War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES D04039-D04041 ARTHUR

SCHLESINGER

JKF and RFK on Cuba

Interviewer:

START A LITTLE BIT BEFORE THE... THE MISSILE CRISIS, AND JOHN F.

KENNEDY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH CUBA, AND PREOCCUPATION WITH CUBA AFTER THE

BAY OF PIGS. YOU TALK IN YOUR BOOK ABOUT THAT WHOLE... MONGOOSE AND

THAT WHOLE OPERATION, IT'S... NOT EXACTLY ROBERT KENNEDY'S... FINEST,

UH, FINEST HOUR. HOW WOULD YOU, DO YOU RECALL HIS, UH, CONCERN ABOUT

CUBA?

Schlesinger:

Yes, after the Bay of Pigs, I think, this was, a... humiliation for the

United States and for the Kennedys, and there were two concerns: one

was to decide to get the Bay of Pigs prisoners out, and both John and

Robert Kennedy felt that uh, the CIA having sent them in there, we had

some obligation to do what we could to get their release. And

negotiations for the release of the prisoners was a constant

preoccupation. And the other was to do what was possible through covert

action to make life difficult for Castro, and this was the so-called

Operation Mongoose. And it included efforts to try to supply arms to

alleged rebels inside Cuba, and efforts to sabotage Cuban factories and

mills and so on; it was really kind of a... program of pinpricks,

of...had no effects of any... any sort. The results, though, quite

separately from Operation Mongoose, they the campaign to assassinate

Castro, which was being carried...sorry.

Interviewer:

LET'S, UH, I THINK WE GOT THE PRISONER PART OKAY ( ), SO WE CAN TAKE UP

ON THE COVERT STUFF ON THE ASSASSINATION.

Schlesinger:

Yes at the same time the Kennedy administration tried to d-do

everything it could to make life d-difficult for Castro through

programs of covert action. This was the so-called Operation Mongoose.

And that really meant a program of sabotage and a program, an attempt

to create and to supply guerilla, anti-Castro guerillas within Cuba. It

was a very ineffectual program of pinpricks, and accomplished very

little, as the administration came to understand after a while. At the

same time the CIA was running separately from Operation Mongoose, a

program of, an attempt to assassinate Castro. This had begun in the

Eisenhower administration in the, in 1960, at which time they actually,

uh, hired members of the Mafia to attempt the assassination, and it was

continued well into the Johnson administration. So far as the Church

committee could discover this program was not known to or approved by,

or authorized by any of the three presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, or

Johnson, and it appears to have been a... private initiative on the

part of the CIA.

Interviewer:

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN (unintelligible; long pause)... HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN

THIS, UH, ALMOST OBSESSION WITH CUBA AND CASTRO THAT ROBERT KENNEDY

SEEMED TO HAVE?

Schlesinger:

Well, I think there was general feeling that to have a Communist state

in the Western Hemisphere was not a good thing, not good for the

Cubans, not good for other countries in Latin America, because Castro

in that phase was doing his best to stir up revolution in other

countries. His efforts were particularly directed against the

government of Venezuela, which had a progressive democratic regime

under President Bettencourt, with which the Kennedys had very close

relations. You know, it was a general situation that this was no more

tolerable to the United States than an anti-Communist state would have

been tolerable in Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union. But the U. S.

being less ruthless about this than the Soviet Union didn't do to Cuba

what the Soviet Union did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. I do think so

I don't think it was an unintelligible preoccupation, but I think that

our Operation Mongoose was a total waste of time and effort.

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK KENNEDY, ROBERT KENNEDY WAS AT ALL EMBARRASSED BY IT,

WOULD YOU SAY?

Schlesinger:

Well I think, looking back, he became, by the, by the autumn of 1963,

of course, he was strongly in support of the efforts made by the

Kennedy administration to normalize relations with Castro. But, uh, he

had a lot of other things on his mind at that period... Operation

Mongoose was a very minor part, so when he... came from dealing with

civil rights or organized crime or the life of Attorney General he

would come into these meetings and he'd always be, feel the CIA wasn't

doing enough, so he'd try to stir them up. But I think it is a mistake

to suppose that it occupied more than three percent of his thoughts.

Soviets Put Offensive Missiles in Cuba

Interviewer:

SOME THEORIZE THAT ALL THAT MONGOOSE STUFF AND THE ASSASSINATION

ATTEMPTS HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, MAYBE

HELPING CASTRO TO, PUSHING CASTRO TO ASK KHRUSHCHEV FOR MISSILES.

Schlesinger:

Well, I don't think so, because Khrushchev--Castro did not ask

Khrushchev for missiles. Castro asked Khrushchev for protection. I

think that it certainly increased Castro's general sense of insecurity;

Castro believed then, as he believes again today, that the United

States is planning to invade Cuba. Well, after, if the United States

had planned to invade Cuba, it would have done so at the Bay of Pigs,

and it didn't; Kenn,... Kennedy had no intention of invading Cuba. But

clearly Operation Mongoose might well have given Castro reason to

suppose that this was a softening up in preparation for an invasion.

But he did not ask for nuclear missiles for that reason or for any

reason. He didn't want the nuclear missiles; he would have liked to

have some Soviet troops stationed on the island and have some means of

defending against invasion or of making invasion an international

issue. But the, the nuclear missiles were put in for Russian reasons,

not for Cuban reasons. They were imposed by Khrushchev, and Khrushchev

in his memoirs says he had a hell of an argument with Castro before he

could get Castro to accept them.

Interviewer:

YOU, UM, .... YOU CLEARLY SHARED THE FEELING OF MOST OF THE PEOPLE OF

THAT TIME, INCLUDING THE CIA, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY ELSE, I GUESS,

OTHER THAN JOHN MCCALLUM, THAT THESE, UH, THIS WHOLE ACTIVITY WAS NOT

TOWARDS ANY OFFENSIVE ... MISSILES.

Schlesinger:

Yes, it seemed inconceivable that that That was August, 1962, that was,

at that very time, the... the plans were going forward to install

offensive missiles in Cuba. Well, it was the general view of everyone

that the Russians who characteristically have been, had been cautious

in their particularly in any action within the American sphere of

influence; that is, in the Western Hemisphere. It was inconceivable

that they were going to install offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.

They hadn't even put nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe. So that they

all the experts ..., the experts dismissed this as a, as a possibility.

RFK During the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS UH, KENNEDY, UH, ROBERT KENNEDY'S ROLE IN THE ...MEETINGS: HOW

WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE HIS CONTRIBUTION, WHAT, HOW HE ACTED?

Schlesinger:

Well, Robert Kennedy's main characteristic role in meetings was to ask

the penetrating questions. Uh... he would always try to see, make

people confront the consequences of decisions. He had not been present

in the meetings on the Bay of Pigs, and had he been there, there might

never have been a Bay of Pigs f because the kind of questions he asked

were not asked. But he had what Winston Churchill said about Harry

Hopkins...Churchill called Harry Hopkins "Lord Root of the Matter." And

Robert Kennedy was always trying to... pene... trying to ask the

jugular questions. And his role there was initially to do that, but

then as... as people's views became crystallized, he... became a very

strong opponent of the whole concept of a sneak attack. And on the

Friday meeting he... when Dean Acheson and others had argued in the

Joint Chiefs of Staff for a... surprise attack on the bases, Robert

Kennedy very strongly, very eloquently opposed it, saying it would

be... Pearl Harbor in reverse, that a sneak attack of this kind would

be... alien to our traditions, and that no president could authorize

it, and he convinced... a large number of... people present, like

Douglas Dillon and others, who previously had been for such an attack.

Odd how our moral sense has changed, because uh, Robert Kennedy was

able to say that a sneak attack was... that on a small island was not

an American...American tradition. But it was only 20 years later that

Ronald Reagan launched a sneak attack on a small... defenseless small

island, Grenada, and was... this was applauded as a glorious American

military victory.

Interviewer:

YOU'VE HAD ACCESS TO HIS DIARY AND LOTS OF OTHER PAPERS THAT OTHER

PEOPLE HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO SEE, AND SO I'M INTERESTED IN TALKING TO

...AS A ROBERT KENNEDY EXPERT. IN YOUR BOOK YOU TALKED ABOUT HIM SAYING

THAT THE CASTRO MEETINGS... SOME OP THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM HAD

THEY BEEN PRESENT AT THE TIME. OTHER DECISIONS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE...

COULD YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT THAT?

Schlesinger:

Well, you know, there were a number of people who... were in favor of

the military solution, and... for the Kennedys, military action was a

last resort, not a first resort. They were preparing for an invasion,

and had... that been the only way to get the missiles out, they would

have invaded, but they were prepared to do everything else, to exhaust

every diplomatic possibility before they reached that final, that last

resort. Others felt that to initiate diplomatic action would be to tip

off the other side and give them time to prepare, running undue

military risks and therefore we should begin with military action. And

what Robert Kennedy had in mind was if some of those people, like Dean

Acheson, or General Taylor, or John McCollum(?)or the... members of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, had they been president they presumably would

have ordered military action as a first step, and not as a last step.

Interviewer:

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THESE TRANSCRIPTS THAT ARE NOW AVAILABLE, OF ROBERT

KENNEDY SAYING, SHOULDN'T WE SINK THE MAINE OR SOMETHING?

Schlesinger:

Well, I think... The first day they were all confronted by this, and, I

think all of them... like some staggering phenomenon in their lives...

they walked around it and looked at it from one side and then from

another -- in the beginning they were trying to sort out their ideas,

and there was a lot of thinking aloud. And Robert Kennedy was trying

to, he was -- someone had proposed an air attack, and he said "We

shouldn't have an air attack -- it would kill too many people, and if

we're going to take military action at all we ought to... And besides

an air attack would not only kill too many people, but then 6 months

later they might bring the missile bases back -- It's not a long-run

solution; if we're going to consider a military solution we ought to

look further down the road -- maybe we should do an invasion. But he

was raising this as a possibility... The dialogue shows that; I mean,

McNamara said, "That's right, we ought to consider the possible

consequences of the various lines of action, as the Attorney General's

been suggesting." And... This is just... thinking aloud. I think in the

first day no one knew... quite what they thought, and... took a day or

two to begin to digest this, to digest the consequences of various

lines of action....I think what these transcripts show is the... is the

way in which a decision eventually evolved, and I think a wise and just

decision, out of a lot of confused... initially confused reactions.

Interviewer:

I UNDERSTAND THE CHIEF PROTAGONIST, IN TERMS OF ROBERT KENNEDY, IN

THOSE MEETINGS, WAS ACHESON. ACHESON WAS KIND OF UPSET WITH KENNEDY'S

MORALISTIC ARGUMENTS.

Schlesinger:

Yes... Acheson... I don't know whether... what Acheson would have done

had he been Secretary of State and had the responsibility but... in his

later years he... remained brilliant, but was rather high-handed and

irresponsible...He felt very strongly the need for military action as

in... during the Berlin crisis in 1961 he'd argued very strongly for

military action there, sending an armed division into Berlin or

something. And that was just his general attitude and he was

contemptuous of what he regarded as confusing, cluttering up foreign

policy decisions with moral considerations. And he also... Robert

Kennedy was 40 years younger than he and I think he probably --"Hell,

what's a young snip like this trying to do, trying to organize foreign

policy?" But he was quite haughty and contemptuous of the view that we

ought to be restrained from action by moral considerations.

Adlai Stevenson During Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

MAYBE YOU CAN GIVE ME A BIT OF A SENSE OF HOW STEVENSON FIT INTO THIS.

Schlesinger:

Yes, my assignment was to work with Governor Stevenson on the...

presentation at the UN. And.... at the end of the first week, on the

Friday of the first week, Stevenson called me and said he wanted to

talk to me, I went to see him and he said, "The President has given me

permission to tell... what we've, what's on everyone's minds, to you,"

so he told me about the... And I then... accompanied him to New York,

and...worked with him during that week at the UN. He was, from the

beginning, the most articulate champion of... negotiation, though... a

number of people, Chip Bolen (?), until he went to the... went off to

Paris, and Tommy Thompson, who were both Soviet experts, and. McNamara,

George Ball, Bill Patrick, um... and others, were also -- Ted Sorenson

-- had, were also in favor of exploring diplomatic possibilities.

Stevenson wanted to throw in too much, from the point of view of...

some members of the committee, and... I think that what really...

irritated some of the hard-liners was when he suggested trading

Guantanamo... Ah... he, as I recall, his views were that to get the

missiles out, we should give them the Turkish missiles in Guantanamo.

Well, everyone was prepared to give the Turkish missiles, though not to

do it in a formal, public way, because the Turkish missiles were no

use, and... they'd been thinking of trying to get them out for some

time, but Guantanamo seemed going a little far. And also there was this

tactical question... Stevenson wanted to begin by making an offer along

these lines, whereas people, whereas Robert Kennedy, who was in favor

of negotiation, thought that that offer should come way down the line,

and that we would reduce our bargaining power by doing it at the

beginning. So for these reasons, Stevenson's position, which he

argued... well, did not... arouse the resentment of other people,

during that tense week.

Interviewer:

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? YOU MUST HAVE BEEN CLOSE TO HIM, OR SPOKE

TO HIM AFTER COMING OUT OF THE MEETING, OR SHORTLY AFTER. HOW DID HE

FEEL ABOUT HOW HE WAS TREATED? I UNDERSTAND HE WAS TREATED VERY BADLY

BY SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE.

Schlesinger:

Well, I don't think it was... I don't recall that he objected to the

discussions in the meeting. He was very resentful of an article which

appeared by Stewart Alsop in the Saturday Evening Post a month or so

later, in which someone... was supposed to have said that he was

advocating another Munich. And that indeed was very unfair -- the

position he took was very much the position that we finally came out

with. And, um... but I don't recall that in the meetings themselves he

had any complaint.

Interviewer:

THE KENNEDYS' CONCERN THAT HE MIGHT NOT BE TOUGH ENOUGH AT THE UN?

Schlesinger:

Well, Robert Kennedy was... Before I went to New York he took me aside

and said, "You have to make... you have to watch that fellow...." He

said, "We want to make sure he's going to be strong enough." But... Of

course he was; he was very effective, and... John Kennedy was very much

impressed.... by his effectiveness... In the longer run, Robert Kennedy

was, too; as he wrote in Thirteen Days, he said... some of the things

Stevenson said seemed... seemed extreme, but they were no more extreme

than a lot of things a lot of other people were saying during that

week.

[END OF TAPE D04039]

Interviewer:

LET'S TALK ABOUT STEVENSON'S PRESENTATION AT THE UN, AND HOW YOU

REMEMBER WATCHING IT, AND HOW OTHERS PERCEIVED IT.

Schlesinger:

Well, I think the high point, of course, came when he... brought out

the photographs, and... confronted Zorren (?) with them, and Zorren

declined to answer, and Stevenson made the... unforgettable remark

about being prepared to wait till hell freezes over. Kennedy was

watching this, and Washington was delighted by it, and called Stevenson

afterwards, and... he thought that Stevenson had performed with great

skill and force at the UN. And he was right, it was a very effective...

moment, one of the great moments in the history of the UN.

Interviewer:

WERE YOU, DO YOU RECALL WATCHING THAT? WERE YOU WITH A GROUP AT THE

MISSION, OR...

Schlesinger:

I... I... I'm just now trying to remember. Part of the time I was in

the chamber, but I think I... at that point I was in Stevenson's office

at the mission, watching it on television.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS STEVENSON'S ATTITUDE DURING THAT, AFTER THAT DAY, DO YOU

REMEMBER WAS HE...

Schlesinger:

He was exhilarated. I mean, he was, he felt this was... He was also --

I mean, everyone was of course deeply concerned over getting some kind

of reactional outcome for this situation, but... he was personally

exhilarated by what he... what was, indeed, a great triumph.

Problems Facing the Historian

Interviewer:

ONE PROBLEM OF ALL THIS, THAT I'M SURE YOU FACE AS A HISTORIAN, AND

WE'RE STARTING TO FACE IN INTERVIEWING PEOPLE, IS THE KIND OF

REVISIONISM THAT CREEPS INTO EVERYONE'S MEMORIES. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH

THAT? IT MUST BE A CONSTANT PROBLEM FOR HISTORIANS.

Schlesinger:

It is a constant problem for historians, and that's why... though world

history has its uses, it's not entirely dependable... Public figures

are not unique in this; everyone's memory is terrible. Everyone's

memory is self-serving. We all embellish stories in our, as we recall

them and repeat them, and generally in such ways as to give us, make us

look better in them. So it's a common human failing. But the way...

it's like in... any other forms of evidence, it has to be checked

against the original documents, against the minutes of the meetings,

against the recollections of other participants, and so on.

Resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

CAN YOU TELL ME, DO YOU RECALL YOUR CALL FROM HARRIMAN?

Schlesinger:

Yes, at one point when I was in New York I got a call from Harriman.

Harriman was very... concerned; Harriman had been ambassador to the

Soviet Union, and he knew the Soviet Union very well; he said,

"Khrushchev is signaling that he wants...to get out of this." And I

said, "What do you mean?" and he named a couple of things. Apparently

some American businessman had been to the ballet in Moscow, as I

recall, and... Khrushchev had seen him afterwards, and... another

thing, and Harriman said, "These are clear indications that the

Russians are looking for a way out. I think it's terribly important not

to force them against the wall, ah... on this. And... and we must find

some means of helping them... get out of this." He said, "I'm very

concerned about it, but I can't reach anybody," so I telexed a message

to Kennedy, and... then Kennedy, later that evening, called Harriman

and Harriman... set forth his views again. And I think that just

reinforced Kennedy's own conviction that some diplomatic solution,

resolution just had to be found.

Interviewer:

YOU HAD ACCESS TO KENNEDY'S DIARIES. THERE'S THIS MEETING BETWEEN

ROBERT KENNEDY AND DOBRYNIN ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, THE LAST ACT OF THIS

WHOLE... AND DOBRYNIN REPORTS TO KHRUSHCHEV AND KHRUSHCHEV HAS IN HIS

MEMOIRS THAT ROBERT KENNEDY SAID "YOU KNOW, THE MILITARY ARE OUT TO GET

MY BROTHER AND IF WE DON'T SETTLE THIS THING QUICKLY, IT'S GOING TO

BECOME MUCH WORSE." DO YOU THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT ROBERT KENNEDY

MIGHT HAVE SAID, AS A WAY OF GETTING SOME ACTION?

Schlesinger:

No, I do not think so. I think that it's a most improbable... thing,

and Khrushchev rather over dramatized it, by suggesting that he, ah,

took the missiles out in order to save Kennedy from a military coup...

Sort of "Seven Days in May" situation.... I think that what Kennedy

probably said... was that there was strong desire and preparation on

the part of the military to... invade Cuba, and... that... Dobrynin

probably reported this to Moscow. Khrushchev in his memoirs remembered

that there was something about the military... but of course he was

dictating his memoirs out of memory. He didn't have -- being in

disgrace -- he didn't have access to those diplomatic papers, so I

think he got that garbled in recollection.

JFK and RFK on the Military

Interviewer:

SHORTLY AFTERWARD, YOU WERE TELLING ME, KENNEDY GAVE FRANKENHEIMER

PERMISSION...

Schlesinger:

Yes... I do think that the... the Kennedys were never very enthusiastic

about the military per se anyway... both of them had served in the

Navy, and... they didn't have any undue respect for top brass, and, um,

the, um, particularly the Admiral Anderson... created problems, he felt

that... the civilian authorities were interfering too much with the

naval job, whereas the Kennedys... the main anxiety through the whole

thing wasn't that Khrushchev was going to initiate nuclear war -- he

knew that that would not happen -- but that somewhere along the line,

down the line, someone, something might go wrong, some subordinate

official would do something... and that's why he was very anxious to...

have command and control down to the smallest point; well, the military

resented that, and there was a lot of... acrimony about some of the...

about the military in general. So... later, when "Seven Days in May"

was being made, Pierre... Kennedy told Pierre Salinger, he

asked...whether he could come and shoot it at the White House, and he

rather encouraged the project.

Interviewer:

YOU'RE SAYING THAT HE DIDN'T ENJOY MILITARY CEREMONY VERY MUCH, HE

DIDN'T ENJOY THE WHOLE POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCES...

Schlesinger:

No, he didn't.... I mean, military parades and all that were not... not

his... he'd go through with it.... He had great appreciation for his

soldiers, and sailors, I mean -- he liked the lower ranks very much,

and he felt -- and he... he particularly liked General Shoop, the

commander of the Marine Corps; he was the member of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff... Kennedy liked the most but General May... he found extremely

trying, and... Admiral Burke almost as much so.... He...he was... he

greatly appreciated the role of the troops... but he was very skeptical

about the... high command in the main. General Taylor was another

exception; he liked General Taylor.

Legacies of and Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

YOU HAD A MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT THE DAY AFTER...(BREAKING IN)

Schlesinger:

...The day after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Monday morning... I saw

him, and he was in a very... kind of, reflective mood.(BACKING UP)The

day after the... the resolution of the crisis, which was on a Sunday,

on the Monday morning... I saw the President, and he was in a...

reflective mood that morning, and he was concerned, he said, that the

people might misinterpret... what had happened. He said he was terribly

afraid that the people would take a look at this and say "All we had to

do was to be tough, and the Russians would back down." ...And he

said... that worked, apparently worked in this case, but it's not a

good general rule. He said, "This... three particular features about

this crisis: First, we have local military superiority; second, the

vital interests of the Soviet Union were not involved; and third, we

have the better of the case before the world -- the Soviet Union could

not make a strong case before the world that what it was doing, ah,

was... justified." He said... "In that kind of situation... ah, we were

able to succeed... But you have a situation in which we don't enjoy

local military superiority, where Russian vital interests are involved,

and where the Russians feel that equity is on their side, that's a very

different situation, and in that situation the... force will not, by

itself, prevail." He said, "I just hope people don't learn the wrong

lessons from this crisis."

Interviewer:

DO YOU THINK THAT'S A PROBLEM NOW, AS A TEACHER AND A HISTORIAN?

Schlesinger:

Well, I think it always is. I think it is... a problem that's pre-dated

in the sense of the Cuban Missile Crisis; I mean the whole thing

...force is the only thing the Russians understand, and so on, is a...

a cliche which has caused a lot of, misled a lot of people, in the case

of the crisis. I don't know now... Now...we all know that the missiles

were negotiated out, and that... the Kennedys had arranged and... gave

this assurance to the Russians that the Jupiter missiles would be

removed from Turkey, and thereby saved Khrushchev's face and enabled

him to claim to his people that it hadn't been a total disaster... Now

that we know that, I think that we have a better understanding that...

what you must have is a combination of force and diplomacy to succeed

in this dangerous world.

Interviewer:

WHY COULDN'T THAT DIPLOMACY BE MADE MORE OPEN -- WHY COULDN'T IT BE

SOMETHING THAT WAS KNOWN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

Schlesinger:

Well, the reason why it was felt that it could not be done... was

because it would impact on the NATO allies. It was felt that if the

United States were bargaining without the full consent of the NATO ally

Turkey, ah, to... withdraw missiles that had been committed to the

defense of Turkey unilaterally, ah... that this would cause great

protest and disarray in the alliance... If you read Harold Macmillan's

memoirs, for example, he still denies, or denies in the volume that was

published ten years ago so ago, that such a deal was ever made, and

said it was a great triumph that it was possible to end, resolve the

crisis without um... unilateral action at the expense of a NATO ally.

And that was the... the great restraint on it and that is why the

administration always refused... either to make it public, or even to

say to the Russians that... the two actions were connected...(Said) we

were going to do this anyway, and... we will do it, but if you can say

there was any connection between that and the withdrawal of the

missiles, the deal's off.

Interviewer:

MANY PEOPLE NOW SAY THAT THE KENNEDYS WERE PRAISED FOR THEIR GREAT

RESTRAINT DURING THIS PERIOD, BUT THAT KHRUSHCHEV REALLY DESERVED SOME

CREDIT.(TALKING AT THE SAME TIME)

Schlesinger:

Well, I don't think Khrushchev deserves much praise for restraint; he

had no alternative but restraint. He lacked not only local military

superiority, but he... he lacked nuclear superiority... In both cases

he was in an impossible position; he had no desire to commit suicide,

he was trying a big gamble, the gamble failed, and he had no choice but

restraint or suicide, so I don't think he deserves great credit for

it.(TALKING AT THE SAME TIME)Restraint implies you might do something

else which would be effective in getting your objectives; there was

nothing else he could do.

Interviewer:

HOW DO YOU THINK THE MISSILE CRISIS CHANGED PRESIDENT KENNEDY? DO YOU

THINK IT CHANGED HIM AT ALL?

Schlesinger:

Well, I think it changed the world a great deal. Uh,...

The Cuban Missile Crisis, I think, changed both President Kennedy and

the world... it changed Khrushchev, too... I think both Kennedy and

Khrushchev were forced to stare down the nuclear abyss, so to speak,

and they didn't like what they saw. And they came out of it both

absolutely persuaded that the drift toward nuclear war had to stop, and

that the arms race had to be brought under control. This had been

Harold Macmillan's view for some time, and, uh... David Holly (?) --

David Ormsby-Gore as he was then -- who was the British ambassador to

the United States and an old personal friend of Kennedy's from

Kennedy's..."student days from London urged very strongly the view that

we must move... as fast... move forward from the missile crisis as fast

as possible towards some kind of control over the nuclear arms race.

And Kennedy strongly agreed with that, so as a result of the of the

missile crisis we were able to move toward a test ban treaty, which was

not the comprehensive test ban treaty that Kennedy, Macmillan and

Khrushchev would have liked, but still, even with its limitations, was

a great step forward. Had... the missiles not been removed from Cuba,

had... were there Soviet missiles in Cuba... in the 1960s and today,

the world would have been a much more dangerous world. The

destabilizing effect of allowing the missiles... to remain in Cuba

would have been immense and the political consequences incalculable. So

that I do not see how anyone can rationally argue that the world would

have been better off if we had taken no action and permitted the Soviet

missiles to stay in Cuba.

Interviewer:

LET'S TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SPEECH. HOW MUCH

DID THAT GROW OUT OF KENNEDY'S EXPERIENCE DURING THE CRISIS?

Schlesinger:

Well, I think the American University speech was made possible by the

resolution of the, of the missile crisis. Uh, Kennedy, when he went,

met Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, had proposed an effective standstill

agreement that the world had sort of gotten divided into various

spheres, and that each person, each nation, should; stay-out of the

other nation's spheres, and Khrushchev...rejected that, he said wars of

national liberation are going to take place, and we're going to back

them, and so on. And I think that Kennedy hoped that the missile crisis

and our response to it and the withdrawal of the missiles had persuaded

Khrushchev of the value of... standstill, and caused... and both

Kennedy and Khrushchev came, were somewhat shaken by the fact that they

had to face the possibility of nuclear war, and both men were

determined to stop that. Ah, therefore... private correspondence

between them resumed after the missile crisis, and both were moving

toward uh, some form of negotiation. Ah... an important figure... a

middleman in all this was Norman Cousins... editor of the Saturday

Review, who visited Khrushchev and Kennedy, and the Pope, and carried

messages... played a role... Cousins was persuaded that an initiative

by Kennedy might have some useful effect, and this coincided with

Kennedy's own gathering feeling that he wanted to make some public

statement about it, and so in the spring of 1963 he decided that the

time was propitious... for a restatement of American position in the

cold war. And, um, he called a group of us in one day and we had a

long... talk about it... and the result of that was the American

University speech.

Interviewer:

DO YOU RECALL THE SPEECH, THE DELIVERY OF IT?

Schlesinger:

Yes, I did not... go to the... actually, the American University on the

day the speech was given, ah, but this speech, which was... very

carefully considered is... was... something......... Kennedy cared very

much about, and that... Sorenson and Bundy and Carl Kaysen and I all...

found, worked on it, had, uh, understood that... as I say, it was a

restatement of the American position in the cold war, and what it was,

it was a... cutting away from the John Foster Dulles theory of... a

"this is a holy war against the godless Reds," and there was an effort

to recognize the fact that the Soviet Union was a great power and had

its interests... which had to be accepted and respected, and that there

was a possibility of, not only a possibility, but a vital necessity,

of... of conciliation and of... more civilized relations.... Compare

the Kennedy speech of 1963 with the speech that Ronald Reagan gave 20

years later to Orlando, Florida, about the "Evil Empire" -- you'll see

how much Soviet-American relations have regressed in 20 years.

Interviewer:

WAS IT A RISKY SPEECH, IN TERMS OF THE CONGRESS, IN TERMS OF POLITICAL

AND DOMESTIC SUPPORT?

Schlesinger:

It wasn't, I don't think it was a disastrously risky speech, and in

fact it was a much applauded speech; it had some political risks, but

the situation was urgent, and the, one of the jobs of the President is

to... educate the people and persuade them, and this was part of the

process.

[END OF TAPE D04040]

Interviewer:

DO YOU FEEL THAT IN TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS TODAY, AND ALSO IN THE

PUBLIC MIND, THAT THE CORRECT LESSONS OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS HAVE

BEEN LEARNED?

Schlesinger:

I don't know whether the... to what extent the people... students today

understand the correct lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think too

many people may still suppose that all we have to be, do is be tough

and the mother side's going to crumble. But President Kennedy himself

was concerned very much that the wrong lessons be drawn. I think a

lesson has to be drawn that it's necessary for us to maintain, um,

military strength but it's also necessary to combine that with

diplomatic resourcefulness. And that arms and diplomacy must go hand in

hand.

Interviewer:

DOES IT CONCERN YOU THAT THE MISSILE CRISIS IS USED EVEN TODAY BY

PEOPLE IN THE ADMINISTRATION AND OUTSIDE WHO ARGUE FOR NUCLEAR

SUPERIORITY?

Schlesinger:

I don't think the missile crisis can be properly used as an argument

for attempts at nuclear superiority. It's true that the fact that we

had nuclear superiority in 1962, um, meant that... it would have been

suicide for Khrushchev to contemplate anything that might lead on to a

third world war. But nuclear superiority still meant something in 1962,

due to the fact that the Soviet Union did not have enough missiles to

survive a first strike and retaliate. The... one consequence of the

missile crisis, ah, which was a, really a quick fix by the Soviet Union

to try to remedy their missile gap, was to launch a... for the Soviets

to launch a... big program of missile construction... and... which

resulted in their having, by the 1970s, a sufficient stock of missiles.

So the missile, nuclear superiority therefore after became meaningless,

because once... either side, once both sides have enough to absorb a

first strike and to retaliate in force, then superiority is... has no

longer... have any meaning. So whereas nuclear superiority did have a

me-, meaning when the Russians' missile stocks were low, it no longer

has meaning to today.

Interviewer:

THAT'S ONE OF THE UNFORTUNATE... LEGACIES OF THE MISSILE CRISIS.

Schlesinger:

There had been much concern in the United States about a missile gap in

the 1960 election and before; this concern had come out of a, the

report by the Gaither Commission in the late 1950s, and it was widely

believed by Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense, and by Kennedy in the

1960 campaign, and many, many of the experts. Eisenhower himself was

skeptical of it, but Eisenhower as a general knew how the Pentagon

always inflates everything. And therefore didn't take it very seriously

-- Eisenhower was quite right. McNamara, we did, we found out some

months after the Kennedy administration began that the missile gap was

mythological, that what missile gap, missile gap there was, was in our

favor. Ah, the Russians had bluffed us, and uh... and uh, we learned

this when we got satellite reconnaissance in, and we began to get

reports from the British spy Penkovsky (?) in the Soviet Union. By that

time we'd unfortunately launched a...expansion of our missile program,

which was... unnecessary, and was... in retrospect a mistake. And I

think this may have, have provoked the Russians into feeling that they

had to improve their missile position by installation of nuclear

missiles in Cuba. And when that failed, the then turned to a long-term

program of expansion of missiles.

Interviewer:

I THINK KUZNETSOV IS QUOTED AS SAYING TO MCCLOY, "YOU'LL NEVER DO THIS

DO US AGAIN."

Schlesinger:

Yes, I think the me, the, the, the, the... remark that Kuznetsov made

to McCloy about... where... you're never going to be... we'll never...

let ourselves be put in a position where you can do that to us again,

ah... is the lesson the Soviet Union draw, drew from the missile

crisis.

Interviewer:

WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS THAT WE SHOULD LEARN

FROM THE MISSILE CRISIS IN TODAY'S WORLD?

Schlesinger:

I think the, the, it's a double lesson from the missile crisis, and one

lesson is that we have to keep up our... our military strength, which

does not mean that we have to... have this extravagant defense budgets

that we have today. If we don't have adequate military strength from

the enormous amounts of money which the Defense Department has been

getting the last four or five years, then there's something badly wrong

with the Defense Department. I don't think we have to continue

expanding the defense budget this way; as Eisenhower used to point out,

having a healthy economy is the also part of, ah, of defense. But we do

have to have adequate military strength, and the other lesson is we

have to have a constant readiness to negotiate, we have to understand

that diplomacy is as much a weapon of national power as armaments. And

what the impressive thing about the missile crisis was that Kennedy,

both Kennedys were alert throughout to the possibilities of a

negotiated solution, and that was in the end what they brought about.

Chance of Nuclear War during Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

JUST IN YOUR OWN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KENNEDYS, DID YOU GET A

SENSE THAT THEY WERE PERSONALLY FRIGHTENED BY THE MISSILE CRISIS?

Schlesinger:

I think...were the Kennedys frightened by the missile crisis? Well,

they were deeply concerned -- I mean, no one knew what the hell might

happen. As I think as I said, I do not think that Kennedy, um, thought

that the Soviet Union is likely to initiate nuclear war, but he was

terribly concerned that some- thing might go... wrong down the line,

and that was... was much on his mind, and no one knew quite what might

happen in the, in the... a crisis of that sort. Plans were circulated

evacuation... in case of nuclear war. Robert Kennedy tore his up;

and... said, "I'm not going to be a vie-, go down in any of those...

down, underground shelters;" he said, "If nuclear war comes I'm going

out to Hickory Hill and be with my family." So there was that kind of

apprehension, ah, but I think... there, there...was a general feeling

that... you kept at it, that Khrushchev in the end would be, was a

rational man, and that some resolution would be found.

Interviewer:

THE CRITICS OF ALL THIS...WOULD SAY THAT THE CHANCES OF WAR WERE

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ONE IN THREE -- THAT PERHAPS KENNEDY WAS BEING A BIT

RECKLESS IN THIS WHOLE ENTERPRISE.

Schlesinger:

Question, was Kennedy reckless? I would, I wouldn't have thought so. I

think the reckless thing would have been to leave the missiles there.

And I think the country... the world... would have been such a

dangerous world, had the missiles remained. I think it was absolutely

indispensable to get them out. And I think he got them out in a very

non-reckless way. And he got them out effectively and peace was

preserved and... ah, I don't know what more one could expect.

Trading Turkish Missiles

Interviewer:

LIPPMAN'S FEELING WAS THAT JUPITER SHOULD BE TRADED AND MAKE IT OPEN.

DID HIS ARTICLE HAVE ANY EFFECT?

Schlesinger:

Question of Walter Lippman's article -- he wrote one during the crisis,

proposing... uh, the... with... exchange of the Turkish and the...

Cuban missiles... and uh, that provoked a kind of favorable reaction in

Moscow -- caused great irritation in the White House, and not because

they disagreed... with... Lippmann... line... of thinking, which indeed

was the line of thinking that K- that Kennedy himself was pur-

pursuing, and on which he finally acted. Ah, but they felt that to say

that publicly was... stiffen the Russians, and make them increase their

bargaining terms. So that the irritation of Lippman had not to do with

the substance of his argument, but the timing of it, and the fear that

this would harden the Soviet position.

Interviewer:

AND EVEN STEVENSON, WHO PROPOSED THE TRADE, IN THE END WHEN THAT PLAN

HAPPENED, HE SAW HE WAS JUSTIFIED.

Schlesinger:

A number, a number of people in the executive committee meetings

have... from time to time, proposed the trade: McNamara did; Stevenson

did... I mean, the reason Stevenson got into trouble wasn't the Turkish

missiles, it was the further suggestion of Guantanamo that... ah, but

it was... much, much on people's minds throughout -- and on the other

hand, a number of people strongly opposed the Turkish missile deal, on

the ground of its... impact, they thought, on NATO.

[END OF TAPE D04041 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-nk3610w480

If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-nk3610w480).

Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Schlesinger, Arthur M. (Arthur Meier), 1917-2007
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 88b98d11656746ce3f2e7ecc6c715e1806e7fe88 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986,” 1986-03-07, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 18, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-nk3610w480.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986.” 1986-03-07. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 18, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-nk3610w480>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-nk3610w480