly makes the key decisions. My own view is that he handled the crisis extremely well. And I think if you look at the Kennedy presidency in the round, one of the interesting themes to me is the distinction between Kennedy's ability as a crisis manager on the one hand and his ability to craft policy that was effective in the long term on the other. That is to say that if you look at the positives of the Kennedy presidency, they seem to relate in the main to crisis management. You have a successful handling of the Berlin crisis in 1961, defending West Berlin. You have a successful handling of the Cuban missile crisis in '62, getting the missiles out of Cuba without going to war. You have his handling of periodic civil rights crises, such as the one in Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963. It just seemed to suit him temperamentally. He remained cool under pressure. You could even see this in the 1960 presidential campaign with the television debates with Nixon, where famously in the first one, he comprehensively defeated Nixon, who was very able and intelligent, the guard that is effective on television, he seemed to handle pressure well and he seemed to be a good crisis manager. His ability in terms of shaping policy with the night to the long term on the other is more debatable, for example, Vietnam, where he substantially escalated US involvement and that played a major role in moving the US closer to that disastrous war there, although he never went to war himself. I think his handling of the Cuban missile crisis relates to his overall presidential record. The one area of his leadership during the crisis, which was not impressive, was that original reaction when he believed he would have to respond militarily. I think, although he generally kept his cool, I think he was angry. I think he felt that Krushchev had deceived him, had lied to him, had stabbed him in the back. It is true that Krushchev and his advisors had said during the autumn they would not put nuclear missiles in Cuba. So Kennedy felt, well, I've been lied to and he was right, he had been. So his initial response was in temperate and two bellicose, two militaristic. But what has to praise him for keeping an open mind? He kept an open mind, he listened to the options and I'd say, as early as two days later, by the 18th of October, he's basically decided he's going to go for the blockade because the military option was too dangerous and by the 20th of October, he's unequivocally decided he's going to do that, that he will go for the blockade, which he then announces to the American people. You also have to credit him for standing up to the military, for standing up to the generals because they were going home. They absolutely wanted to go to war and to carry out military action against Cuba. If you watch all of his stones in 1991 film JFK, the historical accuracy of it is debatable in all sorts of ways. But one theme in that film, which is credible, is the tension between Kennedy on the one hand and his generals on the other. And yeah, basically throughout his presidency, Kennedy came to feel more and more that the generals tended to look at the world in too simplistic a way. They just looked at it in militaristic terms. They never tended to factor in the political issues, concerning issues. And so he did have to stand up to his generals. There's one extraordinary meeting where he's literally doing that. And it's clear they think that Kennedy is being weak need and Kennedy feels that they are being too bellicose. So one has to credit him for his guts in standing up to the generals. And for the diplomatic skill he showed in the second week of the crisis. And I think if you look at the evidence, to me, this is one of the interesting things with the missile crisis, is I think it's useful to think of it in an educated sense. I mean, how it changes Kennedy. It's one thing to understand, as you or I do or anyone does, that nuclear war is a possibility in a theoretical abstract sense. But to actually live through this incredibly intense crisis, the Cuban missile crisis for two weeks, when you and one other guy on the other side of the world are responsible as to whether there's going to be a nuclear war. I think it left him with a kind of visceral, a visceral, deeper understanding of the dangers of the nuclear age. And so I think as the crisis goes on, he becomes more and more determined to end it diplomatically and to end it peacefully. And so I think the successful settlement, the peaceful resolution of the crisis is due in part two, that evolving concern that Kennedy has about the dangers of the nuclear age. And you can also see that when you look at what Kennedy and also crush job do after the missile crisis. So I would give Kennedy very high marks was handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It's the great challenge of his presidency. I know it's a much shorter duration than say the civil war for Abraham Lincoln or the great depression for Franklin Roosevelt. But in terms of its transcendent importance, is there going to be World War III? Is there going to be nuclear war? It's the great foreign policy challenge of his presidency. And I would give him, I mean, obviously when Kennedy was assassinated, there was this incredible sense of loss and this Kamalot view of his presidency developed, which was that he had been a great president. The extent to which that is credible is debatable. But regardless of that, I would give him very high marks was handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It's very major achievement and important achievement. Sticking with the Kennedy family, Melissa Joanna on Facebook wanted to know, was Bobby Kennedy really the integral call headed influence who saved the day? It's a really good question. Our initial of view of this was that Robert Kennedy was the hero of the Cuban missile crisis in many ways that he did save the day. And the reason we thought this was because this is what Bobby Kennedy himself told us. Bobby Kennedy after the Cuban missile crisis left the administration of Lyndon Johnson. He ran for a senate seat for New York State in the autumn of 1964, 1964 and one. So from 1965 onwards, he's a senator for New York State. And in 1968, he runs for the presidency. Runs for the Democratic presidential nomination, but is assassinated in California in June 1968. Before he had done that, he had begun writing a little history of the Cuban missile crisis with the help of Theodore Sorenson, JFK's great speech writer. The book was published posthumously after Robert Kennedy's death as 13 days. And for many, many years, it was a key source for Cuban missile crisis historians because they didn't have a lot of other evidence. And Bobby Kennedy does basically portray himself as the hero of the Cuban missile crisis. And two things in particular, he portrayed himself as the ex-com official who stood up to the hawks who wanted John Kennedy to carry out military action. And what he said in his book 13 days was, I was the one who stood up to them. He gives a very famous account of how he stood up to Dean Atchison, who had been Harry Truman Secretary of State in the late 1940s, early 1950s, a formidable imposing figure and establishment figure, regarded as a foreign policy expert. Dean Atchison was brought in as an ad hoc advisor during the Cuban missile crisis. And he made the case affordably for military action that John Kennedy had to carry out an air strike. And Robert Kennedy recounted how he had stood up to Dean Atchison and made a moralistic case. The United States is not that sort of nation. And this famous analogy, we are not going to carry out a Pearl Harbor. We are not going to do to the world and to Cuba, what Japan did to Pearl Harbor in 1941. And that this argument grew persuasive and his brother went with the blockade. And then the other thing he credited himself with was that question of how to respond to crush just two different letters on the 26th and the 27th of October at the climax of the Cuban missile crisis. So crush just first letter saying, I'll take the missiles out. If the United States promises not to invade, but then he sends the second letter on the 27th saying, the US will have to promise not to invade Cuba and remove the missiles from Turkey. How do you respond to those two letters? Well, in his book 13 days, Robert Kennedy said, I was the one who came up with this brilliant idea of just responding to the first letter of getting my brother to send letter to crush just saying, I liked your first letter of the 26th. And yes, we'll promise not to invade Cuba. You take the missiles out. So Robert Kennedy is important because he's JFK's closest adviser. I mean, though, is a kind of clannish, dynastic aspect to John Kennedy's presidency. He trusted his brother more than anyone else because he was family. So Bobby Kennedy had more influence than any other adviser. But Bobby Kennedy had exaggerated his own contribution in his memoir 13 days. He offered a simplistic view. He didn't credit other officials with their contribution. So in terms of the first week of the crisis, what Bobby Kennedy didn't say, I think this is perhaps isn't generally known. What he didn't say is that on the first day of the crisis, the 16th, not only did he not support a blockade at that point in time, he supported military action, but not just military action. He supported the superhawk position, which was an invasion. With the military options, there were different options. One was a US military strike on Soviet missile sites. One was a broader US military air strike. But the other military option, the almost hawkish one, the most aggressive one, the most dangerous one, was a full-scale invasion. There is clear evidence that Bobby Kennedy supported the superhawk position. His brother, which fought an air strike on the 16th, but he, Bobby Kennedy was for the superhawk position in an invasion. He doesn't mention that in 13 days. What is also the case is he was not the official who came up with the idea of the blockade. That was Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense. I think this is important, this is worth noting. Because Robert McNamara is a sort of infamous figure in history because many people see him as really the architect behind the war in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson Secretary of Defense, who pushed Lyndon Johnson to go to war in 1965, which turned out to be a disaster. Well, if one criticizes at him for that and one should also credit him for this massive contribution during the Cuban missile crisis, he was one who came up with the idea of the blockade as an independent course of action separate from any military options. And also, there were other officials who came up with the powerful famous Pearl Harbor comparison, other officials including State Department official George Ball. So what Bobby Kennedy did later in that first week is he took the other arguments used by others and used them himself. Yes, I now support a blockade. Yes, I think an airstrike would be like a Pearl Harbor. It's unacceptable. So he exaggerated his contribution. His contribution was important. He marginalized slightly the contributions of others. Also, this question of how the key moment in the missile crisis, how do you spawn to crush those two different letters on the 26th and the 27th? Now, I remember, this is back in the 1990s when I was doing my research on my first two books on the Cuban missile crisis. I remember when I first looked at the declassified transcript for the first XCOM meeting, that the morning meeting on the 27th of October. Now, what I knew was what Robert Kennedy had said in 13 days that he had come up with this brilliant idea, ignored crushed our second letter, respond to his first letter. And so I remember reading the declassified transcripts. So this is the meeting that John Kennedy had secretly recorded and the record had been released. But I remember when I when I read it, just waiting for Bobby Kennedy to come in saying, well, why don't we just respond to the first letter? And it didn't happen. And then there were all these other officials, Theodore Solenson, JFK speechwriter, George Bundy, National Security Advisor, if I remember rightly, and other officials who all said, well, why don't we just respond to his first letter, ignore the second letter? And then pages, pages, pages later into the transcript, Bobby Kennedy suddenly says, you know what, why don't we respond to the first letter? The basic plan that worked and ended the crisis, he did not come up with other officials did. He lent his support to it and that was helpful because his brother listened to Bobby Kennedy. So his role was important and then you have his role as a secret diplomat during the second week of the crisis, where he's meeting with the so-and-abastered debris. So his role is very important. And he plays an important role on the rest of John Kennedy's presidency as well, for example, on civil rights, but he exaggerated his own achievements. And I'll just make this one other point on this, which is the other thing which he doesn't talk about in 13 days is Operation Mongoose. When the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA operation to get rid of Castro in April 61 fails, the question for the Kennedy administration is, what do we do about Castro now? What John Kennedy basically decided was to continue to try and get rid of Castro to overthrow him. The center of peace of this was Operation Mongoose, which was started in November 1961. It was the biggest CIA operation history up to that point. And the aim of it was to overthrow Castro. Bobby Kennedy was one of the two leading US officials in Operation Mongoose. He played a leading role in Operation Mongoose to get rid of Castro. And he actually said, Bobby Kennedy, the number one objective of our administration, this was privately, this wasn't public. The number one objective of the Kennedy administration is to overthrow freedel Castro, not education, not health care, not civil rights, but getting rid of Castro. So that's the other thing he doesn't talk about in 13 days, his very, very hardline role in terms of policy towards Cuba before the missile crisis. It's a very good question. And we had a couple of questions also on the Soviet angle. And firstly, we had one from Paul Day on Facebook. And he just really wanted to know what was the Soviet perspective on the Cuba missile crisis. So the basic decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba was made in the spring of 19, 1962 by Nikita Krushchev. And it was the case that in the West, for many years afterwards, and at the time, it was just regarded as a reckless, aggressive decision that brought the world to the precipice of nuclear war. I think we now have a much more nuanced understanding of why the Soviets put nuclear missiles in Cuba. And it does seem to have been the case that part of the reason was that it was a response to Kennedy's aggressive policies towards Castro. The way that Krushchev looked at things was that Kennedy had embarked on a relentless campaign to overthrow Castro. He tried to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs. Operation Longus was launched in November late 61 of November 61. My understanding is that the Soviets may not have known the name, but they knew that the operation was basically under way aimed at getting rid of Castro. In early 62, the US imposed economic sanctions on Cuba to economically strangle Cuba and also diplomatically isolated Cuba by arranging Cuba to be ejected from the organization of American states. Also in spring 1962, the US is carrying out practice and military operations in the Caribbean. That seems threatening towards Cuba. So I think Krushchev decides to put missiles in Cuba in response to Kennedy's policies towards Castro. And, you know, during this year, if one thinks of the preceding years, in a sense, that's not an extraordinary decision. The US deployed nuclear missiles in Western Europe, you know, Britain, Turkey, Italy, partly on the basis that this reduced the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. So for Krushchev to put nuclear missiles in Cuba on the basis that this reduced the chances of a US attack on Cuba was not wholly fanciful bizarre. So he makes that decision. He is also concerned about the fact that the US has a huge nuclear lead at that time. This is something people forget sometimes. You're always because of the Soviet Union as armed to the teeth. But in fact, the US had a massive lead in nuclear weapons. One used to see estimates of 17 to 1 in terms of number of nuclear warheads or 9 to 1, but a massive lead. It wasn't till the 1970s that the Soviets had anything like poverty with the US in terms of nuclear weapons. So he's concerned about that. Putting these medium and also intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba meant that he had more missiles that could strike American territory. Those missiles could not strike American territory from Soviet soil. So he's concerned about Kennedy's aggression towards Cuba. He's concerned about the huge nuclear lead that the US has. The operation is carried out. There's Russian operation to deploy nuclear missiles, conventional weapons, troops in Cuba. He's carried out in the summer and early autumn of 1962. It is called Operation Anadea. It was a highly secret operation. So Anadea is a river that runs in the north of the Soviet Union. Some of the Soviet military personnel who were on the ships that sent the missiles to Cuba were given skis and parkers. So they thought they were going to an arctic location. And even the commanders of the ships that were sent with these nuclear missiles, and other things, didn't know they were going to Cuba. They were told to head out to sea. They were just given coordinates to sea. And when they got there, they were then open in envelope, which would tell them the final destination of Cuba. So it was highly secret. And it crushed off. This was an important part of the Soviet thinking. He decided not to tell Kennedy that he was putting missiles in Cuba. Now the US had put missiles in Turkey, and that was public knowledge. This was publicly announced. So one of the things that Kennedy felt during the Cuban missile crisis and his advisers, was that this is all a board, but board, this is basically kind of benign. Why did crushed off do it in a clandestine fashion? And I suppose the answer to that is crushed off was concerned that if he announced it before the missile deployment was completed, Cuba, then Kennedy could take some sort of preemptive actions. That was another important decision crushed off made to keep the operation secret. And the autumn crushed off denied that he was doing this, but of course in October 1962, US intelligence discovers that there are missiles in Cuba. One can and should criticize crushed off when deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba. It was risky, dangerous, and I've argued this before. He didn't need to do it. If he wanted to prevent a US attack on Cuba, just deploy Russian troops, that's going to be enough to deter a US attack, because Kennedy would know that if he invades Cuba, that means fighting Russian troops, that means World War III. So he could have crushed, I could have deterred a US attack without sending nuclear missiles to Cuba. If he wanted to close the nuclear gap, why not just accelerate the development of intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles on Soviet soil? That's exactly what the Soviets did later in the 1960s anyway. So he could have achieved his policy objectives without sending nuclear missiles to Cuba and without risking World War III. So I think that one should be very critical of crushed off decision to put nuclear missiles in Cuba, even if it is partially understandable given the nuclear lead the US had and Kennedy's aggression towards Castro. However, I think during the missile crisis one has to give him credit for key decisions he made there. Respecting the blockade, not sending his ships through the blockade line with more nuclear missiles, that was important. In the second week of the Cuban missile crisis, the key issue was who would be the first one to actually offer a deal. So if you look at the letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev from the 22nd to the 25th of October during the early days of the second week of the Cuban missile crisis, they're all the same. They basically say you're responsible for this. Kennedy says you're responsible for this putting missiles in Cuba. You need to back down. And then Khrushchev saying you're responsible for this. A blockade is illegal. It's an act of war. So the key question was who would actually, who would be the first one to offer a settlement and its crush job in the letter he sends on the evening of the 26th where he offers this deal. If you Kennedy, John Kennedy promised not to invade Cuba, we'll remove the missiles. So that was a key contribution. The other key contribution Khrushchev made was so the deal, as it ended up, was the US would promise not to invade Cuba. That would be publicly known and would also agree to remove US Jupiter missiles on Turkey. But that would be private. That would be a secret component of the other crisis. And Khrushchev could easily have come back and said, well, that has to be public knowledge. But he accepted that. So Khrushchev, you have to blame him at least in part to a significant, even major extent for causing the crisis. But you have to give him a lot of credit for the contribution he made to a peaceful settlement of the crisis. And actually, coming on from that, we had Kat Kiryokona on Twitter who wrote in to say, why did Khrushchev allow Kennedy to look like he'd had the big victory, EG, as you said, the US missiles removed from Turkey secretly. And then what role did the crisis play in Khrushchev's later removed from office? So with the first of those two questions, I think you have to give Khrushchev credit for this. I think it's a good question. I think the reason he accepted this settlement, which did in a sense portray Kennedy as a winner and him as a loser, was because of his genuine fear that this was spiraling out of control. And that World War Three was possible. The letter that he sends to Kennedy on the 26th of October, in which he offers a settlement, you promise not to invade Cuba, we'll take the missiles out. It is an extraordinary letter if you read it. It is so unlike normal diplomatic correspondence, which tends to be formal. It tends to be vetted. Several people would have been involved in writing it. If you read that letter on the 26th, it's very personal. It's very emotional. He talks about how he had lived through several wars and he knew that war only ended after it had sown death and destruction. So I think you have to say that he accepted that settlement because he was genuinely concerned that the crisis was spiraling out of control and that war was a possibility. In terms of Khrushchev's removal from power two years later in the autumn of 1964 by a cabal of Russian officials that included Leonid Brezhnev, from the evidence we have, my understanding is that it was a factor that the Cuban missile crisis was regarded as a humiliation for the Soviet Union that it damaged Russia's image on the international stage that it was an example of Khrushchev's erratic leadership. But it wasn't the only factor. There were others too. There was simply the political ambition of his rivals, including Brezhnev, who ousted him the polar state of Soviet agriculture, also a factor. The fact that Soviet relations had deteriorated so badly with Communist China, because one of the major developments on the world stage in the 1960s is the Sino-Soviet split that the two leading Communist powers become enemies really. So there's a range of factors which influence that decision, but definitely the Cuban missile crisis was one of them. And then looking beyond the two superpowers, we had a couple of questions about how this played out in other countries. Firstly we had Dad Am's guitar and stuff on Instagram who wanted to know how other countries around the world responded to it. And then also we had John Gilx on Instagram who asked specifically about Britain's reaction to the crisis. So in terms of Britain's reaction to the crisis, the British Prime Minister was Howard McMillan. Conservative Prime Minister, he had good personal relations with John Kennedy. John Kennedy was an Anglo-File. He had spent time in a lot of time in London in the late 1930s, when he was in his early 20s, because his father Joseph P. Kennedy, who was a self-made very rich businessman, one of the 10 richest Americans, had been appointed as the US ambassador to Britain by Franklin Roosevelt. So in the late 1930s, and JFK's father had aspirations for the US presidency. He wanted to be president himself, but his time as ambassador was a disaster because he supported appeasement. But the point is that John Kennedy himself spent a lot of time in Britain. He wrote his undergraduate thesis at Harvard on British foreign policy, on the British appeasement of Nazi Germany. That was published as a book in 1940, when he was only 23 years old, as why England slept. And John Kennedy met a lot of people in Britain, in London, and the kind of political class, the upper class. And so he had a natural affinity for empathy for Britain. And he got on well with Harold McMillan. Now, although that may have been the case, that was the case, John Kennedy basically did what he wanted to join the Cuban Missile Crisis. He informed allies. He consulted with them. But in terms of the core decisions, he was going to make them himself. So in terms of Britain, he informed the British government. I think it was just shortly before that speech on the 22nd of October, when he told the American people and the world that there were nuclear missiles in Cuba, and he would be responding with the naval blockade. Shortly before that, he informed the British government. The British government was also provided with photographic evidence to prove that the nuclear missiles were there. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the main thing that happened was talking by phone. McMillan and Kennedy talked by phone. Several times during the Cuban Missile Crisis, McMillan was supportive. He urged John Kennedy to be cautious, not to be gung ho, which was John Kennedy's mindset anyway. There was one striking offer, offer, really, made by McMillan during their Missile Crisis dialogue. When he said to Kennedy, you know, if it really seems like the crisis is going to spiral out of control, you could offer to dismantle the nuclear missiles that are in Britain, the Thor missiles that are in Britain. If that's going to compile a question after back down and to remove the missiles from Cuba and to end the crisis, John Kennedy wasn't interested in doing that. That shows McMillan's concern that maybe events would spiral out of control, so McMillan made that offer. An interesting point about the British dimension to all of this, in terms of popular culture and society, this might seem tangential, but it does relate, is John, I mean, John Kennedy had this reputation in the White House as being a sort of intellectual, very cultured man, a sophisticated man. He's very intelligent, educated, but that really wasn't him. It was his wife who was very cultured and sophisticated. In fact, John Kennedy's favorite literature, his favorite novels were the James Bond stories. He loved the James Bond stories, and he met Ian Fleming. During the 1960 campaign, he was in Washington, and the author of the James Bond stories, Ian Fleming, was in a car driving down a street with someone who knew Kennedy in the car stopped, and that's when Kenley was introduced to Ian Fleming. Fleming was invited to dinner that night, so it's an extraordinary event or episode during the 1960 presidential campaign, where you have a presidential candidate, John Kennedy, talking to the author of James Bond, and soliciting his advice on how to handle Castro. He says to Fleming, "How would you handle Castro? How would you get rid of him?" And Fleming comes out with all of these extraordinary stories or policy suggestions, like right out of a James Bond novel or film, as to how to get rid of Castro. Two months into his presidency, Kennedy is asked by a magazine to name his top ten favorite books. One of them is a James Bond book. And actually, at that point, the sales of James Bond books skyrocket. I mean, Fleming should have paid Kennedy royalties. I mean, part of the extraordinary popularity of James Bond is due to Kennedy's endorsement of them. What's interesting is, of course, it turns into a film franchise. What's the first film? Dr. No, with Sean Connery and Ursula Andress. And what does Dr. No about? It's about a Cold War crisis in the Caribbean with a sort of death spot, Dr. No, who is building sort of rockets. That film comes out in October 1962 in Britain. That is when the first James Bond film was released. So, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there's extraordinary crisis in the Caribbean. You have it happening in real time, politically. You also have British people going into the cinemas and watching the film, Dr. No, about this nuclear crisis, Cold War crisis in the Caribbean. And people talk about the connection between Kennedy and Bond. That Kennedy was a big fan and he know that would watch the film. So, that was the British angle. In terms of the rest of the international community, it tended to fall along the lines of the Cold War. So, obviously, so we'd allies be supportive of the Soviet Union. Western powers would be supportive of the United States. Still to come on the history extra podcast. It seems incredible. But that is what Castro said to Kluschev. If Kennedy invades, you must start a nuclear war. Now, we may be touched on some of this already, but another popular search query is, what were the consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis? They were ambiguous, but on the whole positive. So, in terms of the positive, I do think that the Cuban Missile Crisis changes Kennedy and possibly Kluschev as well. It does leave them with a deep-seated fear of nuclear war. Richard Goodwin, who was an advisor to JFK, says that a little while after the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was speaking to John Kennedy, and Kennedy said to Goodwin, "It's crazy that myself and one of the guys in the rest of the world have the capacity to destroy the whole of Western civilization. It definitely deepens his concerns about the dangers of the nuclear age, the Cold War, spiraling out of control. And if you look at Kennedy's foreign policy in general, and if you actually, if you look at his views on foreign policy before his presidency, they are pretty hard-line. The key element in his foreign policy ideology throughout his political career, the 1960 presidential campaign, was the importance of high levels of military spending. He thought that the 1930s, the failures of appeasement showed that you must be strong militarily. That's why he carries out a big military buildup when he becomes president, and also stand up, be tough, with aggressive totalitarian dictators. The 1930s had shown that he believed, and he now needed to also show a steelie resolve and dealing with the Soviets. And if you look at the early part of his presidency, what do you have? Big military buildup, you have a concerted effort to get rid of Fidel Castro. You have Escalation and Vietnam. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, he becomes determined to reduce Cold War tensions. And Krushchev is sympathetic to that point of view. So what do you have in 1963? You have the establishment of a hot line between the Kremlin and the White House facilitating immediate communication between the two during any sort of crisis, because you hadn't had that during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They'd corresponded by letter essentially, written messages. This would allow immediate communication. You also have on the 10th of June 1963, this extraordinary speech given by John Kennedy at American University in Washington, DC is one of the most remarkable speeches of the Cold War. Krushchev described it as the greatest speech by an American president since the days of Franklin Roosevelt in this speech, this president who had harbored hard line views on the Cold War early in his presidency. In this American University speech, he urges the American people to change the attitude towards the Cold War, towards the Soviet Union, and towards the Russian people. And he said, you know, no political system can be regarded as so iniquitous, so evil, that its people must be seen as lacking in virtue. And he commended the Russians for the Russian people for their contribution to victory in World War II, and also their achievements in the realms of science and space. And he urged the American people to change their attitude. And this paved the way for the nuclear test band treaty of 1963, which limited nuclear testing. It was the first such agreement in the history of the Cold War. One of the ways in which I like to think of the Kennedy presidency is in terms of change. The presidency constitutes a sort of political education for Kennedy. I mean, we're all affected by what happens to us in our lives. I think it's reasonable to assume presidents are the same, or they should be, that they should take on board the experiences they have. And I think the Cuban Missile Crisis changes Kennedy, and it intensifies, amplifies his fear, that there might be a Third World War and nuclear war, and hence you have the American University speech, the test band treaty. And, you know, by the autumn of 1963, just shortly before the assassination, he's talking about other areas of collaboration with the Soviets, maybe on increased trade, maybe a collaborative moon project. He talks about that. So the Cuban Missile Crisis serves to reduce Cold War tensions. But there's one other point that needs to be made, which is at the same time, the consensus that developed in the Soviet leadership in the mid-1960s was that they must never suffer humiliation like this again. And the feeling was that this humiliation was due to US strategic advantage. The fact that the US had a huge lead in nuclear weapons was why the US prevailed in the Cuban Missile Crisis. So what you also have is the Soviet Union embarking on a huge ministry buildup in the mid-1960s. So that by the 1970s, for the first time in the Cold War, the Soviets do roughly speaking how poverty with the US in nuclear war, so in nuclear weapons. So it would reduce its Cold War tensions, the Missile Crisis, in effect during the final year of John Kennedy's life. But in the long term, it also accelerates the arms race. So the legacy of the Cuban Missile Crisis is ambiguous. And what did it mean for the island of Cuba itself and Castro's regime? It is interesting to consider the Cuban dimension. Again, that's a really good question because people, even that's called the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was generally portrayed as a Soviet American event. And the focus was on Moscow and Washington. But in the 1990s, scholars began to argue, well, no, no, you've got to think of it as triangular, a Soviet dimension, an American dimension, and a Cuban dimension. And I think indeed that is a sound point of view. Most of the core decisions, key decisions are made in Washington and Moscow. But Castro is a really important play in all of this. Firstly, the Cuban Missile Crisis could never have happened unless Castro had agreed to accept Soviet missiles in Cuba. It was not a case of crushed off deciding to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba. And then just telling Castro, he had to ask Castro's permission. And Castro could have said no. And Castro has given different explanation as to why he accepted the missiles. But I think the most plausible is that he accepted the missiles in order to deter a US invasion. He thought it would bolster his regime, increase the regime's security by preventing a US attack. So that was a key decision he made. There's one other moment in this whole story when he's, I mean, there are others as well, but there's one particularly comes to mind when he's very important, which is right at the height of the crisis. Seems to be the early hours of the 27th of October that he writes this extraordinary letter. And I can remember when this was released, which was joined the 1990s, and people were staggered when they found out what Castro had written in this letter to crush the height of the Cuban missile crisis. What Castro said in this letter was that he thought US military action against Cuba was now imminent. This is towards the end of the second week of the crisis. He said to "Well, it might well be an air strike, a US air strike, but it's possible it could be a US invasion, a direct US invasion of the island." Now, if it is a US invasion of the island, I want you to respond by carrying out a nuclear attack. It seems incredible, but that is what Castro said to Crestroff. I think the general assumption is that this increased Crestroff's sense that the crisis was spiraling out of control, and that he better bring about a peaceful settlement to the crisis quickly. As for the ending of the crisis, Castro was furious. He was absolutely enraged. We have an account of this. He basically felt that he had been betrayed by Crestroff. That Crestroff had been weak. He basically saw it as humiliation. In terms of how the Cuban leadership responded to how Castro responded, it was with unrestrained, fury, rage, and a sense of humiliation. Just in a practical sense, Crestroff did think, I mean, the early part of his government, he was concerned that the US was going to overthrow him, and his rule of Cuba would prove to be a femoral, a short-lived. Once the missiles were deployed, that increased Crestroff's sense that his regime was secure, so the removal of the nuclear missiles I think increased his sense of vulnerability. A popular internet search question was who, if anyone, won the Cuban missile crisis? The general perception at the time was that the US had won the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy's public approval ratings in the US went sky high. After the Cuban missile crisis, the perception was that he'd handled it very well. He always did have very high approval ratings, exceptionally high if you compare them to other modern presidents. It's actually a complicated issue. For example, you could argue it the other way. The whole basis of Kennedy's policy towards Cuba before the missile crisis was to overthrow Crestroff. That was, I mean, even after the Bay of Pigs invasion, there's a National Security Council meeting on the 5th of May, 1961, where John Kennedy is setting out his aims in terms of policy towards Cuba for the future, and he defines the removal of Crestro as the central objective. Then he tries to carry that out with Operation Mongoose, this top secret CIA operation to overthrow Crestro, one thing that's also worth noting, an extraordinary part of the story is I'm just moving ahead here, but I'll come back to the main point. In 1975, the US Senate carried out an investigation, a committee in the US Senate carried out an investigation into alleged assassination attempts by the CIA against various foreign leaders, including Crestro. What that investigation established was that at least eight assassination plots had been devised by the CIA to kill Crestro, many of them during the Kennedy years. Now, we're not certain, absolutely certain, that presidents, including Kennedy, knew about them, or was it the CIA doing on its own initiative? And this is because of a practice known as plausible deniability. If a president was briefed about an assassination attempt, this was never written down, so that the president's knowledge was plausibly deniable. But without going into the detail of it, I think the evidence strongly suggests that Kennedy knew about the assassination attempts against Crestro and approved of them. He saw them as a way of achieving his policy objective. So the fundamental objective of Kennedy's policy towards Crestro was to get rid of him. So at the end of the Cuban missile crisis, when Kennedy promises never to invade Cuba in the future, you can see that as the Soviets achieving their basic objective, which was to secure the Crestro regime to make sure that Crestro stayed in power and compelling Kennedy to jettison to give up on his basic policy, which was trying to overthrow Crestro. So you can portray it as at least to some extent a success for the Soviet Union. And also the removal of missiles from Turkey, the removal of US-Juby to missiles from Turkey, you can see that as a equivalent to the Soviets removing their missiles from Cuba. So you can interpret it in that way. However, Crestro had wanted to put nuclear missiles in Cuba. He did install nuclear missiles in Cuba. And the pressure from the US blockade and also the threat of further US military action forced crushed off the back down. That was humiliating and that was perceived as a success, as a major success for Kennedy as president. And I think that's basically a sound view. That was Mark White. His book "Missiles in Cuba" is available now from many bookshops. If you find today's podcast interesting, then please do drop us a line with ideas of topics or historians you'd like us to include in this series. You can do that on our social media channels at History Extra. That's it for today. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Ben Euit and Jack Bateman. Join us tomorrow when Shish Mammalik will be talking about the Roman Emperor Nero.