One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

unfolding in the Straits of Florida, far from the gaze of the news media. An American destroyer stationed fifty miles from the Cuban coast spotted a Swedish freighter that had somehow slipped through the quarantine line.

'Please identify yourself,' signaled the destroyer, the Newman K. Perry, by flashing light.

'Coolangatta from Gothenburg.'

'What is your destination?'

'Havana.'

'Where are you coming from?'

'Leningrad.'

'What is your cargo?'

'Potatoes.'

The captain of the Coolangatta was a Swedish sea salt named Nils Carlson. He had the reputation in his company of being 'temperamental and headstrong.' The potatoes were beginning to rot, because of poor handling and packaging. He was disgusted with the Russians for their incompetence. But he was also irritated with the Americans for interfering with his right of free navigation. As he later told a Swedish journalist, he did not think that his run-down ship could be of any possible interest to the U.S. Navy.

The Perry had stationed herself about fifty yards off the starboard side of the Coolangatta. Carlson recorded the next signal from the American warship in his log as 'Will you stop for inspection?' But his radioman was young and inexperienced in interpreting Morse. For all Carlson knew, the signal might have been an instruction rather than a question.

At any rate, he decided not to respond. After three weeks at sea, he was impatient to get to Havana. He gave the order for 'full steam ahead.'

Uncertain about his authority, the captain of the Perry cabled his superiors for instructions. The answer came back:

1. STAY WITH SWEDISH SHIP AND TRAIL.

2. DO NOT VIOLATE CUBAN WATERS.

Later that afternoon, McNamara issued an order to 'let her go.' The U.S. ambassador in Stockholm was instructed to raise the matter with the Swedish government, which seemed 'puzzled why there was no conventional shot across bow.' The ambassador worried that the 'seeming vacillation on our part' would send a bad signal to neutrals. The anti-Kennedy faction at the Pentagon groused in private about the administration's fecklessness in enforcing the blockade.

For the time being, however, the dissidents held their tongues in public. Apart from a few unhappy admirals and generals and some befuddled diplomats, no one in Washington knew about the Coolangatta. It was as if the incident had never happened.

The next day's headlines were all about the Marucla.

Fidel Castro had summoned the Soviet ambassador to Cuba, Aleksandr Alekseev, to his command post in Havana. He wanted to share some alarming news he had just received from the Cuban state news agency in New York. Prensa Latina reporters, who all had close ties with Cuban intelligence, were picking up rumors that Kennedy had given the United Nations a deadline for the 'liquidation' of Soviet missiles from Cuba. If the deadline was not met, the assumption was that the United States would attack the missile sites, either by bombing them or by a paratroop assault.

Castro liked and trusted Alekseev. Their relationship went back to the early months after the revolution when the tall, bespectacled Alekseev arrived in Havana as an undercover KGB agent posing as a TASS reporter. At that time, the Soviet Union did not even have an embassy in Cuba. The first Soviet citizen to be granted a visa to Cuba, Alekseev was an unofficial Kremlin envoy to the new regime, bringing Castro gifts of vodka, caviar, and Soviet cigarettes. The two men hit it off immediately. After diplomatic relations were established between Moscow and Havana, Castro made it clear that he much preferred dealing with the informal spy to the stodgy bureaucrat who served as the first Soviet envoy to Cuba. Khrushchev eventually recalled the ambassador and appointed Alekseev in his place.

As a KGB agent, and later as Soviet ambassador in Havana, Alekseev had a privileged view of the growing rift between Cuba and the United States and Castro's own metamorphosis from nationalist to Communist. He was standing on the podium in the Plaza de la Revolucion when Fidel announced on May Day, 1961, shortly after the Bay of Pigs, that the Cuban revolution was 'a socialist revolution.' 'You are going to hear some interesting music today,' Castro had told Alekseev mischievously as a Cuban jazz band struck up the Internationale, anthem of the worldwide Communist movement. A few months later, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and would 'remain one until the last day of my life.'

At first, Soviet leaders did not quite know what to make of their new-found Caribbean friend. His boldness and impulsiveness made them nervous. Khrushchev admired Castro's 'personal courage,' but worried that his fiery Communist rhetoric 'didn't make much sense' from a tactical standpoint. It would antagonize middle-class Cubans, and 'narrow the circle of those he could count on for support' against the seemingly inevitable U.S. invasion. On the other hand, once Castro had declared himself a convinced Marxist-Leninist, Khrushchev felt duty-bound to support him. In April 1962, Pravda began referring to Castro as tovarishch, or 'comrade.'

Fidel had 'unlimited confidence' in the power of the country that had used its 'colossal rockets' to put the first man into space. He believed Khrushchev's boasts about the Soviet Union churning missiles out 'like sausages' and being able to hit a 'fly in space.' He did not know precisely 'how many missiles the Soviets had, how many the Americans had,' but he was impressed by the image of 'confidence, certainty, and strength' projected by Khrushchev.

The initial Soviet reaction to Kennedy's speech on Monday evening had pleased Castro. Khrushchev had sent him a private letter denouncing the 'piratical, perfidious, aggressive' actions of the United States and announcing a full combat alert for Soviet troops on Cuba. There seemed no possibility that Moscow would back down. 'Well, it looks like war,' Fidel told his aides, after reading the letter. 'I cannot conceive of any retreat.' He had concluded long ago that hesitation and weakness were fatal in dealing with the yanquis ? and that uncompromising firmness was the only way of averting an American attack.

Although Castro still trusted Khrushchev, he was beginning to have doubts about his resolve. He disagreed with Khrushchev's decision to turn around Soviet missile-carrying ships in the Atlantic. He felt the Soviets should be much firmer in halting American U-2 overflights of Cuba. And he could not understand why the Soviet delegate to the United Nations, Valerian Zorin, was still denying the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The way Fidel saw it, the denials made it seem as if Moscow had something to hide. It would be far better for the Soviet Union and Cuba to publicly proclaim their military alliance.

Castro shared his concerns with Alekseev, who in turn reported them to Moscow. American low-level overflights of Soviet and Cuban military installations were becoming increasingly brazen. The Americans would probably use the reconnaissance missions as a cover for surprise air attacks. Up until now, Cuban antiaircraft units had refrained from shooting at American planes to avoid undermining the diplomatic negotiations at the United Nations. Castro wanted Soviet leaders to know that his patience was limited.

Most troubling to Castro were signs that the Americans were trying to drive a wedge between him and his Soviet allies. He was amazed by American press reports suggesting that U.S. officials had grossly underestimated the numbers of Soviet troops in Cuba, and accepted Moscow's description of them as 'advisers' or 'technicians.' It was hard to believe that the CIA knew less about these troops than it knew about the missile sites. To Castro's suspicious mind, the Americans must have an ulterior motive for playing down the Soviet military presence. By talking about Cuban troops rather than Soviet troops, they were hoping that the Soviet Union would not defend Cuba against an American attack.

With both his brother Raul and Che Guevara out of Havana, Fidel's closest adviser during this period was Osvaldo Dorticos, the Cuban president. Dorticos participated in Fidel's meeting with Alekseev. The more the two Cuban leaders thought about it, the more they convinced themselves that time was running out.

An American attack is 'inevitable,' an emotional Dorticos told the Yugoslav ambassador later that afternoon. 'It will be a miracle if it does not come this evening, I repeat this evening.'