How does John F. Kennedy think during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
You need to know one thing about Kennedy before we move directly to the crisis
and that is what he did as a young man in the South Pacific.
John F. Kennedy could not get into the Army, Navy, Air Force.
He had to pull all kinds of tricks, and his father had to exert his influence…
and probably pass along a little money to get him in.
He was unhealthy. He had a lot of health problems.
But he got in... right in the middle of the war in 1943.
He was shipped off to the bloodiest zone of the war- the South Pacific.
where the US attempt to retake certain islands had already begun that had been captured by the Japanese earlier
and what Kennedy witnessed while he was in the South Pacific is in his letters
that he wrote to girlfriends, to his mother, to his father, to his brothers…
His PT boat is going all over the islands
and what he picks up every day he’s in the Pacific is that the Japanese
when confronted with overwhelming military power, they refused to capitulate.
In fact, they will commit suicide before they will allow you to take them prisoner- and that includes civilians.
People are falling on grenades and being exploded,
people are joining hands as families and neighborhoods and leaping off cliffs to their death below.
Island after island was taken by the marines only to find dead bodies everywhere,
bodies that they did not kill (along with some that they did).
This was totally unnerving to the Americans.
This is Kennedy’s frame of reference.
You cannot depend on the enemy to capitulate just because you have overwhelming power.
The Japanese refused to capitulate until the threat existed that the entire country would be nuked.
Kennedy brings that kind of experience to the situation room at the White House
as President in October of 1962.
Kennedy now is confronted with General Curtis LeMay.
Curtis LeMay was a war hero.
He was the guy who designed the program that dropped all the bombs
including the nuclear bombs on Japan.
He is now the Air Force Chief of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
LeMay comes into Kennedy and says
“Mr. President, it’s time to go to war.”
Kennedy is a bit shocked.
He says, “Well, General,
what do you suppose the Russians will do
if we bomb all those missiles sites in Cuba for starters?”
And LeMay says, “They won’t do anything
because we’ve got superior power,
and they know (and we’ve let them know) that we have massive nuclear superiority,
so they won’t do anything. They’re not suicidal.
They’re not going to do anything.”
You can almost imagine Kennedy listening to this little speech by LeMay.
In fact you can actually listen to LeMay because it’s on tape.
LeMay is telling his President, “You don’t have any other option, Mr. President.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you have got to go to war and you’ve got to go to war now,
and the quicker the better. Better to surprise them.”
He is appalled because he knows that massive, overwhelming power
does not necessarily lead the enemy to capitulate.
And this time, this time- unlike Japan,
which had no nuclear weapons
this time he knows that the enemy has got a lot of nuclear weapons,
and this General is telling him on faith or because of arrogance or just ignorance,
he doesn’t really care why, but he’s telling him this-
that it’s OK to start a war with the Soviet Union because they won’t do anything.
Kennedy with that experience in the Pacific says to LeMay, “You’ve got to come up with a different plan.
We are not going to attack Cuba tonight or tomorrow night or anytime soon.
And I just don’t believe you,” he says,
“when you say that the Russians will do nothing.”