Below is a post on another forum from historian, Joseph McBride. I think October 27, 1962, rivals the day Glass extended Crean as the most dangerous day in human history, but that is for each to decide.
Today, October 27, is the 59th anniversary of what was probably the most dangerous day in human history. That Saturday was the climactic day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara went to sleep that night not knowing if he would wake the following morning. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were pressuring President Kennedy to invade Cuba, which had Soviet nuclear weapons installed, including many tactical nukes (McNamara later claimed the US did not know the nukes were present and operational, but Kennedy acted as if they were). The Chiefs were trying to force an invasion of 100,000 troops to begin on the following Monday or Tuesday. The results would have been catastrophic on the island and would probably have triggered World War III. Although both Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev earlier had been reckless in allowing the situation to get out of hand in a game of nuclear brinksmanship, both came to realize the extreme danger the world was under and that they had to stop it.
Khrushchev sent two letters to Kennedy on Oct. 26, one threatening and one impassioned in its plea to end the danger. Kennedy's ExComm was confounded by the conflicting messages until Llewellyn (Tommy) Thompson, who had been ambassador to the USSR and knew Khrushchev well, urged Kennedy to reply only to the conciliatory message (the "Trollope ploy"). Thompson correctly believed the threatening message had been forced on Khrushchev by the Politburo and the conciliatory one was his own cri de coeur. In that one (among the most moving pieces of diplomacy ever written), the Soviet leader told Kennedy: "If you have not lost command of yourself and realize clearly what this could lead to, then, Mr. President, you and I should not now pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied a knot of war, because the harder you and I pull, the tighter the knot will become. And a time may come when this knot is tied so tight that the person who tied it is no longer capable of untying it, and then the knot will have to be cut. What that would mean I need not explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what dread forces our two countries possess."
Kennedy followed Thompson's advice to reply in kind but sent his brother Robert, the attorney general, to see Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobyrnin at the Justice Department on the evening of Oct. 27 to warn him of the extreme gravity of the situation. RFK delivered an ultimatum from the president while offering other terms as olive branches: If the USSR agreed to withdraw the missiles, the US offered a secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba. As reported by Khrushchev in his 1970 autobiography, KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS, what RFK told Dobrynin was: "The President is in a grave situation, and he does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba. . . . Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control." (This part you don't read in mainstream history books.)
Secretary of State Dean Rusk's famous comment, "We are eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," referred to the Soviets, but he could have been describing JFK's relationship with the Joint Chiefs. After Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for the secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba, Kennedy wrote him, "I think that you and I, with our heavy responsibilities for the maintenance of peace, were aware that developments were approaching a point where events could have become unmanageable."
The USSR backed down, world war was averted, the Joint Chiefs were furious with JFK, and both Khrushchev and JFK lost their jobs for saving the world. We owe them both thanks for our existence today.
Today, October 27, is the 59th anniversary of what was probably the most dangerous day in human history. That Saturday was the climactic day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara went to sleep that night not knowing if he would wake the following morning. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were pressuring President Kennedy to invade Cuba, which had Soviet nuclear weapons installed, including many tactical nukes (McNamara later claimed the US did not know the nukes were present and operational, but Kennedy acted as if they were). The Chiefs were trying to force an invasion of 100,000 troops to begin on the following Monday or Tuesday. The results would have been catastrophic on the island and would probably have triggered World War III. Although both Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev earlier had been reckless in allowing the situation to get out of hand in a game of nuclear brinksmanship, both came to realize the extreme danger the world was under and that they had to stop it.
Khrushchev sent two letters to Kennedy on Oct. 26, one threatening and one impassioned in its plea to end the danger. Kennedy's ExComm was confounded by the conflicting messages until Llewellyn (Tommy) Thompson, who had been ambassador to the USSR and knew Khrushchev well, urged Kennedy to reply only to the conciliatory message (the "Trollope ploy"). Thompson correctly believed the threatening message had been forced on Khrushchev by the Politburo and the conciliatory one was his own cri de coeur. In that one (among the most moving pieces of diplomacy ever written), the Soviet leader told Kennedy: "If you have not lost command of yourself and realize clearly what this could lead to, then, Mr. President, you and I should not now pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied a knot of war, because the harder you and I pull, the tighter the knot will become. And a time may come when this knot is tied so tight that the person who tied it is no longer capable of untying it, and then the knot will have to be cut. What that would mean I need not explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what dread forces our two countries possess."
Kennedy followed Thompson's advice to reply in kind but sent his brother Robert, the attorney general, to see Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobyrnin at the Justice Department on the evening of Oct. 27 to warn him of the extreme gravity of the situation. RFK delivered an ultimatum from the president while offering other terms as olive branches: If the USSR agreed to withdraw the missiles, the US offered a secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba. As reported by Khrushchev in his 1970 autobiography, KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS, what RFK told Dobrynin was: "The President is in a grave situation, and he does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba. . . . Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control." (This part you don't read in mainstream history books.)
Secretary of State Dean Rusk's famous comment, "We are eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," referred to the Soviets, but he could have been describing JFK's relationship with the Joint Chiefs. After Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for the secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba, Kennedy wrote him, "I think that you and I, with our heavy responsibilities for the maintenance of peace, were aware that developments were approaching a point where events could have become unmanageable."
The USSR backed down, world war was averted, the Joint Chiefs were furious with JFK, and both Khrushchev and JFK lost their jobs for saving the world. We owe them both thanks for our existence today.
