'insecure.'
'People feel it. They don't know why they feel it and how. They just…'
Bobby had wandered back into the room. He was angered by the suggestion that his brother was 'backing down,' but LBJ pressed ahead, claiming that Soviet ships were 'comin' through' the blockade.
'No, the ships aren't coming through. They all turned back…. Ninety percent of them.'
LBJ stuck to his guns. He repeated quietly that it was difficult to argue that 'we are as strong as we were the day of the president's announcement.' A few minutes later, after his nemesis had again wandered off, he startled other ExComm members by interjecting whimsically, 'I think governments are old and tired and sick, don't you think?' He wanted action ? such as an immediate attack on a Soviet SAM site. The shoot-down of the U-2 had grabbed everybody's attention much more than 'all these signals that each one of us write.' Words were becoming meaningless. Khrushchev was 'an expert at palaver.'
After his lengthy absence, the president returned to the Cabinet Room around seven thirty to wrap up the marathon ExComm meeting. He did not reveal what he had been doing while he was away, or who he had been consulting, but it was clear that he had begun to bypass the ExComm as a decision-making body. There were too many opinions to reconcile. Despite the objections of Bundy and others, Kennedy made clear he was still thinking about some kind of deal over Turkey. The United States could not invade Cuba to destroy the missiles it could trade away without incurring any carnage.
'If that's part of the record, I don't see how we'll have a very good war,' the president said.
After initially supporting a trade, Johnson now feared that Khrushchev would merely use negotiations over Turkey to wrestle an endless series of concessions from the United States:
'It doesn't just mean missiles. He takes his missiles out of Cuba, takes his men out of Cuba, and takes his planes out of Cuba. Why then your whole foreign policy is gone. You take everything out of Turkey. Twenty thousand men, all your technicians, and all your planes, and all your missiles. And…and crumble.'
'How else are we gonna get those missiles out of there?' JFK wanted to know.
In moments of crisis, the person in whom Kennedy had most confidence was Bobby. He saw him as 'a puritan, absolutely incorruptible.' But his brother's most important characteristics, from JFK's point of view, were his 'terrific executive energy' and his intuitive, 'almost telepathic' understanding of the president's wishes. The White House was full of exceptionally intelligent people brimming with brilliant ideas. The problem was getting things done. Bobby was a superb organizer. Jack trusted his brother to implement his will.
In their different ways, both men had been profoundly changed by their shared experiences of the last twelve days. When they first heard about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, their immediate reaction had been anger, even pique, at being thwarted by Khrushchev. They had come very close to bombing the missile sites. Now they were desperately looking for ways to step back from the edge of a nuclear abyss.
Working in the president's private office, Bobby and Ted Sorensen had managed to merge the rival letters to Khrushchev into a single document. The final version bore the marks of many authors:
I have read your letter of October 26th with great care and welcome the statement of your desire to seek a prompt solution to the problem.
The first thing that needs to be done, however, is for work to cease on offensive missile bases in Cuba and for all weapons systems in Cuba capable of offensive use to be rendered inoperable….
1. You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and undertake, with suitable safeguards, to halt the further introduction of such weapons systems into Cuba.
2. We on our part, would agree ? upon the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments ? (a) to remove promptly the quarantine measures now in effect
The effect of such a settlement on easing world tensions would enable us to work toward a more general arrangement regarding 'other armaments,' as proposed in your second letter which you made public.
I would like to say again that the United States is very much interested in reducing tensions and halting the arms race
But the first ingredient, let me emphasize, is the cessation of work on missile sites in Cuba and measures to render such weapons inoperable, under effective international guarantees….
The president wanted Bobby to deliver the letter personally to the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, along with an oral message emphasizing the gravity of the situation. Unbeknownst to the rest of the ExComm, Bobby had already telephoned Dobrynin and asked to meet with him at the Justice Department, six blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
As the ExComm meeting broke up, Kennedy invited a select group of his advisers ? including RFK, McNamara, Rusk, and Bundy ? into the Oval Office to discuss the oral message Bobby would deliver to Dobrynin. He excluded LBJ and McCone from this session. The inner ExComm agreed that Bobby should warn the ambassador that time was running out and 'further American action was unavoidable' if Khrushchev rejected the terms outlined by the president. That left the issue of how to respond to Khrushchev's call for a Cuba-Turkey trade beyond the promise in the letter to discuss 'other armaments,' diplomatic code for the Jupiters.
Drawing on a cable from the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Rusk had thought of a way to reconcile the differences in the ExComm. He suggested that Bobby simply inform Dobrynin that the Jupiters would be withdrawn soon anyway. That way, the obsolete American missiles would not be an obstacle to an agreement. But they would also not become a pretext for further haggling. To avoid giving the impression of a Soviet-American bargain at the expense of the Turks, it was important that the unilateral assurance on the Jupiters remain confidential. The secretary of state's ingenious attempt to square the circle quickly won unanimous support.
Knowledge of the arrangement would be tightly held, everybody agreed. In Bundy's words, 'No one not in the room was to be informed of this additional message.' Furthermore, the Soviets would have to observe the same secrecy, or the commitment would become 'null and void.'
Anatoly Dobrynin had mixed feelings about Bobby Kennedy. For the genial Russian diplomat, RFK was a 'complex and difficult person who often lost his temper.' He 'behaved rudely,' working himself into a state about Soviet misdeeds, real and imagined. Their conversations tended to be 'uneven and broken.' Bobby seemed to regard himself as an expert on foreign policy, but he knew little about the rest of the world. During his one visit to the Soviet Union, in 1955, he had gone out of his way to offend his hosts, inquiring about Soviet techniques for 'tapping telephone conversations' and criticizing the lack of freedom. Nevertheless, he was the president's brother, and the best channel for direct, informal communications between the Kremlin and the White House.
They had seen a lot of each other in the seven months since Dobrynin arrived in Washington. To break the ice, Bobby had invited the new ambassador out to his home in McLean, introducing him to his 'rather tumultuous family.' On the subject of Cuba, Dobrynin thought that Bobby was 'impulsive and excitable.' He viewed RFK as one of the hawks on the ExComm, pushing his brother to take 'a firm approach,' up to and including an invasion of the island. At their previous meetings, Bobby had angrily denounced Soviet trickery and 'deception.' Summoned to the Justice Department on Saturday evening, Dobrynin braced for yet another explosion.
Instead, he encountered a subdued, almost distraught individual in a vast, dimly lit office decorated with children's paintings. In a cable to the Foreign Ministry written immediately after the meeting, Dobrynin described
