. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER , 1987 A23 George F. Will

aa1111111SLIduutt uimvvcicu Lac riCW York's Republican Sen.. Kenneth Keating, Romanticizing trusting information received from intelli- gence and refugee sources, said offensive ' missiles were going into Cuba. Republicans were making an election issue out of Soviet The Cuban shipments to Cuba. In September, Kennedy warned the Soviets, with interesting precise- ness, not to put in Cuba "offensive ground-to- ground missiles." Now, Sorensen says the Missile Crisis president drew a line where he soon—in October of 1962—wished he had not drawn it: Clio, the muse of history, is in bed with a "I believe the president drew the line pre- splitting headache, prostrated by the task of cisely where he thought the Soviets were not trying to correct the still multiplying misun- and would not be. That is to say, if we had derstandings of the Cuban missile crisis. Most known the Soviets were putting 40 missiles in Americans believe 'twas a famous victory won Cuba, we might under this hypothesis have by a resolute president prepared to take the drawn the line at 100, and said with great world to the brink of nuclear war. Actually, fanfare that we would absolutely not tolerate there was not much of a brink, and no triumph the presence of more than 100 missiles." worth celebrating. Sorensen is a member of the McGovernite In last Sunday's New York Times magazine, wing of the practically one-wing Democratic J. Anthony Lukas reported on a reunion of Party. But he also is an assiduous keeper of former Kennedy administration participants in the Camelot flame. Thus it is fascinating that the crisis. The meeting was last April at a he says, in praise of the former president, that Florida resort with the wonderfully inapt Kennedy wanted to practice appeasement but name of Hawk's Cay. calculated incorrectly. Because the crisis began when the Soviet This is amusing in light of Arthur Schlesing- Union began putting missiles in Cuba and er Jr.'s rhapsodizing about Kennedy's handling ended when the missiles were removed, it was of the crisis that the president, according to considered an unambiguous triumph achieved Sorensen, wanted to define away: "He coolly by a president more hawkish than some of his and exactly measured. . . . He moved with dovish advisers. (The terms "hawks" and mathematical precision. . . . This combination "doves" were popularized by this crisis.) of toughness and restraint, of will, nerve and Now much is being made of a letter from wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchless- former secretary of state Dean Rusk, a letter ly calibrated . .." read at the April reunion. The letter is said to Even assuming Sorensen is wrong, Schle- show that President Kennedy was a dove. singer's romanticizing is not right. In 1978, In the crisis, Robert Kennedy notified for- MiG-23s (nuclear-delivery vehicles far more mer Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that menacing than the 1962 missiles) were intro- U.S. missiles in Turkey would be withdrawn duced into Cuba. Kennedy's noninvasion within months of withdrawal of Soviet missiles pledge, given as part of the crisis-ending deal, from Cuba, but it was imperative (obviously guaranteed the survival of this hemisphere's for American domestic political reasons) that first communist regime and makes attempts the linkage of the withdrawals not be an- to remove or reform the second seem dispro- nounced. Rusk's letter reveals that if the portionate. Soviet Union had insisted on public linkage, The Reagan administration, which began by President Kennedy would have complied. talking about dealing with Nicaragua by "go- That historical morsel is only redundant ( ing to the source"—Cuba—is reduced to evidence of what should by now be patent: clawing for piddling sums for the contras, a Kennedy succeeded because his military ad- recipe for another protracted failure. Today, vantage was huge and his goal tiny. most "peace plans" for Central America pos- The Soviet Union was not going to war at a tulate the moral equivalence of U.S. and time when U.S. advantages were three to one Soviet involvements in the region, another in long-range bombers, six to one in long- legacy of the missile-crisis "triumph" that range missiles and 16 to one in warheads. The . killed the Monroe Doctrine. Kremlin must have been astonished—and A few more such triumphs and we shall be elated—when Kennedy, in spite of advantages undone. The romanticizing of the missile crisis that would have enabled him to insist on makes such triumphs more likely. severance of Soviet military connections with Cuba, sought only removal of the missiles. He thereby licensed all other Soviet uses of Cuba. The stunning revelation in Lukas' report is not Rusk's letter; it is something said at the reunion by Ted Sorensen, the aide closest to Kennedy. On Aug. 31, 1962, five weeks before the NATO bases in Turkey and Italy. an official effort under way to dump The NSC "hawks" initially in- AcIlai Stevenson." Stevenson, the sisted on launching air strikes, then Democratic presidential candidate settled for a naval "quarantine" of in 1952 and 1956, never got over Cuba. But the idea of withdrawing the hurt from the incident, accord- missiles from Turkey as a quid pro ing to a close friend. quo for the Soviet Union, remained As the years have passed and appealing to the president. On Oct. 27 his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, secret- ly proposed to the Soviet ambassa- dor here, Anatoliy Dobrynin, that if the Soviet missiles were withdrawn from Cuba, the United States "with- in three or four months" would withdraw, with no public announce- grounds that ao so wouia toe a grave ment, its Jupiter missiles in Turkey. blow to NATO. It was essential, he told Dobrynin, Rusk prepared his letter for a that it should not appear that such a meeting last March of experts on deal had been struck. Khrushchev the Cuban crisis held in Hawk's eventally agreed to this plan. (Ken- Cay, Fla. Rusk was unable to attend nedy disclosed these details in because of illness and his letter was 1968; they were not known to many read to the group by James G. senior officials of the Kennedy ad- Blight, executive director of the ministration, including Stevenson, Center for Science and Internation- at the time they occurred.) al Affairs of Harvard University. Blight said the letter was "evidence that President Kennedy, in the real dark hours of the crisis . . . was If Khrushchev had not accepted convinced that, first of all, war was the deal Robert Kennedy offered to likely if things continued on their Dobrynin, Rusk revealed in his let- present course and, secondly, that ter, President Kennedy was willing he did not want war." to go farther and publicly agree to One of the conference partici- withdraw U.S. missiles in Turkey. pants was George Ball, Kennedy's The plan, which Rusk said he de- undersecretary of state. He told DEAN RUSK vised, was to transmit Kennedy's one scholar that if he had known ... a "postscript" to missile crisis offer to U.N. Secretary General U Kennedy was willing to publicly Thant, through Andrew Cordier, a give up the Jupiters in Turkey, he memoirs have accumulated, it has former diplomat who was then an "would have slept a lot of better become clear, as Kennedy speech- official at Columbia University, with during those nights." writer Theodore Sorenson has writ- the idea that U Thant could propose Another participant was Bundy, ten, that "each of us changed his the tradeoff publicly and Kennedy who said the transcript will show mind more than once that week on would accept his idea. Rusk dictated that there is still considerable ten- the best course of action to be ta- the proposal to Cordier and told him sion between the "hawks" and . ken . . . ." Or, as McGeorge Bundy, to deliver it upon receipt of an "doves" of 1962 but that it is easy Kennedy's national security adviser agreed signal. When Khrushchev to laugh now about some of the said yesterday, "During the first accepted the Kennedy-Dobrynin bloopers that came out of the crisis. and second weeks, people were in many places." deal, the signal was never sent. One involved General Thomas Pow- "It was clear to me," Rusk wrote, ers, commander of the Strategic Air When construction of the Cuban "that President Kennnedy would missile sites was confirmed on Oct. Command. Powers inadvertently 15, 1962—barely three weeks be- not let the Jupiters in Turkey be- put out an uncoded message over a fore congressional elections in come an obstacle to the removal of clear channel that his nuclear bomb- which the Republicans had made the missile sites in Cuba because er crews should go to a war-alert status. Cuba a big issue—there was a the [obsolete] Jupiters were coming widespread view in the NSC that air out in any event." "That," Bundy said, "was like strikes should be launched at once In fact, the Turkish government talking on a party line in Moscow." and an invasion of Cuba prepared. was eager that the 15 Jupiters- Stevenson argued that before such which technically belonged to action was taken the United States NATO, not the United States—re- should make clear to the Soviet main on Turkish soil, and though Union that the missiles stationed the Kennedy administration per- near each other's territory should ceived the missiles as obsolete, at be "negotiable." He subsequently the time of the missile crisis no proposed that in exchange for re- NATO decision had been taken to moval of the missiles in Cuba the remove them. During the crisis, United States would give up Guan- hawks in the administration argued tanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and against removing the missiles on would "consider the elimination of