The major ordered a combat alert, and Soviet troops began to move missiles from transporters to launchers, and to attach the cables. They did it with calm efficiency, and Tania guessed they had practised many times.
A captain was plotting the course of the U-2 on a map. Cuba was long and thin, 777 miles from east to west, but only 50 to 100 miles from north to south. Tania saw that the spy plane was already fifty miles inside Cuba. ‘How fast do they fly?’ she asked.
Ivanov answered: ‘Five hundred miles an hour.’
‘How high?’
‘Seventy thousand feet, roughly double the altitude of a regular jet airline flight.’
‘Can we really hit a target that far away and moving so fast?’
‘We don’t need a direct hit. The missile has a proximity fuse. It explodes when it gets close.’
‘I know we’re targeting this plane,’ she said. ‘But please tell me we’re not actually going to fire at it.’
‘The major is calling for instructions.’
‘But the Americans might retaliate.’
‘Not my decision.’
The radar was tracking the intruder plane, and a lieutenant reading from a screen called out its height, speed and distance. Outside the command post, the Soviet artillerymen adjusted the aim of the launchers to follow Target No. 33. The U-2 crossed Cuba from north to south, then turned east, following the coast, coming closer to Banes. Outside, the missile launchers turned slowly on their pivoting bases, tracking the target like wolves sniffing the air. Tania said to Paz: ‘What if they fire by accident?’
That was not what he was thinking about. ‘It’s taking pictures of our positions!’ he said. ‘Those photographs will be used to guide their army when they invade – which could be in a few hours’ time.’
‘The invasion is much more likely to happen if you kill an American pilot!’
The major had the phone to his ear while he watched the fire-control radar. He looked up at Ivanov and said: ‘They’re checking with Pliyev.’ Tania knew that Pliyev was the Soviet commander-in-chief in Cuba. But surely Pliyev would not shoot down an American plane without authorization from Moscow?
The U-2 reached the southernmost tip of Cuba and turned, following the north coast. Banes was near the coast. The U-2’s course would bring it directly overhead. But at any instant it could turn north – and then, travelling at about a mile a second, it could quickly be out of range.
‘Shoot it down!’ said Paz. ‘Now!’
Everyone ignored him.
The plane turned north. It was almost directly above the battery, though thirteen miles high.
Just a few more seconds, please, Tania thought, praying to she knew not what god.
Tania, Paz and Ivanov stared at the major, who stared at the screen. The room was silent but for the beeping of the radar.
Then the major said: ‘Yes, sir.’
What was it – reprieve or doom?
Without putting down the phone, he spoke to the men in the room. ‘Destroy Target Number thirty-three. Fire two missiles.’
‘No!’ said Tania.
There was a roar of sound. Tania looked through the window. A missile rose from its launcher and was gone in a blink. Another followed seconds later. Tania put her hand to her mouth, feeling she might vomit in fear.
They would take about a minute to reach an altitude of thirteen miles.
Something might go wrong, Tania thought. The missiles could malfunction, veer off course and land harmlessly in the sea.
On the radar screen, two small dots approached a larger one.
Tania prayed they would miss.
They went fast, then all three dots merged.
Paz let out a yell of triumph.
Then a scatter of smaller dots sprayed across the screen.
Speaking into the phone, the major said: ‘Target Number thirty-three is destroyed.’
Tania looked out of the window, as if she might see the U-2 crashing to earth.
The major raised his voice. ‘It’s a kill. Well done, everyone.’
Tania said: ‘And what will President Kennedy do to us now?’
* * *
George was full of hope on Saturday afternoon. Khrushchev’s messages were inconsistent and confusing, but the Soviet leader seemed to be seeking a way out of the crisis. And President Kennedy certainly did not want war. Given goodwill on both sides, it seemed inconceivable that they would fail.
On his way to the Cabinet Room, George stopped by the press office and found Maria at her desk. She was wearing a smart grey dress, but she had on a bright pink headband, as if to announce to the world that she was well and happy. George decided not to ask how she was: clearly she did not want to be treated as an invalid. ‘Are you busy?’ he said.
‘We’re waiting for the President’s reply to Khrushchev,’ she said. ‘The Soviet offer was made publicly, so we’re assuming the American response will be released to the press.’
‘That’s the meeting I’m going to with Bobby,’ George said. ‘To draft the response.’
‘Swapping missiles in Cuba for missiles in Turkey seems like a reasonable proposal,’ she said. ‘Especially as it may save all our lives.’
‘Praise be.’
‘Your mom says that.’
He laughed and moved on. In the Cabinet Room, advisors and their aides were gathering for the four o’clock meeting of ExComm. Among a knot of military aides by the door, Larry Mawhinney was saying: ‘We have to stop them giving Turkey to the Communists!’
George groaned. The military saw everything as a fight to the death. In truth, nobody was going to give Turkey away. The proposal was to scrap some missiles that were obsolete anyway. Was the Pentagon really going to oppose a peace deal? He could hardly believe it.
President Kennedy came in and took his usual place, in the middle of the long table with the windows behind him. They all had copies of a draft response put together earlier. It said that the US could not discuss missiles in Turkey until the Cuba crisis had been resolved. The President did not like the wording of this reply to Khrushchev. ‘We’re rejecting his message,’ he complained. ‘He’ was always Khrushchev: Kennedy saw this as a personal conflict. ‘This is not going to be successful. He’s going to announce that we’ve rejected his proposal. Our position ought to be that we’re
glad
to discuss this matter – once we get a positive indication that they have ceased their work in Cuba.’
Someone said: ‘That really injects Turkey as a quid pro quo.’
National Security Advisor Mac Bundy chimed in: ‘That’s my worry.’ Bundy, whose hair was receding although he was only forty-three, came from a Republican family and tended to be hard line. ‘If we sound, to NATO and other allies, as if we want to make this trade, then we’re in real trouble.’
George was disheartened: Bundy was lining up with the Pentagon, against a deal.
Bundy went on: ‘If we appear to be trading the defence of Turkey for a threat to Cuba, we’ll just have to face a radical decline in the effectiveness of the alliance.’
That was the problem, George realized. The Jupiter missiles might be obsolete, but they symbolized American determination to resist the spread of Communism.
The President was not convinced by Bundy. ‘The situation is moving there, Mac.’
Bundy persisted. ‘The justification for this message is that we expect it to be turned down.’
Really?
thought George. He was pretty sure President Kennedy and his brother did not see it that way.
‘We expect to be acting against Cuba tomorrow or the next day,’ Bundy went on. ‘What’s our military plan?’
This was not how George had thought the meeting would go. They should be talking about peace, not war.
Defense Secretary Bob McNamara, the whiz kid from Ford, answered the question. ‘A large air strike leading to invasion.’ Then he turned the argument back to Turkey. ‘To minimize the Soviet response against NATO following a US attack on Cuba, we get those Jupiters out of Turkey before the Cuban attack – and let the Soviets know. On that basis, I don’t believe the Soviets would strike Turkey.’
That was ironic, George thought: to protect Turkey, it was necessary to take away its nuclear weapons.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who George thought was one of the smarter men in the room, warned: ‘They might take some other action – in Berlin.’
George marvelled that the American President could not attack a Caribbean island without calculating the repercussions five thousand miles away in Eastern Europe. It showed how the entire planet was a chessboard for the two superpowers.
McNamara said: ‘I’m not prepared at this moment to recommend air attacks on Cuba. I’m just saying we must now begin to look at it more realistically.’
General Maxwell Taylor spoke. He had been in touch with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ‘The recommendation they give is that the big strike, Operations Plan Three One Two, be executed no later than Monday morning, unless there is irrefutable evidence in the meantime that offensive weapons are being dismantled.’
Sitting behind Taylor, Mawhinney and his friends looked pleased. Just like the military, George thought: they could hardly wait to go into battle, even though it might mean the end of the world. He prayed that the politicians in the room would not be guided by the soldiers.
Taylor continued: ‘And that the execution of this strike plan be followed by the execution of Three One Six, the invasion plan, seven days later.’
Bobby Kennedy said sarcastically: ‘Well, I’m surprised.’
There was loud laughter around the table. Everyone thought the military’s recommendations were absurdly predictable, it seemed. George felt relieved.
But the mood became grim again when McNamara, reading a note passed to him by an aide, suddenly said: ‘The U-2 was shot down.’
George gasped. He knew that a CIA spy plane had gone silent during a mission over Cuba, but everyone was hoping it had suffered a radio problem and was on its way home.
President Kennedy evidently had not been briefed about the missing plane. ‘A U-2 was shot down?’ he said, and there was fear in his voice.
George knew why the President was appalled. Until this moment, the superpowers had been nose to nose, but all they had done was threaten one another. Now the first shot had been fired. From this point on, it would be much more difficult to avoid war.
‘Wright just said it was found shot down,’ McNamara said. Colonel John Wright was with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Bobby said: ‘Was the pilot killed?’
As so often, he had asked the key question.
General Taylor said: ‘The pilot’s body is in the plane.’
President Kennedy said: ‘Did anyone see the pilot?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Taylor replied. ‘The wreckage is on the ground and the pilot’s dead.’
The room went quiet. This changed everything. An American was dead, shot down in Cuba by Soviet guns.
Taylor said: ‘That raises the question of retaliation.’
It certainly did. The American people would demand revenge. George felt the same. Suddenly he yearned for the President to launch the massive air attack that the Pentagon had demanded. In his mind he saw hundreds of bombers in close formation sweeping across the Florida Straits and dropping their deadly payload on Cuba like a hailstorm. He wanted every missile launcher blown up, all the Soviet troops slaughtered, Castro killed. If the entire Cuban nation suffered, so be it: that would teach them not to kill Americans.
The meeting had been going on for two hours, and the room was foggy with tobacco smoke. The President announced a break. It was a good idea, George thought. George himself certainly needed to calm down. If the others were feeling as bloodthirsty as he was, they were in no state to make rational decisions.
The more important reason for the break, George knew, was that President Kennedy had to take his medicine. Most people knew he had a bad back, but few understood that he fought a constant battle against a whole range of ailments including Addison’s disease and colitis. Twice a day the doctors shot him up with a cocktail of steroids and antibiotics to keep him functioning.
Bobby undertook to redraft the letter to Khrushchev, with the help of the President’s cheerful young speechwriter Ted Sorensen. The two of them went with their aides to the President’s study, a cramped room next to the Oval Office. George took a pen and yellow pad and wrote down everything Bobby told him to. With only two people discussing it, the draft was done quickly.
The key paragraphs were:
1. You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and undertake, with suitable safeguards, to halt the further introduction of such weapons systems into Cuba.
2. We, on our part, would agree – upon the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments – (a) to remove promptly the quarantine arrangements now in effect and (b) to give assurances against an invasion of Cuba and I am confident that other nations of the Western hemisphere would be prepared to do likewise.
The US was accepting Khrushchev’s first offer. But what about his second? Bobby and Sorensen agreed to say:
The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding ‘other armaments’ as proposed in your second letter.
It was not much, just a hint of a promise to discuss something, but it was probably the most that ExComm would allow.
George privately wondered how this could possibly be enough.
He gave his handwritten draft to one of the President’s secretaries and asked her to get it typed. A few minutes later, Bobby was summoned to the Oval Office where a smaller group was gathering: the President, Dean Rusk, Mac Bundy and two or three others, with their closest aides. Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was excluded: he was a smart political operator, in George’s opinion, but his rough Texas manners grated on the refined Boston Kennedy brothers.
The President wanted Bobby to carry the letter personally to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin. Bobby and Dobrynin had had several informal meetings in the last few days. They did not much like one another, but they were able to speak frankly, and had formed a useful back channel that bypassed the Washington bureaucracy. In a face-to-face meeting, perhaps Bobby could expand on the hint of a promise to discuss the missiles in Turkey – without getting prior approval from ExComm.