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By Lieutenant Commander Michael N. Pocalyko, U. S. Navy “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked,” said Dean Rusk. That Soviet “blink” ended a superpower standoff 25 years ago when the MRBM launch sites in Cuba, like the one in San Cristobal below, were dismantled. The U. S. Navy’s quarantine played a major role then to turn the Soviets around both in Cuba and with regard to their view of navies—formidable ships like the Frunze now project power for their fleet.
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Next month marks the silver anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the most carefully studied and analyzed incidents in international politics and warfare. Most of the lessons collectively drawn from the crisis have related to public policy, presidential prerogative, and governmental decisionmaking—not to the naval quarantine that was the principal military action employed. Now, it seems appropriate for the naval services to draw some other lessons from the incident. What have been its effects on this country’s conduct of crises since 1962? How has it shaped U. S. strategy and conduct of operational levels of war? The lessons of the crisis and the interpretations that political and military leaders have drawn from them explain the operations of the last 25 years—molded by the national experience during a tense 13 days in 1962.
Violence and Sovereignty: In many ways, the essence of the modern state can be understood in terms of its credibility in international affairs. In political crises, this credibility often translates into the currency of violence—how well a nation can impose military costs on political actions contemplated by adversaries. When medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) were placed in Cuba beginning in September 1962, the Soviet Union had, in a real sense, violated the external sovereign interests of the United States and its allies in the Americas. The defense of the United States was likewise external. The nation, and the vital interests of the nation and its allies were perceived to be at nuclear risk. Any U. S. military action had to be balanced against that risk.
The naval quarantine resulted. It was properly termed a “quarantine” because if the United States had called the action a “blockade,” it would have broached an important distinction—a blockade is technically an act of war. President John F. Kennedy stated that “all ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back.” “Offensive” weapons (MRBMs and bombers) were those which could strike the United States. “Defensive” weapons (surface-to-air missiles [SAMs]) were those which could not. Kennedy would not “blockade” Cuba from all external contact, “denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.” He was only interested in turning back offensive weapons, and would use the Navy to board and search vessels bound for Cuba to back up his public policy.
When the United States called the naval action a quarantine rather than a blockade, President Kennedy and his advisors essentially left the Soviet Union with the choice of whether or not to consider the U. S. naval action an act of war. An announced blockade would have been an irrevocable act, an aggressive action—one to which the Soviets would have to respond. The lesser action of a quarantine was something much more open to interpretation, even though the same naval operations were being done no matter what they were called. In diplomatic terms, what Kennedy called things made a difference. This latitude was not unlike the choice he made later on Friday, 26 October 1962, when two similar letters were received from the Soviets offering to remove the missiles—first a “soft” line, then a “hard” line. Kennedy publicly accepted the soft line, the Soviets’ offer to remove the missiles from Cuba in return for ending the quarantine and a promise not to invade Cuba. Privately, he acted on the hard line, removing U. S. missiles from Turkey as part o the solution.
Regardless of the action’s name, the first Navy lesson of the crisis is one of limitation. Although maritime force could be used under either condition, Navy ships and aircraft, essentially, were constrained by political circumstance and presidential desire to control the messages being sent to the Soviets. More importantly, President Kennedy used restraint on naval force judiciously, in h|S words, “to give our adversary room to move.” The paradigm of nations that unwittingly tumbled into World War was foremost in his mind, and Kennedy was resolved: 1 am not going to push the Russians an inch beyond what is necessary.”
Central Control: Presidents since Kennedy and congresses and civilian leaders in the Department of Defense have perceived a need for constraint on naval forces in crises—and certainly in the Vietnam War. The closer a crisis comes to tickling the Soviet nuclear trigger, the tighter Washington’s demands for central control become for field and fleet commanders.
The type of control necessary to execute a Cuban MtS' sile Crisis successfully has come to be understood since 1962 as a demand for central control of naval operations in all instances. As a result, less command decision authority and strategic prerogative is being given to detached commanders at the fleet level and below. The same requirements that drove the White House in 1962 to choose carefully which ships (non-Soviet ships at the outset, signaling intent) would be boarded and searched are today driving communication links from Washington to tactical commanders on board ships and aircraft, fine-tuning the rules of engagement when political crisis turns violent and naval force—or its threat—is used.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, every boarding decision was made by the President, and every devolution of authority was kept in Washington until the last possible moment. When, for example, Navy antisubmarine warfare forces tracked a Soviet submarine moving into posi' tion between two Russian-flag ships, the Gagarin and the Komiles, on Wednesday, 24 October 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara outlined the Navy recommendation: Signal the submarine by sonar to surface, and if it refuses, drop small explosive depth charges until n does. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy called these few minutes of decision “the time of gravest concern for the President.” The President asked McNamara, “Isn 1 there some way we can avoid having our first exchange with a Russian submarine—almost anything but that? No, McNamara replied: “There’s too much danger to our ships. There is no alternative. Our commanders have been instructed to avoid hostilities if at all possible, but this is what we must be prepared for, and this is what we must expect.” At this point, Robert Kennedy knew that the die
jKl been cast, that the President “had initiated the course events, but he no longer had control over them.” fortunately, the decision to attack the Soviet submarine never had to be made. The Office of Naval Intelligence sent word that six ships bound for Cuba had stopped at the §c of the quarantine zone or had turned back to the °viet Union. Later, the number rose to 20 Soviet ships ° ding station or back-tracking.
. ^ the ships have orders to turn around, we want to §|ve them every opportunity to do so,” President Kennedy |fected. He instructed the Navy “not to do anything, but §lve the Russian vessels an opportunity to turn back. We !'1Ust move quickly because the time is expiring.” Robert ennedy recorded his impression of the instant: “For a moment the world had stood still, and now it was going ar°und again.”
The triumph of central control gave a new impetus to Controlling and constraining the Navy’s operations in vio- m political crises. In a way, the trend toward centraliza- n °f national command and a supporting general staff Organization is the fulfillment of Army and Air Force organizational dreams and world views that have been active ,n Public discourse since at least 1949. In that year, Admi- ra Louis Denfeld led the “Revolt of the Admirals” a§ainst the interservice unification policies established by
Crisis was successful because of the precise management of Navy operations led to incremental but fundamental changes in later operations.
In general, explicit crisis rules of engagement are today the norm, defining exactly what can be done with Navy ships and aircraft—and if an action is not included, it cannot be considered. Philosophically, the Navy would prefer exclusionary mles of engagement of the kind that it asked for, and was refused, during the Cuban Missile Crisis (stating what is not permitted and allowing any action not covered to be undertaken at the on-scene commander’s discretion). Contingency planning seeks, as the famous Executive Committee (or “ExComm”) did in 1962, to cover every possibility and to control every execution—often without the subjective judgment of an onscene maritime commander. It is likely that this trend will continue, with the increasing influence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and of the Joint Staff) in the planning and operational execution of crisis response.
The role of individuals and the advice they give are especially important when defense centralization is enacted, as it was in the Cuban Missile Crisis and as it is today in the unified command structure following Gold- water-Nichols. As former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George W. Anderson stated in his 25th anniver-
® sweeping postwar defense reorganization act of 1947, bich began command centralization. The general staff c°ncept was completed with the Goldwater-Nichols DePartment of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 over vig- 0r°us objection from naval leaders. The Navy’s paramount role in national security argued forcefully against centralization of command—especially command of the avy—through the postwar years before the crisis. But in o2, the Washington consensus that the Cuban Missile
As i Recall... The Cuban Missile Crisis
By Admiral George W. Anderson, U. S. Navy (Retired)
Admiral George W. Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, shared his reflections on the events of October 1962 with Lieutenant Commander Michael N. Pocalyko. Admiral Anderson was the principal operational architect of the naval quarantine of Cuba during the Missile Crisis. At the point when President John F. Kennedy made his decision to go ahead with the quarantine, he turned to Anderson with a few brief and characteristic words: “This is up to the Navy.’’ Anderson’s reply: “Mr. President, the Navy won’t let you down.”
Admiral Anderson was party to a famous encounter with Secretary' of Defense Robert S. McNamara on Wednesday, 24 October 1962. Both Anderson and McNamara were the personal choices of President Kennedy for their jobs. These two advisers also clashed over McNamara s TFX fighter aircraft and a military pay bill. In June 1963, Admiral Anderson was not reappointed for a second two years as Chief of Naval Operations. Instead, President Kennedy named him his Ambassador to Portugal. Admiral Anderson, now retired, lives in Washington, D C.
I first saw the photographic intelligence showing that the missiles were in Cuba on about 1 October. It was not particularly a surprise to me. We reacted normally in terms of our naval response—we sort of expected it— and had a relatively normal deployment. I guess it didn’t get the President’s attention or the media’s attention until two weeks later. Media coverage is what actually brought the crisis to the government. Senator Kenneth Keating [R-NY] was talking loudly about offensive weapons in Cuba.
The crisis came largely as a political circumstance. The President’s bringing together the Ex- Comm [Executive Committee] was a different sort of response, a political approach to the problem.
I think it would have been better if he had just adhered to the regular SecDef [Secretary of Defense] and JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] process.
I was in telephone communication with CinCLantFlt [Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet] most of the time, starting prior to the political process. From a military, strategic standpoint, the placement of the missiles was something for us to worry about. The response was entirely up to the President.
The President had gone through the previous experience of the Bay of Pigs and as a result distrusted the military. He wanted to run this show himself. He had as his close advisors McNamara and McNamara’s deputy, Roswell Gil- patrick, who were inexperienced.
The situation was totally absurd. All they wanted to do was say “yes” to what they thought the President wanted to hear. Secretary of the Navy Fred Korth was not impressive. Paul “Red” Fay was Undersecretary of the Navy.
1 think that they were sort of captives of the political process of the day. They were looking not to repeat the mistakes of the Bay of Pigs.
This sets the stage for the so- called difficulties between McNamara and me. McNamara and Gilpatrick arrived at the Navy Command Center late in the afternoon or in the early evening of Wednesday, 24 October. The center is manned by all sorts of people, most of whom are cleared tor highly classified information, but some are not. McNamara wanted answers to a lot of highly classified questions, and there were many people present who were not cleared to hear the answers.
So I intervened. I took him to the inside “sanctum,” you might say- There he had the whole story explained to him. As we were leaving, McNamara said something like, “It’s all right.” I said,
“Mr. Secretary, you go back to your office, and I’ll go to mine and we’ll take care of things.” Apparently that got him very provoked. I didn’t realize it at the time.
In personality terms, earlier in the crisis, McNamara was Alice
sary reflections on the crisis, “How we handle a Cuban Missile Crisis or anything else depends entirely on the personalities involved.” This factor is especially important in our present “strong chairman” provisions for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The present chairman, Admiral William J. Crowe, is experienced and philosophically attuned to both naval operations and the regional unified command organization. The success of the 1986 defense reorganization is largely because of his personal stewardship. But future incumbents in his office, raised in a system °f strong and dominant general staffs (in contrast to Admiral Crowe’s experience on operational staffs), may be less inclined to broaden the base of military advice being pr°" vided in a crisis.
“During the Cuban Missile Crisis,” wrote Robert Kennedy, “the President not only received information from all the significant departments, but went to considerable lengths to ensure that he was not insulated from individu-
n Wonderland—and arrogant. He °nce *°ld me he was a person of |ntegrity. I said, “Not the type of ’ntegrity that we’re used to.” He 1 n t take that very well. I got °ng with Gilpatrick, pretty well.
course there were ups and °wns, but there were no major Problems.
got along very well with the resident right from the start. He as pleasant and straightforward. How we handle a Cuban Mis- 1 e Crisis or anything else depends entirely on the personalities Evolved. I had great satisfaction _ ^e people who were in com- £'nd during the crisis. Vice miral Wallace Beakley, the ePuty CinCLantFlt was an old 5lend of mine—a hell of a guy.
miral Robert Dennison was ^'nCLantFlt, Admiral Harry Felt ™ns CinCPac [Commander in ref Pacific], and Admiral John 1 es at CinCPacFlt [Commander jn Chief Pacific Fleet] was a man hnd known very well and had forked for. Before the start of e crisis, I had appointed Vice omiral Alfred Ward as Com- prander Second Fleet. 1 was pretty aPPy with the people I had.
* didn’t come away with any Pedicular lesson from the Cuban issile Crisis. Give good people . e jobs and let them do the jobs rrr accordance with the national tjbjectives. You can’t get away r°m the fact that the president is responsible, politically and mili- jp'ily, for everything that he does.
he service secretaries have basiCallY little to contribute, but they Perhaps tend to get involved too hroch. I don’t know about today. McNamara wanted options for
the President. The hell with the options—the President needs good advice administratively, economically, politically, as well as militarily. I think when you have dominant people like McNamara playing, they throw the whole thing off balance.
For example, I sent out a directive to make sure that there were qualified Russian-language officers on each ship involved in the quarantine—in case there had to be interrogations. As CNO, I didn’t go around and personally try to check every ship to find out if a Russian-language officer was on board. After all, 1 had a four- star, experienced CinC in Admiral Dennison, 1 had a good organization, and I had no thought of saying, “Well, did you carry out my order? Did each one arrive on each ship?” Dennison said he’d get them on there, and that was enough for me. But McNamara wanted me to get into every detail, he wanted me to interrogate each ship as to whether language officers were actually on board. This was an overpreoccupation with detail that I don’t think the civilian authorities should get involved with in a case of this sort.
It did not particularly create any problems for the Navy operationally that McNamara wanted to send political signals with antisubmarine warfare operations, carefully measured, with limitations on action and diplomatic intentions. But McNamara was not the type of person to be in that sort of position of responsibility. I see the problems more in terms of personalities than the mechanics of the management.
The main thing to do is to have good people in the jobs, particularly military, give them what it takes to do the jobs, and then keep your hands-off.
rvl
s °r points of view because of rank or position.” The Ul]equaled leadership of President Kennedy made that situ- ab°n possible, ensuring the success of central control in ne crisis. Today, only one presidential source of military advice is written into U. S. law—the Chairman of the °int Chiefs of Staff. Good advice in a crisis may be even °Ugher to come by now than it was in 1962 because of the Ureaucratic impediments of centralization in the aftermath of an act designed “to improve the military advice provided to the President.” President Kennedy did not mind breaking through those impediments, but neither history nor politics can guarantee that future leaders will be as strong—or that they will have advisors of the temperament and personality that benefited government decisionmakers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
President Kennedy’s management style—with the President as the center of a hub of vast influence and information—was a great departure from the style of his predeces-
In 1962, President Kennedy could draw on the opinions of many advisors well-versed in military operations. The recent defense reorganization reduces the President’s pool of operational military advisors to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Fortunately, the current Chairman’s strong background in joint matters provides the broad- based advice required for good decision making.
Rob
important parts in the consultations during the crisis
faced with a largely national rather than internatioi problem. With respect to the law, U. S. action in
nal
the
sor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Following the debacle of the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, Kennedy was extremely distrustful of military advice, remarking in the aftermath of the failed invasion of Cuba, “How could I have been so stupid to let them go ahead?’’ This general distrust of the institutional federal bureaucracies was essentially why the President pulled the Executive Committee around him during his second Cuban crisis. Kennedy wanted many options, and some of his advisors took exception to that requirement, preferring to focus the President rather than allow him to look at the problem from many different angles and perspectives. In order to carry off that manner of crisis decision making, a strong leader is needed—one able to assimilate and use large quantities of data, one with confidence enough in his own judgment to overrule, if necessary, the recommendation of the most knowledgeable advisors. Kennedy could carry off that leadership style. A further lesson of the Missile Crisis— and of all command—is that leaders drive decisions. People determine the dynamics of command, not organizational diagrams, whether legislated or not.
The Strength of Alliances and the Force of Law: “We cannot be an island even if we wished,” Robert Kennedy remarked about the crisis, “nor can we successfully separate ourselves from the rest of the world.” In the crisis, the United States had an exceptional regard for its allies and for international law. These two critically important and related elements provided necessary international credibility for the naval quarantine actions. Before actually empowering the Second Fleet to conduct interdiction actions, the Department of State made the correct judgment that, even though uniquely U. S. security interests were at most risk, the nation’s Latin American allies in the Organization of American States (OAS) must agree to a recommended course of naval action.
The authority of this alliance was actually not in force when the President announced the naval quarantine on Monday, 22 October 1962. In his televised address to the nation, President Kennedy stated:
“It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
He spoke of a specific purpose of naval action, “to halt this offensive build-up,” and a specific course of action, “a strict quarantine of all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba.”
Once the OAS had approved the naval quarantine, giv
ing that military action the backing of the alliance and t e force of international law, the language surrounding 1 quarantine changed. The quarantine proclamation iss"e after the OAS joined in supporting the action—a day a^ter President Kennedy’s televised speech—though. waS hardly buffered:
“I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America ... do hereby proclaim that the forces under my command are ordered ... to interdict, su ject to the instructions contained herein, the delivery ^ offensive weapons and associated material to Cuba.
The successful linkage of the OAS to the naval quaran tine and its justification by international legal princip|e- teaches that alliances must be a part of any contemplate crisis action of the United States—more particularly s0 where the Soviet Union is involved. Our NATO all*eS; especially the United Kingdom and France, also plays0
ert Kennedy wrote, “The NATO countries were supp0''1 ing our position and recommending that the U. S. firm.” It was clear at the time that the United States cou not, and should not, “go it alone” in Cuba, even when
Cuban Missile Crisis underscored the nation’s democrat'0 values and conscience in the international order. 00 country did not adopt the Soviet understanding that on y force makes a determination in military action. The g° v emment recognized the primacy of international law in d® actions—making the naval quarantine not only sma strategy and morally right, but ensured through the sup port of many sovereign allied nations and by the force 0 an internationally accepted set of values.
Empirical Lessons: Naval participation in the Cuban Missile Crisis has yielded three empirical lessons. They are timeless lessons in the experience and history of toe U. S. Navy, but they came into their sharpest focus m October 1962. .
First, military judgment and sound political leadership must go hand-in-hand, and responsible dissent fronl within the military establishment must be brought to th attention of civil leaders in a crisis. In the Cuban Miss' Crisis, two military options were considered—-an air
So
u t^le naval quarantine became the strategic option of lce. Military options always carry with them the possi- 1 Y that intended surgical cuts to terminate a crisis may the 6a(*tCar °Pen a ra88ecI edge of war. This problem— uncontrolled unfolding of events with military consent nee—is the most important one to consider whenever re*Y military options are being considered. In intema- nal affairs, military action almost always buys uncer- uty for the nation that employs it in a crisis.
. econd, political influences complicate crises, and po
solutions end crises; military force is only one in-
nke and a naval quarantine. These two options were unsurprisingly championed by the Air Force and the Navy, Pectively. The air strike option also enjoyed great sup- NAT*n ®^'ce Joint Chiefs of Staff and in
but, according to Robert Kennedy, the President 1 that they did not realize the option’s full implications. e attorney general said:
If we carried out an air strike against Cuba and the oviet Union answered by attacking Turkey, all NATO was going to be involved. Then, immediately, the Pres- 'dent would have to decide whether he would use nu- u|ear weapons against the Soviet Union, and all man- tnd would be threatened.”
litical
rurnent of policy. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an in- unce of political strategy being played even harder than 1 hary strategy, with a recognition of extreme conse- jUence if either strategy failed or sent the wrong signals of i?' 'ntent- In the end, when Chairman Nikita Khru- . chev stated on Sunday, 28 October 1962, the Soviet utention “to discontinue construction of the [missile] fa- ^ 'hes, to dismantle them, and to return them to the Soviet yni0n,” it was a political solution that prevailed. The ■ S. promise not to invade Cuba was coupled with an j s°lutely unstated quid pro quo, the removal of obsolete upiter missiles from Turkey. The United States made two ^r°mises in return for the removal of the missiles: “to move promptly the quarantine measures” and “to give ssurances agajnst an invasion 0f Cuba.” The open or blic diplomacy of the nation was buttressed by its quiet, °n-declaratory policy. In fact, the crisis resolution in pol- a ^ terms at least, was less of a Soviet “blink” than it was masoned consensus of both parties to lower their formi- b*e stares. The naval quarantine had served its political Purpose, and the political strategy allowed the Soviets to ln in what President Kennedy called in his response to
Khrushchev, “the compelling necessity for ending the arms race and reducing world tensions.” But in the years that followed, the gap between what the Soviets said and what they subsequently did, as always, widened. The events of 1962 gave the Soviet Navy the impetus finally to embark on building what former Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov called “an ocean fleet capable of preventing the attack of an aggressor from the oceans,” the very threat so effectively used by the United States during the crisis.
Third, military action always risks escalation. Today, the Navy’s central purpose in the Maritime Strategy’s crisis response is to control escalation—the central design of the strategy. Even during global war, the United States still seeks to deter escalation to the nuclear level by taking substantive action and threatening credibly with restraint, not unlike actions readied but not used in Cuba. The most valuable weapons and strategies are those which deter. That lesson is even more clear at the distance of a quarter century. Late in the crisis, on the morning of Saturday, 27 October 1962, the country’s resolve to avoid escalation was tested when a U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-installed SAM, killing its pilot, Air Force Major Rudolph Anderson, Jr. Robert Kennedy described his reaction as a “feeling that the noose was tightening on all of us; . . . that the bridges to escape were crumbling.” There was almost unanimous agreement that the situation had changed, that air strikes on Cuban SAM sites were necessary. President Kennedy disagreed:
“It isn’t the first step that concerns me, but both sides escalating to the fourth and fifth step—and we won’t go to the sixth because there is no one around to do so. We must remind ourselves we are embarking on a very hazardous course.”
His words of caution are still a useful reminder. “The trick,” wrote historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “was to cut the chain in time.”
Commander Pocalyko is a naval aviator en route to the pre-commissioning unit of Helicopter Antisubmarine Squadron Light 46 in Mayport, Florida. He was recently special assistant to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Plans, Policy and Operations). A 1976 graduate of Muhlenberg College, he holds a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard University and is a frequent Proceedings contributor.
______________________________________________ A Grave Queue---------------------------------------------------
A friend of mine who served in the Navy in World War II was thrilled when his discharge finally came through. The only dark spot was his commanding officer—a man who was thoroughly disliked by all hands on board. When Jim was leaving the ship for his place of discharge, the captain stopped him.
“Well, Stevens, I guess you will spit on my grave when you get the chance.”
Jim looked at the captain for a moment. “No sir, I have sworn that when I am discharged, I will never stand in line again.”
Jerry Elam