Legacy of Secrecy Read Online Free PDF

Robert
    Kennedy,” makes it clear that one wrong move would result in “World
    War III.”8
    One reason for the Kennedys’ secrecy and tight control was that
    America, and the world, were under two misimpressions at the time
    that remained in place for decades. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk
    revealed to us in an interview, JFK never made an ironclad pledge that
    the United States would not invade Cuba, in order to end the Cuban
    Missile Crisis. Rusk’s revelation was later confirmed by hundreds of
    pages of formerly secret files published by the National Security Archive
    at George Washington University. As shown by these memos, and by
    JFK’s own public statements to the press and on TV, his offer of a “no
    invasion” pledge depended entirely on Fidel Castro’s allowing “UN
    inspections” for “weapons of mass destruction,” to ensure that all the
    missiles had been removed.9 Fidel never allowed UN inspectors into
    Cuba, so JFK’s pledge never took effect. However, JFK was so anxious
    to avoid returning to the almost unbearable tension of the Missile Crisis
    that, during 1963, he and his top officials deliberately refrained from
    making Castro’s failure to allow UN inspections an issue to the public
    or the media.
    In stark contrast to the way Cuba had dominated the headlines
    and nightly newscasts in October and November 1962, by November
    1963 Cuba was rarely front-page news. The relatively few stories that
    appeared focused mainly on the JFK administration’s crackdown on
    10
    LEGACY OF SECRECY
    most Cuban exile groups, dozens of which had formerly received lavish
    support from the CIA’s huge Miami station. One could get the impres-
    sion from media accounts in the fall of 1963 that Cuba was no longer
    much of an issue for JFK, despite growing attempts by his potential
    Republican opponents in the upcoming 1964 election to call attention to
    it. Republicans like Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Nelson Rock-
    efeller tried to make the point that Soviet missiles might still remain in
    Cuba, or that they could be reintroduced as long as Fidel was in power.
    Though JFK refused to be drawn into public debate about hypothetical
    Cuban missiles, he knew such accusations would gain greater attention
    once the next presidential campaign officially began in January 1964.
    JFK and Bobby were desperately trying to resolve the issue of Cuba
    by the end of 1963, so that it didn’t become what two Kennedy aides
    called “a political football” during the 1964 campaign.10 Because JFK and
    his officials had been vague to Soviet inquires about JFK’s “no invasion”
    pledge and the lack of UN inspections, the Kennedys’ actions had to be
    undertaken in utmost secrecy, even within their own administration. US
    involvement in the toppling of Fidel could never be revealed. The level
    of fear and mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union in
    1963 was extremely high. A direct “hotline” to the Soviet leader Nikita
    Khrushchev in Moscow had been installed in August 1963, but it was
    far more complex than the simple phone system depicted in popular
    movies. It involved encoded messages using wire and radio telegraph,
    with translators at each end.11 If the Soviets felt betrayed over any obvi-
    ous US intervention in Cuba, such a cumbersome system would be of
    limited use as JFK tried to explain the nuances of his justification for US
    action. The situation could quickly spiral out of control, and the earlier
    cited memo’s prediction of “World War III” could well come to pass.
    But one of the passages in that same memo provided the seeds of the
    plan JFK and Bobby started developing in May 1963:
    The [US] military could intervene overtly in Cuba without serious
    offense to national or world public opinion if we moved in response
    to a humanitarian requirement to restore order within Cuba [and
    announced we would] hold free elections; and that we would with-
    draw from Cuba as soon as the new