Diplomatic Efforts of US and Soviet Union in Cuban Missile Crisis

Diplomacy and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Introduction

The Cuban Missile Crisis (16 October 1962 to 20 November 1962) began with the discovery by US intelligence of Soviet missile launch facilities in Cuba. The threat of an attack on US soil was made clear to President Kennedy by his Joint Chiefs of Staff, who urged Kennedy to take aggressive counter-measures. Kennedy’s main concern was that aggressive action on his point could lead to even more aggressive retaliation on the part of the Soviet Union and ultimately to nuclear war. Largely seen as exercising coercive diplomacy to avoid a military confrontation, Kennedy’s diplomatic efforts in the Crisis have been praised as a defining moment in the Cold War. The reality of the situation is, however, that behind the scenes Kennedy engaged in quid pro quo diplomacy to satisfy Khrushchev and avert a war.

Background

Throughout the latter half of 1962, campaigns for the upcoming Congressional elections laid the Democrats open to charges from Republicans that the Democratic President was not taking seriously the threat in Cuba. In the summer of that year, Khrushchev and Castro had met to discuss the building of missile launches off the coast of Florida. Republicans looking to win more seats in Congress contended in public that Kennedy was not doing enough to counter the Soviet-Cuban alliance. Republican Congressman Kenneth Keating from New York that summer gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he accused the White House Democratic Administration of gross negligence in ignoring the construction of a Soviet military base in Cuba (Congressional Record, 1962). Democrats controlled the Senate, 64 seats to the Republicans’ 36. Republicans were intent on gaining seats by denouncing the Democrats as do-nothings on international matters of grave importance, including national security. Kennedy was thus faced with political pressure at home. From his perspective, the Cuban Missile Crisis represented an existential crisis to his party’s control in the Senate. If he acted wrongly, the public could punish Democrats at the voting booths in the upcoming November elections. Kennedy was already distrustful of his military advisors, and so he entrusted diplomacy on this matter to a select few that he believed could help him achieve a peaceful solution that would satisfy all (Mullins, 2013).

From the Soviet perspective, the erection of missile facilities in Cuba was meant to close the missile gap between the US and the Soviet Union (Allison & Zelikow, 1999). The US had missiles strategically placed in Italy and Turkey that could deliver a nuclear payload to the Soviet Union. Khrushchev wanted a site from which he too could launch a similar kind of strike against the US. He also did not want to risk seeing another invasion of Cuba by the US, and missiles in Cuba could be seen as a deterrent.

There was also another reason Khrushchev sought to have missile facilities in Cuba. He believed he could use this as leverage in gaining control of West Berlin from the US and other Western powers (Allison & Zelikow, 1999). From this perspective, the Soviet Union sought to use coercive power to force the US into giving up its influence in the part of Germany that the Soviet Union had no control over.

From Cuba’s perspective, allowing the erection of missile facilities made sense as a warning to the US to stay out of its affairs. The US had attempted an invasion the prior year. It had leveled economic sanctions against Cuba in response to Castro’s rise to power in the Cuban Revolution of 1959. The US had also sought to remove Cuba from the Organization of American States (Chang & Kornbluh, 1998). Cuba’s other complaint was that it was constantly being harassed by US military forces at Guantanamo Bay (Franklin, 1997).

Diplomatic Challenges

The main diplomatic challenge of the Crisis was that the US and the Soviet Union were in the midst of the Cold War and there were no direct lines of communications established between the White House and the Kremlin. Kennedy and Khrushchev were not in direct contact with one another. Whenever a message needed to be sent, it was done so publicly, through a speech or through some sort of military action—such as the establishment of missile facilities near the other country’s borders. Without speaking directly to one another, the two states were limited in terms of negotiating a win-win outcome to any conflicts. The US did have an embassy in Moscow, and the Soviets had one in Washington—but the US Ambassador in Moscow, Foy Kohler, did not even know about the brewing conflict until the closing days of October (Mullins, 2013). Between Kennedy and Khrushchev nothing passed directly—until Khrushchev sent his first cable to the President in the latter half of October. Moreover, managing public relations was of utmost importance for the two sides and their Ambassadors because the court of public opinion held great sway for both Kennedy and Khrushchev, as each looked for popular support in their own lands. Khrushchev had given his “secret speech” in 1956 in an attempt to drum up support for his party against the Stalinists. Kennedy had gained the White House in the 1960 election as the youngest person ever to hold that office. Both believed they needed the public on their side to retain power.

Tensions at Home and Abroad

Other diplomatic challenges arose out of tensions at home and abroad. Kennedy had to contend with an image of being soft on communism while maintaining a sense of poise and determination in his administration. His critics despised his failure to support the Bay of Pigs invasion with air cover. The invasion, meant to be conducted in relative secrecy turned into a rout, and Kennedy’s embarrassment over the matter prompted him to declare his animosity towards the CIA (Weiner, 2007). Khrushchev had even expressed his own dissatisfaction with what appeared to be a covert attempt at regime change in a Soviet-friendly state (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1963). Although the Democrats controlled the White House and Congress, a loss of seats in the Senate would be seen as a rebuke against Kennedy’s Administration up to that point. Khrushchev also had to contend with mounting political pressures in the Soviet Union. His speech denouncing Stalin had marked a turn in Soviet politics but it had also led to a weakening of Soviet influence in its satellite states. The pressure was on Khrushchev to shore up his power and influence or be deposed from office by his opponents.

Abroad, the effects of the Cold War were felt everywhere as the Soviet Union and the US pushed for control or influence in other parts of the world. George Kennan had urged a policy of containment as far back as 1946. Kennedy leaned toward a policy of peaceful co-existence. The Joint Chiefs pushed for pre-emptive strikes whenever they observed a potential threat. Kennedy had to negotiate these currents in order to achieve the outcome he desired without losing the support of the public at home or appearing weak abroad.

US Interests vs. Soviet Interests

US interests were impacted directly by the erection of missile facilities in Cuba, as the Joint Chiefs pointed out: major urban areas could be struck in a matter of moments, and the entire infrastructure of the US could be taken off line. That was the immediate threat. The US also had interest in removing Soviet influence and the Communist Castro from power in Cuba, as the Bay of Pigs invasion showed. Cuba had been part of the Organization of American States, but the 1959 Revolution had created an enormous social, political and economic divide between Cuba and the US where once there had been open interaction between the two.

The Cuban Missile Crisis also affected US interests in other ways: Khrushchev was correct, for instance, in believing that he could use his influence in Cuba as leverage to get concessions from the US under Kennedy. As part of the military’s policy of containment, the US had installed missiles in Turkey and Italy and was active in Asia, particularly in Korea and Vietnam. The missiles in Cuba posed a threat to the US’s ability to pursue this policy without check: suddenly, the Soviet Union could match the US in terms of a threat of arms. The US had social, economic and political views that contrasted sharply with the ideology of the Soviet Union, and it backed those views with its own military might. But Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union was a startling reminder of how effectively even a pawn can be used in a game of chess. The Soviet Union wanted greater room to maneuver in Europe and in the Americas and this show of power in Cuba was perceived as a way to gain it. It was believed that if Khrushchev secured Cuba for the Soviets, it could regain control of its satellite states and gain new ground elsewhere (Allison & Zelikow, 1999).

The Cuban Problem

Cuba had been friendly with the US prior to Castro’s ascent. The US had supported Cuba’s former leader and Americans freely went to Cuba for holiday. Many celebrities, such as the famous Hollywood Rat Pack were often depicted in the media as having a grand time in Cuban casinos. Cuba had the aura of being an offshore fantasy island for Americans. When the Revolution occurred, that aura was dispelled. Hostilities ensued, and sanctions were applied. The CIA even plotted and executed a failed coup to overthrow Castro. Castro was in no mood to forgive the US for what he considered the overstepping of boundaries or for years of perceived exploitation of the Cuban people by America. Castro wanted to implement Communist policies and aggressively punished the capitalist forces that threatened to undermine him at home. Cuba was thus the most immediate battle field in the minds of Americans when it came to experiencing the fight between the capitalist West and the Communist East. The Cuban Missile Crisis represented the epitome of this battle: the stakes were high not just because of the threat of an imminent attack posed by the missile facilities but also because here were two ideologies finally coming face to face in a stand-off of epic proportions. If either side backed down, it would be seen among stakeholders as weakness, potentially impairing that side’s ability to influence its own affairs at home or world affairs.

How Diplomacy was Applied

From the start of the Crisis, Kennedy kept his own advisors and used them in diplomatic roles. He used his Ambassador in Moscow more as a public relations manager than as a diplomat (Mullins, 2013). Kohler’s role in Moscow was essentially to respond to Soviet propaganda about what the US was doing in Cuba. It was very much a public relations bid for power in that regard as the Embassy in Moscow had to contend constantly with “Soviet signal jamming, media manipulation, and staged demonstrations” (Mullins, 2013). Additionally, Kennedy wanted to keep his diplomatic efforts hidden to as large extent as possible from public scrutiny. Once actions were spied in the public, it was more difficult to act in private, as opponents of his Administration would spin a narrative to make him look weaker politically than he believed himself to be. At the same time, it was the approach to secret diplomacy that exacerbated the Crisis: had either leader been more public about what he wanted, the Crisis might have been averted before it even began. Because of the environment of secrecy pervading the situation, coercive power and referent power were the two main types of influence used in the diplomatic strategies of Kennedy and Khrushchev.

Coercive Power and Referent Power

Coercive power in diplomacy makes use of force or the threat of force to induce the other side to accept an outcome in a negotiation. Referent power is different in that it relies on the ability of one side to understand or identify with the other side so as to be able to see what the side needs or wants in order to achieve a solution to the problem at hand (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). Both of these types of power can be seen in the diplomatic actions of the two main adversaries, the Soviet Union and the US, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

As soon as US intelligence reported to Kennedy that the Soviets had strike-force capabilities in Cuba, the pressure was on the President to respond with a military strike. Gen. Curtis LeMay wanted an invasion right away (Franklin, 1997). Cuba, sensing that a US attack was imminent, stated at the UN that it would defend itself militarily on October 7, 1962. Three days later, Senator Keating was again taking the Senate floor to warn that the Soviets were in striking distance of the US (Congressional Record, 1962).

A referent diplomatic response was just one of the options presented to Kennedy: others included a secret offer to woo Castro away from the Soviets, a full-scale military invasion of Cuba, an air strike to knock the missile facilities off-line, and a blockade to prevent the Soviets from completing their objectives in Cuba (Allison & Zelikow, 1999). The Joint Chiefs pushed for an invasion. Kennedy reasoned that such an attack would give the Soviets the incentive to attack Berlin—the symbolic heart of the Cold War at the time. Facing political pressure at home, Kennedy had promised the American public that his government would act if it were realized that Cuba did possess weapons capable of being used in an attack on America. Kennedy felt he had to make good on that promise, but he was uneasy about the situation because he did not know what the intentions of the Soviets actually was. He met with the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, who denied that the missiles in Cuba were there for attack purposes.

Nonetheless, military advisors pushed Kennedy to take military action. They wanted a blockade, but Kennedy argued that a blockade was an act of war and it would give the Soviets cause to escalate the situation. Military advisors then suggested they call the maneuver a quarantine, which would only require approval from two-thirds of the Organization of American States: it could be used to prevent the Soviets from delivering missiles and it would not be viewed as an act of war. Kennedy approved the quarantine and met with members of Congress, many of whom felt a blockade was too weak a response to the threat. Meanwhile, Kennedy dispatched Ambassador Kohler to the Kremlin to explain to Khrushchev the purpose of the quarantine. On October 22nd, Kennedy went to the American public and stated in a televised address that Cuba had Soviet missiles. He used coercive diplomacy through the media at this moment to put pressure on the Soviets by stating emphatically that “it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union” (Kennedy, 1962). He also laid out the parameters of the quarantine and what would be allowed into Cuba—basic essentials—and what would be denied entry—weapons and military equipment. He noted in this speech that this was more than the Soviets were willing to do when they blockaded Berlin in 1948. By drawing contrast between his plan and the Soviets’ conduct before him, he meant to show that his gesture retained some degree of magnanimity. His intention was clear: no escalation to war and no cause for ill will if the Soviets behave. The initial hammer blow made at the opening of his address was softened by the end of it; coercive power was used, but Kennedy kept the door open for the use of referent power.

The door to referent diplomacy was opened wider when American journalist Walter Lippmann published a column in which it was proposed that the US would remove its missiles near the Soviet border if the Soviets removed their missiles from near the US border. This was the first step in implementing the quid pro quo diplomacy that Kennedy and Khrushchev would eventually use to end the crisis. Through the media, the seed for peace was planted in this manner.

For its part, Cuba stated that it had the right to self-defense and that the missile facilities served that purpose alone. But Cuba would not permit inspections, and so its role in the negotiation process was stymied from the start. This was a contest between the Soviet Union and the US. For his part, Kennedy was determined to keep his diplomatic efforts secret (Mullins, 2013). Included in his circle of decision-makers was former Ambassador Charles Bohlen, who wrote to wrote to Kennedy’s Secretary of State Dean Rusk that diplomacy should be tried before all else: “No one can guarantee that this can be achieved by diplomatic action – but it seems to me essential that this channel should be tested out before military action is employed. If our decision is firm (and it must be) I can see no danger in communicating with Khrushchev privately worded in such a way that he realized that we mean business. […] This I consider an essential first step no matter what military course we determine on [sic] if the reply is unsatisfactory” (May & Zelikow, 2002). Bohlen indicated that a diplomatic solution to the Crisis might not be the solution, ultimately—but that until diplomacy fails it should be used however way it can so as to avoid a military confrontation.

The problem with Bohlen’s plan of reaching out directly to Khrushchev was that it placed the ball in Khrushchev’s court: he could go public with his response and embarrass the Kennedy Administration, which had pledged to the American public that it would be hard on the Soviets. Kennedy had to appear tough in the eyes of the American public or risk losing political clout in the Congress. Another option presented to Kennedy was to bring Cuba to the table for talks by telling Castro that he was being used as a pawn by the Soviets in a negotiation to win Berlin from the West. Kennedy considered this diplomatic approach as too complicated: he did not want to expand the negotiations beyond that of the US and the Soviet Union (Mullins, 2013).

Instead, Kennedy turned to former Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson to understand what Khrushchev’s intentions most likely were (Mullins, 2013). This was Kennedy now seeking to use referent power in pursuit of a diplomatic solution. He wanted to know if there was something that could be done behind closed doors to smooth tensions away. Because he believed he could not risk making a public overture to Khrushchev, he used his brother Robert Kennedy as the final piece in his diplomatic strategy to bring the Soviets to the table for a peaceful settlement to the Crisis. Thompson helped to stress the point that Khrushchev would respond to a quid pro quo settlement. Kennedy thus dispatched his brother to meet with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to see if such an arrangement could take place in private (Mullins, 2013).

Meanwhile, Kennedy also had to manage the narrative that the Soviet Union was spreading via the media. Kohler reported from Moscow that the Soviets were insinuating in the press that the US was the aggressor in Cuba and that Soviet intentions in the Caribbean were inoffensive (Mullins, 2013). Kennedy urged his staff to respond to this misinterpretation of the situation: Secretary of State Rusk wrote to all US embassies to state that the Soviets were using propaganda to justify their military presence in Cuba. Rusk stated that it was politically expedient that the US show it would not negotiate with the Soviet Union over missile placements in allied countries (Mullins, 2013). But, of course, behind the scenes, Kennedy was hoping he could do just that—and his brother Robert is the one who would make it happen. Throughout the week of October 22 to October 26, Kohler and other Ambassadors, using Voice of America media broadcasts, downplayed the notion that the US would negotiate with the Soviet Union over missiles (Mullins, 2013).

During that same week, Khrushchev sent cables to Kennedy letting him know that the Soviets would not accept a blockade no matter what it was called. The Kennedy Administration continued to use the media to present to the world a determined posture: if the Soviet Union did not accept the quarantine, air strikes would follow. At the same time, Kennedy saw that he could diplomatically exercise referent power to conclude the Crisis: he sent a response to Khrushchev in which he stated that the US had been told that the Soviets were not sending missiles to Cuba but that this was now believed to have been a lie—so that was why he had made the address to the public that he made. Still, Kennedy kept this demonstration of referent power concealed from the public. In private, it could be shown. Publicly, Kennedy stressed that he wanted to see the Soviets remove their military installations. The quarantine continued. Khrushchev’s response to this mixture of coercive and referent power became clear almost immediately: Soviet ships bound for Cuba began to reverse course. This was Khrushchev’s attempt at a fig leaf.

The Crisis was far from over, however. Although Khrushchev had ordered Cuban-bound ships to return home, Castro was defiant. He urged for a nuclear strike on the US. He also ordered any US aircraft flying to be shot down. On October 27th, a US plane was shot down by a Cuban missile. Robert Kennedy was in the midst of negotiations with Ambassador Dobrynin at the time. Robert Kennedy warned that such actions would lead to retaliation by the US. He and his brother both reiterated their desire to arrive at a peaceful conclusion. By that time Khrushchev had cabled to the US his desire for a trade-out: the missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba. For its part, Turkey opposed such a trade, as did Kennedy’s military advisors. President Kennedy reasoned, however, that the missiles in Turkey were obsolete and needed to be removed anyway. It his mind, it was a fair deal.

Therefore, permission was given to Robert Kennedy to agree to a missile trade in private with Dobrynin on October 27th, following the shooting down of the American reconnaissance plane (Hershberg, 1995). Cuba’s use of force against America proved to be a deciding factor in the negotiations, even though Cuba was not involved in the negotiation process. Castro had called for even more aggressive action from the Soviet Union, but Khrushchev had resisted this call. Like Kennedy, Khrushchev wanted a peaceful solution and used quid pro quo diplomacy to facilitate the missile trade-off agreement. However, he accepted that Cuba had a coercive power of its own and this undoubtedly was useful to the Kremlin in getting Kennedy to accept the quid pro quo deal in private that he refused to entertain in public.

In spite of his reticence to accept such a deal in public, by October 28th President Kennedy had reconsidered the ramifications of not accepting such a deal. Now that he knew Khrushchev was open to the quid pro quo settlement, as learned from his brother’s meetings with Dobrynin, he felt more confident in embracing it as a diplomatic solution to the Crisis. Thus, when Khrushchev made the offer in public on the 28th, Kennedy was positively receptive. He reasoned that if the US invaded Cuba over the missiles, with this peace offer from Khrushchev now a matter of public record, a war could never be publicly justified. His earlier misgivings about appearing soft were gone: his confidence in the deal was supported by his brother’s interviews with Dobrynin and by Thompson’s and Bohlen’s support. Bohlen had urged Kennedy to find a diplomatic solution. Thompson had given insight into Khrushchev’s thinking. They inspired Kennedy to send his brother to meet secretly with Dobrynin to see if a missile trade-off would be acceptable to Khrushchev. Prior to this, Kennedy worried that his public image might be damaged if he tried to negotiate on this matter. But after seeing that Khrushchev was sincere about the missile trade-off, he set aside these worries: a peaceful solution such as this was much better.

Assessment of the Impact of Diplomacy

Kennedy used private negotiations to advance his diplomatic approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis while in public the Crisis took on a much different character. This was a keen diplomatic strategy based on caution. He did not know Khrushchev’s intentions immediately. Khrushchev, for his part, suspected that he could use Cuba to close the missile gap and pressure Kennedy into giving up something. However, the gambit was a dreadful one. Khrushchev really had no way of knowing what the US would do in response to its missile build-up in Cuba. He was fortunate that Kennedy had close advisors who recommended diplomacy over military options. Indeed, it appeared in public that the US would not accept missiles being in Cuba, nor would it accept pressure of this kind from Moscow to remove its own missiles from Turkey. Kennedy used this public presentation as a form of coercive power. In private, Kennedy accepted the suggestion of Bohlen that diplomacy should be used to settle the matter if at all possible. This was where referent power came into play. The quid pro quo deal was possible, Kennedy surmised, from Khrushchev’s cables and from Robert Kennedy’s meetings with Dobrynin. Neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev brought Cuba into the negotiation, although Khrushchev did use Cuba’s shooting down of an American reconnaissance plane as a bit of coercive force to bring Kennedy to a negotiated conclusion.