Bobby Kennedy On Not Bombing the Innocents
Writing about my old Fidelista pal Bob Kaffke got me wanting to learn more about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. So I checked out Thirteen Days, Robert Kennedy's memoir of the period. I just have to share this scene with you...
JFK has just found out the Russians are placing missiles with atomic warheads all over Cuba. Right away, he calls a meeting of his staff. What are we going to do about it?
The military guys, led by General Curtis LeMay, want an immediate surprise attack, followed by an invasion. Blast every one of those suckers before they have a chance to arm the missiles, but we'll inevitably miss some so we'll have to follow up by invading the country.
The other side, led by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, favors a total blockade of Cuba. Keep out everybody, Russian ships, Russian submarines, merchant ships - everybody until the Russians back off or until something else happens. It's a first step. Let's avoid an all-out war if we can.
Here's what Robert Kennedy says as he thinks over the possibilities, and I quote,
"...I could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands and thousands of civilians in a surprise attack. Maybe the alternatives were not very palatable, but I simply did not see how we could accept that course of action for our country...
"Whatever military reasons he (Dean Acheson) and others could marshal, they were nevertheless, in the last analysis, advocating a surprise attack by a very large nation against a very small one. This, I said, could not be undertaken by the U.S. if we were to maintain our moral position at home and around the globe. Our struggle against Communism throughout the world was far more than physical survival - it had as its essence our heritage and our ideals, and these we must not destroy."
Just burns me up to think how we have squandered that moral position. Squandered it!
JFK has just found out the Russians are placing missiles with atomic warheads all over Cuba. Right away, he calls a meeting of his staff. What are we going to do about it?
The military guys, led by General Curtis LeMay, want an immediate surprise attack, followed by an invasion. Blast every one of those suckers before they have a chance to arm the missiles, but we'll inevitably miss some so we'll have to follow up by invading the country.
The other side, led by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, favors a total blockade of Cuba. Keep out everybody, Russian ships, Russian submarines, merchant ships - everybody until the Russians back off or until something else happens. It's a first step. Let's avoid an all-out war if we can.
Here's what Robert Kennedy says as he thinks over the possibilities, and I quote,
"...I could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands and thousands of civilians in a surprise attack. Maybe the alternatives were not very palatable, but I simply did not see how we could accept that course of action for our country...
"Whatever military reasons he (Dean Acheson) and others could marshal, they were nevertheless, in the last analysis, advocating a surprise attack by a very large nation against a very small one. This, I said, could not be undertaken by the U.S. if we were to maintain our moral position at home and around the globe. Our struggle against Communism throughout the world was far more than physical survival - it had as its essence our heritage and our ideals, and these we must not destroy."
Just burns me up to think how we have squandered that moral position. Squandered it!
Labels: America
posted by Christopher Newton at 10:04 AM
8 Comments:
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We are admonished in both testaments to, as much as it is up to us, "Seek peace and pursue it." The question is, how do we do that?
In too many instances, we fail to recognize that the traits of the warrior are not just those of bloodshed. The same vehemence and sense of absolute purpose can be channelled and applied in a number of ways. Who would deny that the likes of King and Gandhi and Mother Theresa did not have the attitudes of a warrior?
Diplomacy, as a tool does not always work. But then neither does all-out war. LeMay was right about the perceptions after WWII if we'd have lost. Sometimes it's a matter of retrospect where we find the truth of the situation.
War, philosophically, is simply politics by other means. Reality, alas, is not usually philosophical.
I guess there's an irony in our world, in that the US is the only power to have ever used nuclear weapons. The conjecture can be made that we still do, whenever we launch a depleted uranium tipped missile.
So we struggle, as we should, to prevent the rest of the world from even considering developing these WMD, all the while knowing who opened the box.
Regret is worthless at this point, as is changing the past. Now it's a matter of discovering how to live with the mess we have, no matter who started it all, and doing the best we can to not repeat mistakes.
Good pondering, guys, except O Chronicler, I don't think I understand what you are getting at. Are you saying that the USA still holds the moral high ground that Bobby Kennedy recognized, and our actions in Iraq are good examples of this?
Or are you saying that it's all an illusion and we never held any moral high ground in the first place, as the bombing of Japan shows?
I agree with your prediction, by the way. Soviet style communism didn't even last 100 years. Militant Islam has been invading nations since the eighth century. And it's not going to turn into a religion of lambs and flowers any time soon.
Follow up to the Chronicler:
Hey man - first of all I want to say how much I appreciate your taking the time to write a serious, thought-provoking comment. You do like to stir things up - and I appreciate that quality. It makes me think, and a forum where people can talk seriously about differing points of view is rare in this world.
That said, it seems to me you're advocating the "winning is everything" point of view. Which is perilously close to the "might is right" philosophy. Personally, I don't buy it. I stand, not with Winston Churchill (if I win, I will write the history), but with Emily Hobhouse who exposed the horror of the British POW camps during the Boer War, even though she was British herself. (see my last summer's post about her, One Hundred Five Years Ago), And, unlike Curtis LeMay, I would prefer not to worry about being tried as a war criminal if I lose - because my country is NOT a war criminal. That's why it freaks Americans out when a few of our soldiers are caught raping and murdering civilians. It's completely against our belief in who we are as a nation. To me doing the Right Thing is the higher good.
People don't read long comments so my defense of JFK is in the next comment.
Response to Chronicler's Criticism of JFK:
To quote your comment: "War is something to be avoided at all costs". I agree, and, I would add, especially the kind that leaves millions and millions dead and entire continents in radioactive ruin.
All-out nuclear war. We never talk about it any more, but it was the likely follow-up if there was one mistep in JFK's negotiations with Khrushchev. It was JFK's willingness to keep talking, be firm, get the military in total readiness but keep talking - that saved our little bottoms and also those of our unborn children. In return, as you say, he gave up some obsolete Jupiter missiles in Turkey that he intended to dismantle anyway because the Nautilus subs in the Mediterranean were a more effective deterrent.
I was an adult (in a manner of speaking) in 1962, and I can never forget that week of ghastliness. We owe JFK. That's my opinion.
Is the War in Iraq Preventing Terrorism at Home?
"When Hitlers and Saddams and other dangerous megalomaniacs rise up, we were forced to respond. It is much better to take the fight to the enemy's region than to allow it to come to the homeland. That is why there have been no further attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11."
Good stuff, but in my opinion, we haven't had any more attacks because the Office of Homeland Security must be pretty effective.
We're the guys the fundamentalist Islamists love to hate. We're the Great Satan, remember? If they could get to us they would! In my opinion the war in Iraq has nothing to do with it. When the boys finally come home, the Homeland Security folks will be just as busy as before. It's the world we're living in.
Was Vietnam the end of America's moral high ground?
You read me right. That is what I would argue, although you go back to the Spanish-American and, of course, the Indian Wars to decimate my historical argument. So I won't try.
Finally, I have to say I have seen little evidence so far of a 'freedom-yearning democracy-worthy Iraqi people'. In fact, if we really want to 'win' this thing, I suggest we just leave Iraq. Let the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other off, go back in and beat up the weak and bloody winners. Then put our own strong man in place to make sure the lid stays on.
Isn't that pretty much what the Soviets did to eastern Europe after WWII? And it worked pretty well for a couple generations.
I can't conceive of another strategy that leads to a possible 'win'. But, hopefully like every other reader, I hate that strategy.
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