Thomas S. Blanton is executive director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. I asked the NATO field commanders how they were going to use the tactical nuclear weapons under their command. As the President told a friend not long after the crisis ended, “You have no idea how much bad advice I had in those days.”, As it happens, much of this bad advice came from the author of “Thirteen Days.” “Oh, shit!

Was the “Friday message” written before (or after) the “Saturday message”? Invasion of the island? He was convinced, correctly, that the U.S. was still intent on ousting Castro, and he wanted to prevent that from happening. c. Commence large scale United States military operations.

He is convinced of that even now. It ain't going to work.". White once put it, admittedly in another context, “Things might easily have gone the other way round, and none left to do the accounting.”, “Unanticipated events can happen no matter how carefully actions are planned,” Sherwin writes. The conversation was remarkable for its candor regarding how poorly the Americans and Soviets had thought through their actions that led to the crisis. As I recall, they believed that the first shipment of warheads was aboard the ship Poltava, a ship which was to arrive in Cuba within a few days. As a result, just about everything anyone has claimed about his own conduct during the crisis has been called into question. We were so close to a nuclear catastrophe. Did they not recognize that, with respect to the nuclear balance, before the deployment in Cuba, the United States had a clear deterrent capability but not the capacity to accomplish a “disarming first strike?” The deployment of missiles in Cuba did not change this situation. Ad Choices. If so, would you have recommended their use? In my opinion, it is because when decisions are made in almost total secrecy, very few people are involved in it.

Kennedy had used Cuba against his opponent—Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s Vice-President. McNamara: Of course it may seem logical to use the tactical nuclear weapons, if you feel threatened and have no alternative, due to a massive attack. The following is a communication from Soviet defense minister Malinovsky on October 5, 1962, sent to the Central Committee outlining what nuclear armaments would be sent to Cuba. To revisit this article, select My⁠ ⁠Account, then View saved stories. Well, one of the ways is to determine that certain kinds of conflict will be prohibited by law. And what that will mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what terrible forces our countries possess. These events seemed dangerous at the time.

It was already public knowledge. There would not be an assault against Cuba. The suggested courses of action appended to Enclosure A are based on the premise that US military intervention will result from a period of heightened US-Cuban tensions which place the United States in the position of suffering justifiable grievances.

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