One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war Read Online Free PDF

months. They were very skeptical of Operation Mongoose and saw "no prospect of early success" in fomenting an anti-Castro uprising inside Cuba. Back in April, they had warned the president that the "United States cannot tolerate permanent existence of a communist government in the Western Hemisphere." If Castro was permitted to remain in power, other countries in Latin America might soon fall under Communist domination. Moscow might be tempted to "establish military bases in Cuba similar to U.S. installations" around the Soviet Union. The only sure method of overthrowing Castro was through direct "military intervention by the United States."
    Prior to the discovery of Soviet missiles on Cuba, the main problem confronting the Joint Chiefs was how to justify an attack against a much weaker nation. A memorandum dated August 8 outlined various ideas for a staged provocation that could be blamed on Castro, along the lines of the "Remember the Maine !" scenario that intrigued Bobby Kennedy:
     
* We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba;
* We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington;
* A "Cuban-based, Castro-supported" filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation.
* It is possible to arrange an incident that will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civilian airliner.
     
    The Joint Chiefs were confident that they could organize an invasion of Cuba without running the risk of a "general war" with the Soviet Union. U.S. forces were strong enough to secure "rapid control" over the island, although "continued police action would be required." A single infantry division, around fifteen thousand men, would be sufficient to occupy the island following the initial invasion.
    The only dissent came from the Marine Corps, which challenged the assumption that Cuban resistance would be rapidly crushed. "Considering the size (44,206 sq. mi.) and population (6,743,000) of Cuba, its long history of political unrest, and its tradition of sustained and extensive guerrilla and terrorist resistance to constituted authority, the estimate that only a division-size force will be required subsequent to the assault phase appears modest," a Marine Corps memo noted. It predicted that at least three infantry divisions would be required to subdue the island and that it would take "several years" to install a stable successor regime to Fidel Castro.

    The Marine Corps had reason to be wary of Cuban entanglements. History had shown that it was a lot easier to send troops to Cuba than to pull them out. It had taken four years for the Marines to disentangle themselves from Cuba after the Spanish-American War. The Marines were back again four years later, much to the disgust of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose political career had received a huge boost in Cuba, when he led his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill. "I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth," the hero of 1898 grumbled to a friend. "All that we wanted of them was that they would behave themselves and be prosperous and happy so that we would not have to interfere."
    The Marines had remained in Cuba, off and on, until 1923, just three years before the birth of Fidel Castro. And even after that date, they still kept a foothold on the island, at Guantanamo.
    From the American perspective, Cuba was a natural extension of the United States. The crocodile-shaped island was like a sluice gate bottling up the Gulf of Mexico, controlling the sea routes between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1823, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams attributed to Cuba "an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign Territory can be compared." As Adams saw it, the annexation of Cuba by the United States was virtually inevitable, a