Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation Read online

  The president has dealt with crisis after crisis since taking office 21 months ago. But nothing—not the Bay of Pigs, not civil rights, not the Berlin Wall—can even remotely compare with this.

  JFK orders McGeorge Bundy to immediately schedule a top-secret meeting of the national security staff. He then phones Bobby, telling him that “we have some big trouble. I want you over here.” The president decides not to deviate from his normal schedule; he doesn’t want the news about this “second Cuba” to get out quite yet. He has several good reasons for this. One is that he doesn’t want to panic the American public. He needs to learn about the situation and make a plan for moving forward before talking to the press.

  Another reason has to do with JFK’s political best interests. The president long ago assured the American public that he would not allow the Soviets to install offensive weapons in Cuba. Now Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of the Soviet Union, is calling Kennedy’s bluff.

  One of many conversations during the Cuban missile crisis. Here, Kennedy talks with Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  The final, and by far the most important, reason the president doesn’t want word leaking out about the missiles in Cuba is that he does not want the Russian leadership to know that he is on to their secret.

  Labeled U.S. spy plane photo of launch sites being prepared in Cuba. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  So on the morning of October 16, Kennedy leaves the residence and walks down to the Oval Office to start his day.

  Two hours later, the top-secret meeting to talk about the Soviet missiles begins. Kennedy takes a seat at the center of the table, not the head. Bobby sits across from him, as does LBJ. Eleven other men are in attendance, all handpicked for their expertise and loyalty to the president.

  Photos taken by U-2 spy planes show that the Soviet missiles are being prepared for launch. Experts think that the nuclear warheads, the bombs that the missiles and planes will carry, are on Soviet ships heading for Cuba. So the main objective is to prevent these ships from reaching Cuba and unloading the bombs. The group presents various military opinions. The first is a limited air strike. The second is a broader air strike, on a broader number of targets. The third is a naval blockade of Cuban waters to keep the Soviet ships away.

  The ExComm group meets to discuss the situation in Cuba. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  Bobby, who has listened quietly throughout the 70-minute meeting, finally speaks up, suggesting that a full-scale invasion of Cuba might be necessary. It is the only way to prevent Russian bombs from ever being placed on Cuban soil.

  JFK, in his rocking chair, meets with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, on Kennedy’s right, on October 18, 1962. The Soviet ambassador to the U.S. is on Gromyko’s right. White House Secret Service agent Frank Yeager stands behind the photographers. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  Even as military force seems like the only solution, JFK is still troubled by the question of motive. Why is Nikita Khrushchev trying to provoke the Americans into war?

  The president doesn’t know the answer. But two things are apparent: Those missiles must be removed and, far more important, those nuclear warheads cannot be allowed to reach Cuba.

  Ever.

  On October 18, Kennedy meets privately with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. It is Gromyko who requests the meeting, not knowing that the Americans have discovered that the Soviets have placed offensive missiles in Cuba. The topics of discussion are the goings-on in Berlin and Soviet leader Khrushchev’s upcoming visit to America. Kennedy skillfully guides the subject toward the topic of nuclear weapons. Gromyko then lies to the president’s face, stating most adamantly that the Soviet Union would never become involved in the furnishing of offensive weapons to Cuba. He says that the Soviet advisers in Cuba are training the Cuban military to use defensive weapons.

  Of course, Kennedy knows that Gromyko is lying.

  An SS-4 missile, the kind the Soviets sent to Cuba. [© Shutterstock.com]

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  OCTOBER 19 TO 25, 1962

  The White House

  THERE IS NO DAY AND THERE IS NO NIGHT in the Kennedy White House as the Cuban confrontation escalates. The president is in such pain from his back that he gets around on crutches, further adding to the tension.

  For two days, Kennedy and his close advisers debate the top-secret threat to the United States. Photos taken by U-2 spy planes show that people are working around the clock to complete the missile sites, meaning that warheads could be launched toward the United States within a matter of days. No one leaks this information to the press. Not even the Congress is told.

  On the night of Monday, October 22, at 7:00 P.M., the scene changes. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears on national television to inform America about the potentially lethal missiles in Cuba—and what he plans to do about them.

  Cameramen film President Kennedy’s address to the nation, October 22, 1962, outlining his strategy for the removal of Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba. [JFK Presidential Library and Museum]

  “Good evening, my fellow citizens,” he says in greeting from his study at the White House. There are deep grooves under his greenish-gray eyes, giving him a haggard look instead of the vibrant, youthful countenance the nation is used to seeing.

  On October 22, 1962, customers in an electronics store watch President Kennedy’s address to the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. [© Ralph Crane/Getty]

  This broadcast from the White House is quite the opposite of Jackie’s lighthearted tour eight months earlier. Kennedy must make the most powerful speech of his life. He does not smile. His face is stern. There is menace in his eyes. He is not optimistic, nor even hopeful. His words come out angrily, with a vehemence that shocks some viewers. Kennedy speaks the words of a man who has been bent until he will bend no more. And now he’s fighting back.

  “Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”

  Here the president pauses, letting the words sink in. He then talks about Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko’s visit to his office the previous Thursday, quotes Gromyko on the subject of missiles in Cuba—and then calls Gromyko a liar, for all the world to hear.

  Soviet ship with missiles partially uncovered. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  The president is about to throw down the gauntlet. “Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted me by the Constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately.”

  The U.S. destroyer Vesole escorts a Soviet ship returning to its home port, November 12, 1962. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  JFK promises to “quarantine” Cuba, using the might of the U.S. Navy to prevent any Soviet vessel from entering Cuban waters. He declares that he is prepared to use military might in the form of an invasion, if necessary. He states unequivocally that any missile launched by the Cubans or Soviets will be considered an act of war and that the United States will reciprocate with missiles of its own. The president then places the blame squarely on the Soviets. “And finally, I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and transform the history of man.”

  The year before the Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev and Kennedy had a cordial meeting in Vienna, Austria. [© Associated Press]

  The power of the president’s speech, and the terrible news that he now delivers to the public, will make this moment st
and forever in the minds of people watching. For as long as they live, men and women will recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard this terrible news.

  John Kennedy, being his charismatic self, is incapable of concluding a speech without a stirring moment to galvanize his listeners. Whether with his Gold Star Mothers speech in a Boston American Legion hall during his first run for Congress, or with his inaugural address in 1961, or now on national television, JFK knows how to grab his listeners by the heart and rally their emotional support.

  “Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right. Not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom—here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.”

  The White House set fades to black.

  * * *

  American forces around the world immediately prepare for war. All navy and marine personnel are about to have their duty tours extended indefinitely. American warships and submarines form a defensive perimeter around Cuba, preparing to stop and search the 25 Soviet ships currently sailing toward that defiant island.

  U.S. Air Force bombers are already in the air around the clock. The crews will circle over European and American skies in a racetrack pattern, awaiting the “go” code to break from their flight plan and strike at the heart of the Soviet Union. The nonstop air brigade means just one thing: The United States is ready to retaliate and destroy Russia.

  * * *

  Thirteen hundred miles away from Washington, D.C., in Dallas, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald is listening to Kennedy’s speech. Unlike the majority of Americans, Oswald believes that the Soviets have every right to be in Cuba. He is convinced that President Kennedy is putting the world on the brink of nuclear war by taking such an aggressive stance against the Soviets. From Oswald’s perspective, Castro’s people must be protected from the terrorist behavior of the United States.

  Nikita Khrushchev hoped that Fidel Castro’s Cuba would be a Soviet power base. [© Associated Press]

  Oswald moved from Forth Worth to Dallas earlier in the month and found a job at the firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, as a photographic trainee. Amazingly, the firm has a contract with the U.S. Army Map Service that involves highly classified photographs taken by the U-2 spy planes flying over Cuba. One of Marina Oswald’s Russian friends, George de Mohrenschildt, arranged for Oswald to be hired there. De Mohrenschildt is a mysterious character, a wealthy Russian-American businessman who just may have CIA connections. If the FBI, in all its zeal to stop the spread of communism, is concerned that a former Soviet defector now has a job with access to top-secret U-2 data at the peak of cold war tensions, the agency is not proving it by paying attention to his case. Nor are they curious about why George de Mohrenschildt has taken an interest in the Oswalds.

  * * *

  Thousands of miles away in Moscow, a furious Nikita Khrushchev composes his response to JFK’s televised message.

  It was Khrushchev alone who devised the plan to place missiles in Cuba. He presented his idea to the Soviet government’s Central Committee and then to Fidel Castro just three months earlier. Khrushchev claimed the decision was a goodwill gesture to the Cuban people, in case of another Bay of Pigs–style invasion. He believed the missiles could be hidden from the United States and, even if they were discovered, that Kennedy would refuse to act.

  Cuban soldiers stand by anti-aircraft artillery at the Havana, Cuba, waterfront in response to the warning of an invasion by the United States. [© Bettmann/Corbis]

  But Khrushchev is wrong about Kennedy. He is surprised to learn that his adversary is deadly serious about defending his country at all costs. Khrushchev tells associates he will not back down. He is a firm believer in the old Russian saying, “Once you’re in a fight, don’t spare yourself. Give it everything you’ve got.”

  On the evening of October 24, Khrushchev orders that his letter be transmitted to Kennedy. In it the Communist leader states calmly and unequivocally that the president’s proposed naval blockade is “a pirate act.” Soviet ships are being instructed to ignore it.

  President Kennedy receives Premier Khrushchev’s letter just before 11:00 P.M. on October 24. He responds less than three hours later, coolly stating that the blockade is necessary and placing all blame for the crisis on Khrushchev and the Soviets.

  It’s becoming clear that Kennedy will never back down.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  OCTOBER 26, 1962

  The White House

  AS THE SOVIET LEADERSHIP WAITS FOR JFK to crack, he instead goes on the offensive. The president spends Friday, October 26, planning the invasion of Cuba. No detail is too small. He requests a list of all Cuban doctors in Miami, just in case there will be a need to airlift them into Cuba. Kennedy knows where each invasion ship will assemble. All the while, the president frets that “when military hostilities first begin, those missiles will be fired at us.”

  JFK is privately telling aides that it’s now a showdown between him and Khrushchev, “two men sitting on opposite sides of the world,” deciding “the end of civilization.”

  It’s a staring contest. The loser is the one who blinks first.

  Khrushchev spends all of that night in the Kremlin—just in case something violent transpires. The Soviet leader is uncharacteristically pensive. Something is on his mind. Shortly after midnight, he sits down and dictates a new message to President Kennedy.

  It is 7:00 P.M. in Washington and 3:00 A.M. in Moscow when the message is delivered. JFK has spent the day fine-tuning the upcoming invasion of Cuba. He is bone tired, running on a hidden reserve of energy.

  The same is true of the ExComm—Executive Committee of the National Security Council—men who have been working with Kennedy. They’ve been awake night and day for almost two weeks. Then Khrushchev’s message arrives. The letter’s wording is personal, an appeal from one leader to another to do the right thing. The Soviet leader insists that he is not trying to incite nuclear war: “Only lunatics or suicides, who themselves want to perish and to destroy the whole world before they die, could do this,” he writes. The Soviet ruler rambles on, questioning Kennedy’s motivations.

  Khrushchev closes his letter by negotiating with Kennedy in a somewhat confusing fashion. The paragraph that draws the most attention states, “If, however, you have not lost your self-control and sensibly conceive what this might lead to, then, Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot.…”

  The ExComm group does not believe that Khrushchev’s message is the sign of an outright capitulation. But they all agree it’s a start.

  For the first time in more than a week, Kennedy feels hopeful. Yet he does not lift the blockade. There are still nearly a dozen Soviet vessels steering directly toward the quarantine line—and these ships show no signs of turning around.

  The tension increases the next afternoon, when word reaches the president that Cuban surface-to-air missiles have shot down an American U-2 spy plane. The pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson Jr., has been killed.

  In retaliation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff demand that the president launch U.S. bombers in a massive air strike on Cuba within 48 hours, to be followed by an outright invasion.

  President Kennedy secretly sends Bobby to meet with Soviet officials in Washington with the promise not to invade Cuba if the missiles are removed.

  Then Khrushchev blinks.

  The Communist leader has been so sure that Kennedy is bluffing that he has not mobilized the Soviet army to full alert. Yet Khrushchev’s intelligence reports now show that the United States is serious about invading Cuba.

  The Russian dictator sees that the American president is willing to conduct a nuclear war if pushed to the limi
t. Yes, the United States will be gone forever. But so will the Soviet Union.

  On Sunday morning, at nine o’clock, Radio Moscow tells the people of the Soviet Union that Chairman Khrushchev has saved the world from annihilation. The words are also aimed directly at JFK when the commentator states that the Soviets choose to “dismantle the arms which you described as offensive, and to crate and return them to Soviet Russia.”

  After 13 exhausting days, the Cuban missile crisis is over.

  * * *

  In Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald has been following the action closely. He is living alone in the new two-story brick apartment he rented on Elsbeth Street. After the couple had many fights, Marina moved in with some of her Russian friends and hasn’t even given Oswald her new address.

  Outcast, misunderstood, and alone, Lee Harvey Oswald, who considers himself a great man destined to accomplish great things, festers in a quiet rage.

  Oswald very rarely smiled for photographs. [© Corbis]

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JANUARY 8, 1963

  Washington, D.C. 9:30 P.M.

  JACKIE KENNEDY LOOKS STUNNING in her pink gown and dangling diamond earrings. Long white gloves come up past her elbows. She makes small talk with a man she adores, André Malraux, the 61-year-old writer who serves as the French minister of culture.

  On this night, as she stands in the West Sculpture Hall of the National Gallery of Art, the first lady is truly a vision.

  Jackie turns away from Malraux to gaze at the figure in the painting hanging on the gallery wall. She is known as La Gioconda, or the Mona Lisa, a wife and mother of five children who sat for this portrait by Leonardo da Vinci in the early sixteenth century.