Part 23 (2/2)

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1961.

In the ten days that followed, the president was occupied by little else apart from Berlin and its related nuclear questions, his hopes for negotiations with Moscow, and his growing difficulties with his own allies.

The Was.h.i.+ngton Post reported on efforts to end racial discrimination in Maryland restaurants. A story on the front page of the New York Times reported that Supreme Court justices were hearing arguments related to antidiscrimination sit-ins in the South. Police were enforcing carefully laid school desegregation plans while white-robed-and-hooded Ku Klux Klansmen protested.

However, the president was preoccupied by thoughts of war and how he would conduct it. His concerns were infecting the American public. Time magazine ran on its cover a color portrait of Virgil Couch, head of the Office for Civil Defense. A banner headline announced: [NUCLEAR] SHELTERS: HOW SOONa”HOW BIGa”HOW SAFE? Couch advised Americans that planning for nuclear attack should be as normal as getting smallpox vaccinations.

With Khrushchevas fifty-megaton announcement from three days earlier still reverberating, the president called together his top national security team to put the final touches on military instructions for NATO. It would not be an easy meeting.

His Joint Chiefs were engaged in verbal combat over Kennedyas planned conventional military buildup in Europe and its potential impact on the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Already, Franceas de Gaulle and Germanyas Adenauer were arguing that Kennedy was too eager to negotiate West Berlinas future with Khrushchev while doing too little to convince Khrushchev that the president would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend the city.

It seemed that only Macmillan agreed with Kennedyas heightened desire for talks with Moscow. Having been so at odds with Kennedyas hawkish approach toward the Soviets the previous spring, the prime minister saw with satisfaction that Kennedy was now embracing the more conciliatory British position toward Moscow. He was encouraged as he watched Kennedy grow increasingly afed upa with both de Gaulle and Adenauer.

With the Allies deeply at odds over how to handle Berlin strategy, Kennedy made his move to settle differences. At the table for the 10:00 a.m. meeting in the Cabinet Room were the presidentas brother Bobby, Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and Lemnitzer. Beside him was Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, who had taken the Pentagon lead on Russian nuclear threat issues. The other major players on Berlin policy were also there: Nitze; Berlin Task Force chief Foy Kohler; the State Departmentas leading German hand, Martin Hillenbrand; anda”so often during crucial moments of the Berlin Crisisa”the outside agitator, Dean Acheson.

Lemnitzer opened the meeting by reporting to the president on the asignificant disagreementa within the Joint Chiefs about the necessity for a rapid military buildup. Air Force chief General Curtis LeMay and the Navyas Admiral George Whelan Anderson Jr. shared General Norstadas view that no large-scale conventional buildup was required in athe immediate future.a But Lemnitzer and General George Decker, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, agreed with McNamara that such a buildup was required right away.

Rusk laid out Norstadas logic that a Berlin dispute would escalate so rapidly to nuclear war that a conventional buildup would be irrelevant. Beyond that, said Rusk, Norstad feared that the conventional buildup could adegrade both the credibility and capability of nuclear forces.a In representing this view, Norstad had joined ranks with both the French and Germans against the president.

As so often happened at complex times related to Berlin, Kennedy sought Achesonas opinion. The memo summing up the meeting, drafted by Bundy, said with a tone of derision: aFrom that point on the meeting was dominated by Mr. Achesonas arguments.a Bundy put it more graciously later: aAs usual, Mr. Acheson was the belle of the ball.a Acheson had no patience for Allied sensitivities. He said U.S. officials at a moment of great national urgency were spending too much time getting agreement from the French, British, West Germans, and others, when it was the U.S. that would have to shoulder the burden. Acheson argued that the U.S. needed to move new divisions to Europe by November, irrespective of what the Allies might think or say.

Acheson believed the presidentas demonstration of intent by sending conventional forces to Europe would help adiplomatically and politically.a He disagreed that nuclear logic diminished the need for American conventional action. Serious military movement by the U.S. is aan ominous thing,a he said, that conveyed athe serious purpose of the American government.a Kennedy said he worried about athe gold drain,a meaning the cost of such a move. McNamara and Gilpatric a.s.sured him that further negotiations with Allies could help spread or defray the costs.

A few hours after the meeting, Bundy would send a top-secret presidential letter to Norstad to which he attached the so-called Pony Blanket. t.i.tled aU.S. Policy on Military Actions in a Berlin Conflict,a it would be approved by the president three days later as National Security Action Memorandum No. 109. Organized under four Roman-numeral stages, it laid out the graduated steps to be taken if the Soviets cut off access to Berlin.

Stage I: If the Soviets and East Germans interfered with West Berlin access but didnat block it entirely, the plan prescribed U.S., French, and British probes up the Autobahn of a platoon or less on the ground and a fighter escort in the air. The doc.u.ment noted that such a response was sufficiently limited to avoid any risk of war.

Stage II: If the Soviets persisted in blocking access despite Allied actions, the West would escalate and NATO would begin supportive noncombatant activities such as economic embargoes, maritime hara.s.sment, and UN protests. The Allies would reinforce their troops and mobilize to prepare for further escalation. The doc.u.ment warned that without further buildup, Allied options would be limited and could create delays that could weaken nuclear credibility, threaten West Berlinas viability, and erode Alliance resolve.

Stage III: The West would escalate further against a continued communist blockade of West Berlin. That would include expanding ground operations on East German territory by such measures as sending three armored divisions up the Autobahn to West Berlin and establis.h.i.+ng local air superiority through strikes on non-Soviet airfields. aMilitary overpowering of determined Soviet resistance is not feasible,a the report conceded, then added, aThe risks rise, as do the military pressures on the Soviets.a Most controversially, Kennedy was calling at this point for global actions against Soviet interests. That would include exploiting U.S. naval superiority as part of a maritime blockade, which would further delay the moment of nuclear truth while diplomats bargained.

That brought the report to the most ominous Stage IV: Only if the Soviets still did not respond to substantial use of Allied conventional weapons would Kennedy escalate to nuclear war. He would then have the choice of one or all of the following: selective strikes to demonstrate the will to use nuclear weapons; limited use of nuclear weapons to achieve tactical advantage; and, finally, general war.

With considerable understatement, the paper warned, aThe Allies only partially control the timing and scale of nuclear weapons use. Such use might be initiated by the Soviets, at any time after the opening of small-scale hostilities. Allied initiation of limited nuclear action may elicit a reply in kind; it may also prompt unrestrained preemptive attack.a It was a sobering doc.u.ment. Ten months into his presidency, Kennedy had laid out the military sequence that could result in nuclear war over Berlin.

In his accompanying letter to General Norstad, Kennedy wrote, aThis requires vigor in preparation, readiness for action, and caution against going off half-c.o.c.ked.a He said all contingencies required rapid additions to his forces and deployment to the central front. He told Norstad that if the Soviets deployed sufficient forces to defeat the West, then the response, for which he would receive specific directions, would be nuclear.

Kennedy argued to a skeptical Norstada”and by a.s.sociation, the French and Germansa”that building up Allied conventional forces would not contradict the message he wished to send the Soviets that he was ready to go to nuclear war if necessary. aIt seems evident to me,a Kennedy wrote Norstad, athat our nuclear deterrent will not be credible to the Soviets unless they are convinced of NATOas readiness to become engaged on a lesser level of violence and are thereby made to realize the great risks of escalation to nuclear war.a A flurry of diplomatic activitya”memos, phone calls, meetingsa”accompanied Kennedyas preparations for war. As so often at times of high stress, the president asked a wide group of experts to weigh in. Kennedy had asked them to be frank, and his trusted amba.s.sador to the United Kingdom, David Brucea”a former amba.s.sador to Germanya”did not hold back.

Bruce said that through Kennedyas acceptance of the Wall without any military response, the president had made the U.S. presence in Berlin more vulnerable and had eroded West Berlin and West German morale. The Soviets had always accepted the U.S. role in the city only because of the military impossibility of removing it.

Bruce warned the president that the Soviet objective wasnat West Berlin itself but rather possession over time of aWest Germany with its immense resources.a He worried as well about Kennedyas wavering on the American commitment to the long-term goal of German unification. Bruce told Kennedy that it was those promises that had convinced Adenauer in 1953 to refuse athe tricky but tempting Soviet offer of reunification in favor of alliance with the NATO countries.a In other words, Bruce was saying, Kennedyas willingness to depart from this commitment invited a German response that Was.h.i.+ngton might not like.

Using a captivating turn of phrase, Bruce argued that the reality of Germanyas division was not sufficient reason to give it official recognition as a permanent matter: aFor no government in Western Germany could survive the open acceptance by its allies that what has at least until now been hope deferred is to be dismissed as forever hopelessa (italics added). Bruce was blunt: Kennedy had to face the historic burden of the problems he had helped to create. aWe are close, I suppose, to the moment of decision,a he wrote. aI would consider it essential that we take, and make credible, the decision to engage if necessary in nuclear war rather than lose West Berlin, and consequently, West Germany.a HOT SPRINGS, VIRGINIA.

SAt.u.r.dAY, OCTOBER 21, 1961.

Kennedy sensed that time was short.

Worried that Khrushchev might take military action soon, the president opted to launch a preemptive nuclear strike of a different sort that would reach Khrushchev as a humiliating blow at his October Party Congress.

Kennedy decided to make public previously secret details about the size, power, and superiority of the U.S. nuclear a.r.s.enal. Kennedyas satellite intelligence was making increasingly clear the extent of American nuclear dominance, but he reckoned Khrushchev lacked similar intelligence on U.S. capabilities.

President Eisenhower had never revealed what he knew about Soviet military inferiority because he did not want to accelerate Soviet efforts to arm up. It was lack of that intelligence that led Kennedy to falsely charge that Eisenhower had allowed a amissile gapa to form in Moscowas favor. Ironically, Kennedy now argued that showing Americaas hand was necessary to keep America safe. Not coincidentally, it was also smart politics.

Kennedy feared that he was looking weak to Moscow, the Allies, and Americans, when in truth he was strong enough to defeat Moscow or any other country in any military conflict. The president thought it would be too belligerent for him to send that message personally, so he picked for the job the number-two official at the Defense Department, Roswell Gilpatric, who was already scheduled to speak on October 21 to the Business Council in Hot Springs, Virginia.

It was an unlikely audience for such a significant moment, but the spokesman Kennedy had chosen was ideal. Gilpatric had become a personal friend of Jacqueline Kennedy, who called him athe second most attractive mana at the Pentagon, after McNamara. Kennedy liked and trusted the smooth, Yale-educated Wall Street lawyer. A young Pentagon strategist named Daniel Ellsberg drafted the speech, but the president himself collaborated on it with Bundy, Rusk, and McNamara.

Knowing nothing of the Bolshakov back channel or the exchange of private letters with Khrushchev, Ellsberg asked Kaysen whether it wouldnat be more effective for Kennedy to send a more private message to the Soviet leader about U.S. superiority? Why all the noise? Couldnat Kennedy just send him the precise coordinates of Soviet ICBMs and perhaps enclose copies of satellite photos?

However, that overlooked Kennedyas desire for a highly public response to rea.s.sure his domestic and West European audiences. White House spokesmen invited top national reporters to Hot Springs and briefed them beforehand so that the speechas importance wouldnat be missed. aBerlin is the emergency of the moment because the Soviets have chosen to make it so,a Gilpatric said.

We have responded immediately with our Western Allies by reinforcing our garrisons in that beleaguered city. We have called up some 150,000 reservists, increased our draft calls and extended the service of many who are in uniforma.

But our real strength in Berlina”and at any other point in the perimeter of the free worldas defenses that might tempt the Communist probesa”is much more broadly based. Our confidence in our ability to deter Communist action, or resist Communist blackmail, is based upon a sober appreciation of the relative military power of the two sides. The fact is that this nation has a nuclear retaliatory force of such lethal power that any enemy move which brought it into play would be an act of self-destruction on his part.

Gilpatric then provided previously undisclosed details on hundreds of intercontinental bombers, including some six hundred heavy bombers, which could devastate the Soviet Union with the help of highly developed refueling techniques. He spoke of land-based and carrier-based strike forces that acould deliver additional hundreds of megatons.a Gilpatric said the U.S. had tens of thousands of tactical and strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, with more than one warhead for each of them.

aOur forces are so deployed and protected that a sneak attack could not effectively disarm us,a he said. Even after enduring a surprise attack, Gilpatric said that U.S. destructive power would be far greater than any enemy could muster, and that Americaas retaliatory force would survive better than that of the Soviets because of its concealment, its mobility, and its hardened targets.

aThe Sovietsa bl.u.s.ter and threats of rocket attacks against the free worlda”aimed particularly at the European members of the NATO alliancea”must be evaluated against the hard facts of United States nuclear superiority,a said Gilpatric. aThe United States does not seek to resolve disputes by violence. But if forceful interference with our rights and obligations should lead to violent conflicta”as it well mighta”the United States does not intend to be defeateda (italics added).

Finally, Kennedy had called Khrushchevas bluff.

PALACE OF CONGRESSES, MOSCOW.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1961.

Given the drumbeat in Hot Springs, Virginia, Khrushchev, back in Moscow, began to worry that a Berlin conflict was coming.

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