Sadly, for some, it was remembered for less pleasant reasons. For the White House the warnings of a tense October started way back in July, not that it was recognised as an ill-omen at the time. But on July 2nd it was routinely reported that Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul, Cuba’s War Minister, was in Moscow. US intelligence sources noted that large numbers of Soviet freighters from the Black Sea area were berthing at Mariel, a deep-water port on the northern coast of Cuba. There were no clues as to what their cargoes might be but there were large teams of Soviet technicians on board.
By the end of August there were more than five thousand Russians in Cuba and the CIA interrogator units in Florida concentrated on refugees’ stories of convoys of flat-bed trucks carrying long tubular objects covered by tarpaulins. A CIA agent back from Cuba brought a sketch he had made of the tailpiece of one of the objects and the same week came an eyewitness report of a drunk in a Havana bar who boasted that Cuba now had long-range missiles with atomic warheads. The drunk had been positively identified as being Castro’s personal pilot.
Much of this rag-bag of intelligence had come to the notice of Senator Keating of New York and he had made a number of public speeches in which he warned of a Soviet military build-up in Cuba. And on 10th October he publicly claimed that according to his informants six intermediate-range missile sites were being constructed in Cuba. A White House statement dismissed the comment as ill-informed and backed its judgment with a supporting statement from the CIA who confirmed that the sites were for standard SAM missiles only suitable for defence against air attacks. A couple of mischief-makers in the press pointed out that it was a Soviet SAM missile that had shot down Gary Powers’ U-2 flying over Soviet air-space.
Aarons and Lensky sat drinking coffee in a small Italian coffee shop near the Flatiron Building. They had both seen the reports of Senator Keating’s pronouncements on missiles in Cuba. And the White House’s denials.
“What do you think, Jakob?”
“About what?”
“Are Moscow putting missiles in Cuba?”
Lensky shrugged. “I’d think it’s highly likely.”
“But why? It would be crazy to antagonise the Americans for such a useless gesture.”
Lensky stirred his coffee slowly, “The key is Khrushchev. He’s in a state of acute frustration. Blocked in Berlin, at odds with Peking, stalled in the Third World, and years behind the Americans in the build-up of missiles. He’s desperate for something that makes him look significant.”
“All that risk for just a gesture?”
“He’s got a lot of pressures on him inside the Soviet Union. Industrial growth stagnant, agriculture in a hopeless mess. Red Army generals demanding an even greater share of already limited resources and old-style Stalinists raising hell about K’s tentative steps towards liberalisation. It took quite a lot of courage to make that speech to the Congress denouncing Stalin. A lot of those older Party members see Khrushchev as a traitor.”
“And how will this help him?”
Lensky shrugged. “He challenges the Americans, that’s always a good move.”
“And they challenge him back.”
Lensky shook his head. “So what? There’s talk of nuclear war, all sorts of denials mixed with threats from both sides. Moscow’s view has always been that the Americans would back down rather than face the Soviet Union. Americans care about casualties, Moscow doesn’t. Moscow will go to the brink.”
“All the way? To war with America?”
“Probably not, but they can scare the Americans with some deal that makes K look like he’s won.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Who knows? The Americans agree to pull their missiles out of Turkey, or even out of NATO. Something like that would make it look like the Americans had sold out their allies because they were scared of a war. Every ally of the USA would know that they would be abandoned if it suited the Americans.”
“You mean you risk starting World War Three just to prove the USA would chicken out. I thought it was Moscow’s official line that it was America that wanted World War Three and was planning for it.”
Lensky shook his head slowly. “Andrei, I’ve known you for many years now.” He smiled. “I can still remember you holding your father’s hand outside the synagogue when I had to tell him that it was time he left Russia. He was holding Anna on his shoulder and Ivan was with your mother, poor soul. I can remember you when you came to Moscow from Paris, for training. You were so clever and yet so innocent. I wondered if perhaps I was doing the wrong thing. But they were days of such promise and for me you were part of it. Somebody who would help make it happen.
“I’ve watched you all these years and as time went by I felt guilty about you. Wondering if I hadn’t robbed you of your life. I hope I haven’t but there’s one last piece of advice I’d like to give you.” Lensky smiled. “It must seem a long-winded diversion from answering your questions. And in a way it is a diversion. I think you’ve survived because you have had so little contact with Moscow and life in the Soviet Union. You wouldn’t last a couple of months in Moscow.” He smiled. “If it’s any consolation Lenin wouldn’t survive in today’s Moscow either.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m telling you to grow up. Being innocent is one thing. Being naive is something else. Apply that fine mind of yours to the facts of life.”
“What facts of life are you thinking of?”
Lensky shrugged and waved his hands. “Stalin killed more Russians than the Germans. An economy that’s falling to pieces. A society that’s at the end of its tether but frightened to do anything about it. A society that’s lost its way in a swamp
