Transcripts For CSPAN3 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Intelligence 20221222

or wherever you get your podcasts. >> we ends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday, american documents american stories. on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span two comes from these television companies and more. including comcast. >> do you think this is just a community center? no, it is way more than that. comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to -- sow students from low income families looking at the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast, along with these television companies support c-span two as a public service. challenges 60 ye ars>> we are so grateful to have this opportunity to explore the cuban missile crisis and how it's lessons resonate with contemporary challenge his six years later. well, i was not alive during the cuban missile crisis i've been at the kennedy library learning enough to march to the 50th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis as a member of staff. at the time, i had recently given birth to my first child. i remember feeling a sense of relief that the peril of the cuban missile crisis fill in a distant history and gratitude that president kennedy had secured the treaty, his greatest contribution to the ideal of genuine peace, he spoke of a so movingly in his commencement address. relief and gratitude that my child's future was more secure for it. today, just one decade later, as we mark six years as the world teeter on the brink of civilization as we know it, we find ourselves faced with a threat of nuclear aggression. over the past few months, and especially weeks, it is been much debate of how relevant or not the cuban missile crisis's to the situation of russia and ukraine. and what consensus seems elusive, i think we can all agree that the lessons of the cuban missile crisis are more valuable than ever to understand today. i am now honored to introduce briefly this sessions distinguished speakers who will bring their wisdom and expertise to this topic. i'm delighted to extend a warm welcome to alexis albion, the curator for special projects of the international spy museum, she previously served as lead curator during the museum's move to a new location developing all new content for the permanent exhibits. she also served as assistant to the president of the world bankruptcy, are just in the office of the corner for counterterrorism and the u.s. state department, and director for policy for the 9/11 public discourse project, and a professional staff member of the 9/11 commission. it is also a pleasure to welcome shane w. harris to the library, a staff writer with the washington post covering intelligence and u.s. national security. he was part of the team that won the 2021 pulitzer prize for public airbus, for stories of the january 6th attack on the capitol in efforts to overturn the presidential election. as most recent book is, at war, the rise of the military internet complex. also a co-host of the weekly podcast host, chatter. i'm also delighted to welcome tom nichols back to the library, a staff writer at the atlantic and author of the atlantic daily news letter. he recently completed 25 years of teaching at the u.s. naval college. his most recent work is their own worst enemy, the assault from within a modern democracy. i am also glad to welcome timothy naftali back to the library and the stage, with more friends onstage this time. a clinical associate professor of public service in a clinical associate professor of history and why you, as well as the cnn presidential historian, he writes on national security and intelligence policy. international history in presidential history as well. previously served as the founding director of the rich and nixon presidential library museum in california. thank you for serving as panelist and moderator for the set shun. thank you for all of your contributions to put together today's conversation. please join me all of you for welcoming our special guests, thank you. >> thank you for coming. thank you, rachel. it is a pleasure to be here. thank you to the jfk library, thank you to the jfk foundation. and thank you to my three fellow panelists. and for tree. this is all about secrecy, learning about secrecy, and how secrecy matters or doesn't matter in good ways and bad. we're gonna be talking about the cuban missile crisis, the market pivot to talking about today. to set the stage for the element of secrecy, i want you to listen to ted sorenson, who was a close adviser to president kennedy, and his most important speech writer, talk about how the president wanted to be able to make his decision as to how to respond to the fact but there are nuclear missiles in cuba, how he wanted to be able to have that period of discussion be kept a secret in washington, d.c.. here is textbook how the president sought to achieve it and what ted thought about the outcome. let's go to the first clip please. >> president kennedy wisely, in my opinion, told bob and me and all the others gathering around the ex calm table on the first morning of the 13 days that he did not want limousine piling up in front of the way house, he did not want people canceling their dinners, speaking engagement, he did not want washington to know that there were crisis meetings going on, because on the soviets would know that we knew about their muscles. and he felt that if we had time to formulate and answer before panic and pressure from the public in the congress poured in on us or the soviets took some preemptive act, that would be much better off. >> secrecy defensive again in this crisis. but the soviets are the first to engage in secrecy. alexis, please help us on their stand soviet approach to disinformation and deception at the beginning of this crisis. >> thank you very much, tim. -- yes, i think we often talk about intelligence on the cuban missile crisis. of course, you know, any film, any documentary on the crisis it always starts out with the flights, imagery intelligence on the american side. you know, the soviets had a major intelligence operations as well. let's just think about it for a moment, back in the spring of 1962 khrushchev has this idea about bringing strategic missiles to cuba. what does that involve? first of all, he's like, let's bring strategic missiles, in oh, they're gonna have the medium-range, long range, you know, 25 of this, 16 invite, whatever. in order to support that, in need infantry, right? we know now that challenge of being over 40,000 russian soldiers. now, you've actually got to support and protect the soldiers as well. that starts to involve anti-aircraft, for example. then you have artillery, then you have tanks, well, then you have to have, let's see, bombers to support them, what if there is a land war, right? you have bombers, we have helicopters, and then you are depriving as well, as we know, short range missiles as well, these tactical missiles. and then nuclear submarines as well. now, it has become this giant operation to bring all these men, weapons, materials, equipment thousands of miles from the soviet union to cuba. what do you need for that? a giant operation, by the way, we're gonna do it on secret. that is a major intelligence operation. the soviets not do that very well. this is a great example of something the soviets have done well for a long time, in the business we call it dandy, denial and deception operation. the russians call it [speaking non-english] , right? i am very bad at my russian. but [speaking non-english] , i hope these gentlemen will be talking about today. to give you a few elements, this operation, which is called operation in an idea. i had all the elements of this deception operation. let's talk about the name of the operation itself, operation -- that was deliberately given, all these operations go with cohn names. it's the name of a river that goes into the baron sea in russia, that area around it, it's way up in the northeast. now, of course, you give your operation a name that has nothing to do it with the actual substance of that operation. that was deliberate, to put off in a body that they would think this operation when he had something to do with, you know, up in the northeast. in fact, you go further, the soldiers who were told they were part of this operation, they were even actually equipped with cold weather gear, skis, that's, fleece lined jackets. again, to emphasize this idea that their operation was going to go on in a cold place. i wonder what they did with those in tropical cuba if they got that far? that was one very basic element of deception, so, people who are part of the plan, certainly spies or anyone trying to find out information, they'd be off on the wrong track just to begin with. the whole operation was very very close held, compartmented, very very few people knew about it at the very top. of course, communications of any kind work stream lease and sieve and so much so that they actually, everything, all communications did this operation happen in person. there was to be no risk of any interception of signals, signals intelligence from phone calls, -- and so on. the easiest way to do that is for things to be written on paper, handwritten. in fact, the plan that was presented to khrushchev in the summer of 1962 was handwritten. they did not want to rely on secretaries for typewriting. they were relying on a colonel who was known to have very very good penmanship. he handled all the plans to do with the operation. actually getting all of these people and equipment across the atlantic, that to be done secret as well. it involved secretly moving everything and everybody on trains in the middle of the night two different ports in russia. and also loading them onto freighters, cargo chips, again, secretly in the dead of night. camouflage was involved as well, nobody would know it was on the ships in case of surveillance imagery intelligence. so, they actually went so far, everything that was on top of the ship was, it had some kind of an explanation. the cover story, of course, was that they were shipping equipment to cuba for agricultural reasons. soviet union and cuba did have agreements, they were going to help cuba economically. they were shipping agricultural machinery, fertilizer, and so on. and all equipment that would be visible, fitting in with that cover story. but below deck was everything else. now, some things have to go on top. and in that case, they might be, they would build structures, so, they could be seen, they would put metal plates on top of some structures that wouldn't be able to be surveyed by infrared as well. so, you could tell is underneath there. it is a whole lot of camouflage those going on as well. now, one of my favorite parts of the deception is that the captains of the ships were not told where they were going. they were given big envelope and inside there were told there was coordinates in the atlantic ocean where they should go. and at that point, they could open the envelope, there was a smaller envelope inside that told them where they could go. when i told the story to my husband, he said, it is just like red october, the hunt for red october, which i had not noticed before, but, you know, fact a stranger than fiction. of course, on board each of these ships, there would be files with information about many many different countries, and when the captain finally found out where they were going, the cuba file, we can pull that one. but there was no hint before that as to which location they were going to. so, lots of secrecy, and camouflage going on. of course, the soldiers didn't know, they had to stay below deck, they were allowed to come up again at night, only for a small amount of time, it was an absolutely horrible voyage for these people. it was summertime, it is incredibly hot. they were below duck, i believe the temperatures were something like over 100 degrees. i like to think they were wearing their fleece lined car goes, i'm guessing they were dumped back in the soviet union. when they arrived, of course, lots of other deception and similar measures were taken in order to conceal what was arriving, what was being loaded in the ports, and so on. so, all of these measures were being taken. i would love to talk about some of the disinformation, maybe we can talk about that later. or i can continue. >> let's save that, alexis, for a little bit later. thank you. i want to talk about the problems of secrecy at home. and if you and we are of course experiencing the 60th anniversary, and if you go 62 years ago, it is 1960, and in 1960, the united states had a census, we always deal, every ten years, and after a census, what happens? we have redistricting. 1962 is a maternal action. president kennedy had had a hard time getting his legislative agenda passed, even though the democrats were the majority in both houses, he did not have a working majority. conservatives had a working majority, that is where southern conservatives, many of whom or segregationists, and conservative republicans where a majority. it made it very hard for president kennedy. 1962 is a key here for him, he needed more of his kind of democrat to be elected. the republicans were looking for an issue, and cuba it was a very good issue for the republicans. there were rumors that the soviets were going to put nuclear missiles and cuba. it is very hard to keep secret the fact that the soviets had mounted that some are the largest -- of military assistance to cuba in the history of the relationship with cuba. the soviets knew that could not be hidden, there were all these merchant ships out there. but what they were carrying was going to be a secret. at the end of august, 1962, an american u2 spy plane photographed surfaced air missiles. surfaced air missiles are conventional missile, just in their name, you get a sense of what they're supposed to do, they're supposed to hit something in the air, they're used against aircrafts, the soviets, after the u.s. developed you two were able to develop surface air missiles that could hit the u2 spy plane, the u2 spy plane through at 72,000 feet. a missiles of missiles and missile, sort of. at the same time that the u.s., the president learned that these missiles wearing cuba, i am talking about conventional defensive surface air missiles, there was talking congress, particularly by and new york senator named kenneth keating, that the soviet union was putting soviet missiles in cuba. making cuba and even more important issue in the midterm election. the president was convinced that nikita khrushchev would not be so stupid as to threaten the united states from the caribbean. he was worried, however, that these reports, which were coming in from cuba, low level reports, they were being used politically by his adversaries and congress, to undermine his party's ability to do well in the midterm election of 1962, and so, he ordered a clampdown on the distribution of material about missiles in cuba by the intelligence community, unless it could be cooperated. president kennedy did not know the unintended consequences of this decision, the intelligence community was getting human intelligence, that is spies, reporting from cuba, in september, the appearance of long missiles, not these surfaced air missiles which are shorter, but longer missiles, they were reporting that sections of the country were being sealed off and that europeans, likely soviets, people not speaking spanish, we're controlling these areas, the president put a clamp down on this information, he did not realize that the intelligence community would interpret this as a way of not publishing it for him, so, the unintended consequence of john kennedy saying, i don't want intelligence flowing around the intelligence community about missiles in cuba meant that he didn't get it. john kennedy did not receive these raw materials about missiles in cuba in his, what was called then the presidential checklist, it is not called the presidents daily brief. the cia figure this out later, and histories have been declassified quite recently actually. it showed that the cia realized they had actually denied the president the kind of material he needed. now, why does this matter? it matters because something else had happened in the world, one of the joys of studying international politics is that nothing, it is always a multi platform or a multi scene story. while all of this is going on in cuba, a u.s. u2, u.s. spy plane has crossed into soviet airspace by mistake. the soviets do not shoot it down, but they complain about it, meanwhile, from taiwan, a u.s. u2 piloted by taiwanese pilots gets shot down over china. the state department is worried about u2s flying over cuba, the president is worried, he does not want a international crisis over cuba in the middle of a midterm election. so, he says to the intelligence community, no more overflights of cuba. now, that decision would have been very difficult and very different for him if he had known that there were intelligence coming from cuba, there might be missiles, but he was not getting that intelligence, he thought that what he was doing was preventing a crisis in cuba, which is so politically sense of two americans, he did not expect one, he expected a crisis in germany. so, the unintended consequence of president kennedy's approach to secrecy in a midterm election was that the bureaucracy had to fight for you to flight. this incredible effort by people in the pentagon and people in the cia at lower levels who did have access to the rematerialize saying that we have got to fly over cuba, we have to change the presidents mind, they put together this packet in formation, they go to something called a special group, the group that would propose and approve on behalf of the president, covert operations, and u2s were considered covert operations. they put this together and they made the pitch and they made the pitch to robert kennedy who was the president, i mean, they were all the president's advisers and representatives, but it is robert kennedy -- they made the pitch, you've got to convince your brother, the president, to take a risk of flying a plane over cuba, even though, with a surfaced air missiles, that plane might be shot down. it's the most incredible story of a bull's-eye. to take a chance at hadbecause it turns out thate area, and if you look at the map of where they flew, the area that they were going to take a chance at over flying was exactly one of the areas where the soviets threw missiles. so, the story, which begins about, if you will, and misuse of intelligence, it turns into one of a classic case of the correct use of intelligence. so, you see, secrecy in the case of the cuban missile crisis, which mr. sorensen recalled, i think, rightly, was helpful to decision-making, in the early part of the story, it actually delayed the time at which john kennedy was faced with this great challenge. he might have learned earlier about the missiles in cuba had the system worked better, and had he not made the decision and the call he made about how raw materials regarding missiles and cuba would be used in the intelligence community in late august and early to late september in 1962. i wanted to tell that story, to throw it in as we contemplate the use of intelligence these days and how the biden administration and others have used it. so, jane, please. >> that is such a great setup, tim, to compare the extraordinary restrictions on intelligence that exist within the kennedy administration to the point where the president himself is not even seeing the tactical information that he needs, to the example of ukraine and the run up to the russian invasion in ukraine, where in so many respects, big and small, the situation is the opposite, it is the inverse of that. i've been a journalist covering the intelligence community now for 21 years. i have never seen what you might call a practice of radical transparency and disclosure, which is what we saw with u.s. intelligence, like we saw on the run up to the invasion in february. and they play a role in that, both as a journalist and as somebody who was the recipient of some of these selective disclosures, as they are sometimes deemed, or what the administration likes to call downgraded intelligence, it sounds very demeaning, it just means that they take something that is very secretive and they downgrades classification level so they can give it to people like me, who do not have security clearances. i'll tell a story about this, a kind of how this ball gets rolling. we'll see along the way all the ways that this is so different from the pictures, the story that tim was telling. it was mid december, this last december, i was working at home, we're not back in the office yet. i got a phone call from a senior administration official, somebody knew well, and i interacted with them on a regular basis, who said we have some information that we want to share with you. you know, your ears always pick up as a journalist. that's great, please, share as much as you'd like. what is it about? well, we have some intelligence were prepared to declassify about russian troop build ups along the border of ukraine. and you would think perhaps, my first reaction would be excitement. my first reaction was actually dread. my stomach kind of dropped a little bit, i thought, wait a second, why does the white house, the administration, want to give out classified intelligence to a reporter about truth phillips in ukraine? my mind is immediately flashing back to the experiences my colleagues had in 2002, 2003, with weapons of mass destruction in iraq. when administration comes giving you handouts of classified information, be very skeptical. and be slightly worried. in that experience, you know, it ruined some people's careers, it has been a permit blemish on many of them. as i said, what is you want to show us? the answer was, we want to show you satellite photographs. we also have some satellite photographs that show buildup of troops, their positions, we can put them on a map, we can give you estimates on how many troops we think are coming, the number turned out to be 175, 000, if we added up all the reserves are gonna pull in, and we will layer on to that commentary from u.s. officials who have been analyzing this. and you know implicitly they have been the beneficiaries of more than just pictures, obviously layering other intelligence which are not disclosing. , we give the sheet that you can look at the website, you can see the actual document they gave us. it's just that, it is just satellite imagery, it is not unlike, in some respects, what we're used to seeing in the stories about the cuban missile crisis, you know, the asylum edges, but a little more clear than they were back then, they're not so fuzzy. by the way, they are also commercial images. they are not taken from a u.s. spy satellite, they are commercial imagery that the -- of course we have their own, much better images, we put this out there for public consumption, along with their analysis. what was so interesting to me about this, aside from the extraordinary fact that this was even happening, in the first instance, might dread immediately was sort of eased because you could go look at these pictures on the internet, you could see them for yourself, we had been writing about the russian troop buildup along the border of ukraine using commercial imagery. my colleague, paul, he had done a piece on this six weeks ago that said it looks like the russians are amassing troops. who is curious about that story? the zelenskyy government was very upset that we publish that story. basically saying, you're scaring people, this is not really what's happening. well, we could see with their own eyes. now, we have the information coming from the government, and importantly, what we had understood to be u.s. intelligence analysis saying, here is what we think is going to happen in the coming weeks, this is kind of our forecast. that in and of itself to is extraordinary, to get that level of detail, absent a kind of briefing, or maybe they bring in a bunch of reporters at once, they briefing on something, they maybe give you information to say, okay, you can corroborate it. they're also giving to us exclusively. when you give information to a publication exclusively, you do that because you know it's gonna have a bigger splash, it's going to get more attention, we are going to treat it as a scoop, which it was for us. and it became very clear that what the administration wanted to do is immediately get the public's attention with this intelligence. inthey wanted to start telling a story about russia, what russia was doing, and they were going to do it using the classified information, they were going to do it in the press and in the public. very very unusual. we come to understand much later what this sort of mechanics are behind the scenes which will get to. just to give you that sense of where we are in the moment, you have the story that comes out in mid december, we later understand that the president had received a briefing some days earlier from this top official, basically laying out much of what would eventually be pushed out. you see these stories coming in the press, there is the drumbeat of them, right? there is some weeks after, we published that story the new york times gets hold of some information, we had from our own channels to, we race some to the finish line on that, that russia was preparing to launch a false flag operation to go back to this idea of denial and deception. what were they going to do? they were going to stage an attack, according to u.s. intelligence, and make it look like it was the result of the ukrainian attack. to include some footage of burned out vehicles, there were supposedly going to be a corpses playing the rules of victims, there were going to be paid mourners, this seemed like out of a russian playbook of dnd. this is information that gets pushed out through the press, there is credibility behind it. to be clear, when we get this information, we are then going in reporting and corroborating as best as we can, we're not just saying, thank you very much, let's get right to the word processor. we are going out and reporting in. they know we're going to do that. that is another reason why it's important at the administration, they give it to journalist, if a journalist will go out and stress testa as best as we can. there is another story that comes out about how, well, this one isn't even via the press but via press statement coming from the british government, which comes out late on the saturday evening washington time, just in time for the sunday papers in london, it's a big deal, it's a big splash, saying that we've come into information that the kremlin is plotting to install pro-kremlin lawmakers from ukraine into the government in kyiv. in other words, they're plotting a coup, these are the people that are gonna run the puppet government. extraordinary about that, it's coming from the british government, it does not engage traditionally in these kinds of selective disclosures. right, their foreign intelligence here this is so secretive that the only member of the service is the chief of the service, one person, the statement also included corroborating amplifying comp movements from the then foreign minister. a woman named liz truss. someone in the news today. a funny side, i asked a source of my, why is liz truss doing this? why she putting her name on a statement that is declassified information? they said, you know, the information is true, she also wants to be prime minister. so, you have this extraordinary rush of information that is coming out, all building towards this picture of russia is about to launch this unwarranted war of aggression on its neighbor. what does the have -- it galvanizes public opinion in the united states. in the united states government against russia, in favor of ukraine. it starts to galvanize people in the private sector, the boycotts in russia that occurred after the invasion did come as a surprise to some people in the intelligence community. they were kind of, in a way, i think putting themselves in the back, thinking, wow, we built a bigger public case and we thought we might have. it got people prepared for what seemed like an inevitability. you'll remember, there is still a lot of debate running up to the war of whether this is actually going to happen. where was a lot of that skepticism mostly coming from? it is coming from kyiv, right? there's a lot of skepticism within the zelenskyy government. that the brits in the americans wear persuaded of the intelligence and of the information. not because i think that they had some supersecret insight into the mind of vladimir putin. in fact, they always repeated, whenever they would talk about disinformation, we do not know the decision he has made, we are not reading his mind. what they did was basically read the intelligence, they read the data, they said, why are you putting 175,000 troops here for intention is not to invade? we subsequently learned that on top of the satellite imagery, they had a profound penetration of the russian intelligence and military apparatus to the point where they were basically intercepting the war planning. the level of discipline and control over information exerted by the soviet government in the cuban context apparently does not exist. in the russian context, they're just talking on cell phones about some of the stuff, including on the battlefield when the initial phases of the war troops were, you know, tweeting selfies of themselves with rockets going off, and i geolocation tagging data on, it's astonishing. , you know it was just, such a baffling sequence of events. by the time the war started in february to those oppose recovering it was not a surprise and i was having issues with my editor saying, well, the people we talked to said that they have 70% confidence and it is only going up that he is going to do this. 78% of intelligence was basically saying, i am not going to tell you this is going to happen but, it will. the fact that we were privy to this information in realtime, it is used in a public case. i have never seen anything like it. there is a lot of talk about whether this will become a model for future conflicts, it might. i could see lots of reasons for that. it was never meant to operate this way. but, in so many respects the inverse of what happened with cuba, and it is absolutely fascinating, it does not get as to the profound misjudgements and bad calls on the strength of the russian military by the u.s. intelligence community, which you know, we will talk about another time, or later. >> so, you know, it is a mixed bag. before tom starts, i wanted to put on the table for discussion, later, the role that our intelligence play, not just in preparing the republic, but in preparing our allies. because of the cuban missile crisis the u.s. was not keeping british and germans, and french apprized of changes in american assumptions. and, once the president made his decision where he was going to give a response, he had the ceo go and meet the cia with the foreign leaders. with pat howard and the gall, and mcmillan. they were each bought a photograph. they were brought a few photographs to make the case to them that this is why we are doing it. the gall famously said that the cia man came to see him, he was a historian in france, and he said the president of united states would like me to show you that. and de gaulle said, i actually don't need to see them. he made a grand dress shirt. the point is, the u.s. understood that it had to repair its allies. the question i want to get to is, how the u.s., while they were doing this work, they were also talking to allies about, and because, its allies were responding the same as ukraine is responding. which is, come on, we remember iraq. tom,? i >> actually, we were set up to talk about something, i think it is important and counterintuitive for americans. that is, the importance of secrecy in foreign policy. we, especially in a more transparent information age, like, we have come to expect. i would even say, a sense of entitlement that we expect to be told every single day exactly what it is going on, we understand the president's daily brief is classified but we would like to know, please. when the president is done reading at posted on the white house website. and, i am going to argue that, first of all, there is a third audience here in these stories. i have been telling about biden's release. that alliance was the kremlin. it was a way of saying, we see you, we know this is going to happen. we are preemptively varying any ridiculous rationalizations that you are going to put forward. we are, not only that, but now that you know, that we know, that you know, that we know, you have to expect that there are other things in the works, because, you know how we are. and, that was a warning. policing all of that stuff, strategically, was a warning to the kremlin that we knew what was going on. and, i think this is where it is really important to understand that secrecy and foreign policy, by its nature, requires secrecy and a small circle of decision-making. you simply, and i think you see this in the cuban crisis, you guys have had some great stories, i will tell one from a different year. that is from 1983. i think that is actually the better analogy of where we are now then the cuban missile crisis, in some ways. the cuban crisis really showed that at a moment of ultimate danger, being able to control the narrative, filter out a lot of the noise, get the supporting structures, kind, of out of the way, even though, at one point, as ten points out, they say they don't want to tell you anything anymore, but, you know, this new kind of sense that we have had, i would say, maybe not since the end of the cold war, but over the last ten or 15 years, that crises, and military operations should be crowd source, for solutions, i think it has been growing. i think it is crazy. now, on par, and i am sure that we will talk about this, i'm part it is because of earlier administrations, 20 years ago that said, just trust us, we know what we are doing. and we ended up invading two countries. one of them that, i think, afghanistan was the right thing to do. and then, we sort of said, we are just not going to talk about it anymore. which, i think, falls on us as voters. but, i will get to that later. the story i want to tell you is that i think that more transparent world are, in some ways, more dangerous. 1962 had a forcing function. there was a clock running that when the saudis's insights, the surface missiles, they said those are going to go hot. whatever they are protecting, we will not be able to get to. the clock that was running was not one do the missiles get sent. the clocks that is running is, one is the last day we can get in there? to take out the thing, the things that we are supposed to protect. today, we would call that preventive war. make no mistake, john f. kennedy was, if not in favor of it, but he was actively considering a preventive war. i teach a class on this. and, i use a coach without telling the students who it is. i say, this is a president. the moment of ultimate perils no longer in the action actual firing of weapons. except their existence. and of course, everyone struggling george bush, and it is john f. kennedy. we live in that world now. in 1983, that is what this feels like to me. 2022 feels like 1983. not that there is a forcing function and the clock running, or the sand is running out, but this kind of grinding tension that feels like an inevitability of conflict somewhere along the line. over something that we are not quite sure of quite yet. if you go back to 1983 and look at that one year, early 1983, ronald reagan announces the strategic defense initiative. it drives the kremlin nuts. the. kremlin had already decided at the end of jimmy carter, and for those of you who thinks there are a big difference between jimmy carter and ronald reagan, the kremlin already decidedly and of carter's administration and that the americans had lost their minor spoiled with nuclear war. the former soviet ambassador, his memoir said, we are actually kind of rooting for reagan to win, because, we could not imagine anything worse than jimmy carter. it shows you that even professionals get things wrong. but, certainly, as reagan comes into office he is not nixon, he is not let's make a deal, i know i said a lot of things out there, but now, we are going to trade chips. they are like, this is going to happen. this is getting worse, and worse. that summer the soviets, and let's not open the question of accidentally armed on purpose, for whatever reason the soviets blow a 7:47 out of the sky. a civilian airliner. the selective release of intelligence happens then. jean kirkpatrick goes to the united nations and says, hey, here all the classified intercepts. here is the pilot saying the target is destroyed. that is a selective and strategic use of intelligence. it is, we know what you did and we are going to show the world what you did. indeed classified documents, later, this is the moment where the leader of the soviet union, and other soviet leaders, decide that there is probably not any chance of a long term peace with the west. the outpouring of rage, and this was my, as a personal note, my first day of school at the avril hermon institute for the f-and study of the soviet union. i thought, this will be a pretty short degree program. and so, this outpouring of, just, white hot rage against the soviets really takes the kremlin. it is like, what, an airliner, 260 people. we kill that many at munch. and they did just not get it. i think in that there is a link to putin, here, who does not get what is happening in the world. and then, there is something that happens for secrecy is very important. i will be quick and then wrap this up. the united states and nato decide this is a great time to have a big exercise to test communications for the release of nuclear weapons. because, why not. but, you also have to do these things and test these channels. you have to make sure they work. it is part of affective deterrence. they are basically playing a war game that is meant to go nuclear. that exercise is called able archer. they are sending everything encoded. but, with code that we know the soviets can see. they are saying exercise, exercise, exercise. there is still disagreement among old soviet-ologist, like me and others, about how seriously the soviets reacted. they had been so primed to believe that the united states was going to launch, and oh, the thing i left oh, we overthrew a marxist regime in grenada. the kremlin, now declassified, reactions of general staff are saying, this is the first omen. they are going to nicaragua, they're going to cuba, they are coming to eastern europe. and so, the soviets start putting retaliatory forces in the theater on alert for a regional nuclear conflict. the british see this and say, this is not that. the cia says, you know, we do not think that means very much. six months later, the cia goes to ronald reagan and says, okay, this was bad. the intelligence community, to the state, says we are not sure. casey said this was bad. gates in his memoir thoughts bob gates, his memoir, it said, we cannot believe what we were looking at. that we were going to take this seriously. now, replay cuba every play cuba 62, and replay it an 83 with twitter. and facebook, and open source satellites saying, why is the white house, and we see something going on? what are these things and cuba? why is jack kennedy not out in front? why did ronald reagan, why are these channels, you know, buzzing and humming? it would have taken, what is already a short time to react. down to no time to react. i think there are times, and that's why i was really glad at the beginning of the first session, you had that note from, what was it, mcnamara who said, wise name choosing not to release this instantly, because, these decision-makers need time to catch their breath. and so, what i am hoping is that somehow, this conflict ends without, you know, further harm. but, i think we are running a very high risk of a crisis around some sort of black swan event. it will get overtaken by, kind, of a global peanut gallery banging hangers hammers and torches. that could be extraordinarily dangerous. so, tom is not close to being old enough to have met john f. kennedy, but we have john f. kennedy in this next clip talking about an intended consequences of u.s. decision-making. the clip starts with him talking about the soviet reaction to the blockade. the soviets reacted in a way that the americans did not expect. and so, president kennedy, at least, talking to the nation on the cbs tv interview he did in december 1962, was well aware that readers have to anticipate the unanticipated. can we listen to the second clip, please? >>,,. ,. no one would have guessed, probably, that that would have been such harassment. mr. casper cannot commit us to indefinitely continue widespread flights over his island, every day. and yet, he knew if he shut down one of our planes that it would be brought back in much more serious shape. so, it is very difficult to always do this and figure of what the effect will be on the country. in this case, he did not pick the right one. in cuba in 1961 they picked the wrong one. >> thank you. i would like to open this to general questions. and general discussion. alexis, one of the things tom was talking about was, sort of, surprise certainty. certainty of information. why was john kennedy certain when he looked at the pictures that the cia gave him in 1962 that he was, actually, seeing what the cia told him he should be seeing? >> right, well, that goes back to intelligence collection. one thing, i just want to put in there before we get to that, is that i think it is important to mention that intelligence analysis, actually, had been quite consistently giving a message that there was very, very, very unlikely that the soviets would be sending strategic missiles to cuba. i mean, that was the analysis that he was getting. and this is a low level at the highest level. these are the national intelligence estimates which are very consistent throughout 1962 and even after this giant buildup that is coming in. there were all these reports that he was apparently not getting. this is reporting. and, the message there is, yes, we can see that there are, across the atlantic, bringing lots of equipment. we know there are reports that there are russians there. but, the soviets, they just would not do that. they would not do that. because, the risks would so outweigh the benefits of having strategic weapons in cuba. they just would not do that. we would not do that. they would not do that. and, that is the analysis that is coming in. so, i think that is an important part to come in. there are lots of reviews after this missile crisis. why did we get it's around there? that is a whole other story. but, there is support there for that point of view. it is coming from the highest levels of intelligence analysis. which, i am sure kennedy is reading. >> and, you know the principles that oversaw the in a little coal progressives. the great sherman can't, he writes, it is declassified now, he writes an article about the famous cuba assessment. and, his conclusion is, we did not get it wrong, christophe got it wrong. it was stupid of him to put missiles in cuba, and we were right. that was the intelligence community's answer to the mistake it made. >> he had some certainty there. but. i guess it is another thing when a photograph is put in front of you, as it was. it was brought to kennedy in his bedroom, i believe it's. which, shows overhead intelligence, and, it also, the imagery taken on october 14th, i believe, was delivered to kennedy on the 16th. what happens in between? is that right? on the 15th? >> what happens is, it takes a while for the group that analyzes the pictures to determine. and then, they decided to let the president sleep the night of october 15th. but, -- >> it takes some time to figure what they're actually looking at. >> and an additional storm helps them figure it out. >> and that's what i hope to say. and, this is because there is human intelligence that is incredibly helpful to them. and this is a gentleman named oleg ping koski. he was a colonel in the gru who had volunteered his services. in fact, he tried several times in 1960 to volunteer his services to the british and to the americans. the americans were a bit uncertain and this was in moscow. they eventually take him on and find out that he is an incredible source of intelligence pen pen on soviet military war plans and uplift equipment, and all that. he over, the course of a year or so, is photographing documents, and also, they are able to do oral the briefings. they are able to bring him to london, and paris, he is quite a senior guy, he is part of trade delegations. and, they are able to take him off and spend hours debriefing him. so, they have a lot of information here. they did not know how useful it would be, at the time, actually. and it is only in the context of this cuban missile crisis that they recognize that these military manuals and instructions, and more plans helped them to identify what these installations are. what weapons are being installed, and, they are able to tell kennedy, with absolute certainty, based on this intelligence from penn koski, what they are looking at, and what kind of missiles they are from penkovsky. that is a really extraordinary part of the story. it is worth saying what happens to penkovsky, because it is a sad and tragic part. it is actually right in the midst of the cuban missile crisis. i think he is arrested on october 22nd. this is right in the midst of the crisis. there is some uncertainty, still a little bit about hugh betrayed him. he is arrested and, eventually, executed, actually, as a traitor. but he is one of the great heroes of this story. >> let's pick up on tom's comments about transparency. are there instances we can imagine where transparency could stabilize a situation? >> in the current context? >> in the international situation and system that we have, at the moment. >> i wonder if we talk a lot now, and we are all thinking about it, and whether or not putin will use a tactical nuclear weapon. it is importance to cap and that as a discussion about a low yield nuclear weapon in the theater of ukraine. we are not talking about putin launching at the united states, or a kind of armageddon scenario. which is why i thought was very strange that president biden chose to use that word, in some ways. but that is another discussion. of course, it could escalate to that, very quickly. i don't want to be dismissive that. i think that is what he was going for. but, i am of the idea, and i do not know this for a fact, because i have queried no artist -- but their read on this is still, we do not believe that vladimir putin would resort to using those weapons, unless, there was a face of existential threat to his position. which, could potentially be within the government. they would, the u.s. community thinks that and ukraine, he might actually regard, but, that query says they are losing it. it is fairly remote but they have a fairly good sense that they would see the kind of precursor movements happening in a movement of position, of material, and personnel towards lighting one of these things off. all that is to say, i think if they had that intelligence they would start publicizing it. with the hope that what they would do is, somehow, deter him from taking those steps. and, that would be different than why they released the intelligence before he invaded ukraine. i think, sometimes, it gets lost. the united states, and to some degree the british, i do not think they are releasing that information to deter people from invading. they are confident in levels that he is going to invade, and it kept going up. all the while, these disclosures were being made. it was, as thomas describing earlier, to deprive putin of any justification, or false justifications for launching this war in the first place. it was to borrow from and control the narrative. that is really why the administration did it. i do think we can imagine, to your question, that if they thought he was moving to launch a tactical nuclear weapon, there would be some thinking of, maybe we can prevent him from doing that. either through international outrage, or, maybe, some people with cooler heads in the own administration saying, this is the moment to take putin out. i could imagine that but it would be the most fraught set of deliberations and discussions. i mean, it would be extraordinary every. >> here is how transparency would work. i think on a daily basis that interconnected world makes the world a little more peaceful. in that sense that we can always look down from, you know, space and say, everybody behaving themselves? okay. remember, at the time of the missile crisis we practically knew more about the dark side of the moon that we knew about certain areas of the soviet union. they just did not exist. in terms of our ability to perceive it. i want to talk about shane's example, but also, take you back to 1973. the soviet union says to us, long story short, the israelis are about to strike, the american say, do not do that they sent a private message to us saying, let's intervene, jointly, in the middle east. the americans say, no. we will not be doing that with you. and then the soviets sent a message back saying, fine, we will do it without you. and the americans, again, they are now still arguing about that is classified stuff, and whether they were bluffing or not, there is some evidence they were warming up transports i'm hungry, and they were moved towards doing this, what the white house did was to raise our defense condition. our nuclear loot-ness, and we didn't in the open. they say, we are not going to answer you, but, we are putting on our holster and we are checking up on the soviets without having to back down. basically, saying, okay, what else are we talking about today? the whole thing goes away. the americans wind up under alert, some weeks later. again, replay that in a completely transparent world. somebody says, well, it sure looks to me like here, and now, we have to do this, and suddenly the americans and soviets, same thing with the tactical thing. we know where they are. we know what it is going to look like if they start moving that stuff. what you do not want to have happen is someone else saying that, and getting it wrong, for one thing. i think, you know, by the way, a lot of the open source intelligence guys to great work. they, a lot of them are very professional. but, there is a lot of amateur out there who say, well, i am watching this and i can tell you. and they can't. this is the controlling the narrative part. you do not want this to get so spun up and out of control that the white house and kremlin, now, or saying, well, what is real? what is happening? how do we have to respond? sometimes, being able to do this and, kind of, i think the superpowers during the cold war, the secret language of twins, the way that twins understand each other, they could communicate to each other without rushing into a public confrontation. i am glad you mentioned 1973, not just because i like talking with the nixon administration, every so often, but that is a perfect example of where our national security institution remembers. because, it is when the united states altered it's defcon label into the missile crisis. as we learn later, the soviets reacted. now, it would take decades to learn this, but when we looked at the soviet ministers, the soviet priscilla, chris job begins to say to them, and his colleagues, we have got to end this crisis. after the u.s. moves it's defcon level which the americans did, in a way they knew the soviets could detect. which is, of course, raising the question of signaling. signaling is a way of having transparency in a relationship. but, not necessarily having transparency everywhere. we signal to the soviets, you don't necessary signal, absolutely, to everyone so it is something to be kept in mind. >> it is something i have been thinking about. why did president biden make that comment about the cuban missile crisis? and, i am very curious, because, i think he is a president who remembers the cuban missile crisis. he was 20 or 19 years old. so, it means something, very much, to him. i know he says things, sometimes, without necessarily thinking about it, for very much. but, let's just say that was a very deliberate message. i would be curious, what does the cuban missile, what does making that reference, what might it mean? to the russians. >> i was disappointed that the president used the format he used. because, when you are signaling in a crisis, you want your signals to be clear. and, while we got four people's recollections of what he said at a new york fund raising event. now, i do not know how many of you have been to a new york fund raising event but i suspect there was alcohol there. i am not, and if i wanted to send a signal to the russians, i would want to be crystal clear. so, i have read various versions of what was said and i am not sure that any president would have. i am not sure that that's the way the national security council would have wanted to send the message. now, having said that, what it showed was that he was asking some of the right questions. he was asking, what is putin offering. and he was not saying, what should we do to get him off of that, because that is a bad question to ask. in this case, in my view, eyeball to eyeball, is the lewinsky included? with putin? secondly, he was talking about the fact that the united states have to take seriously that putin might use tactical nukes. i think the united states should take seriously that he might. what i am interested in is the probability for doing that. all of that was actually sensible. that was not, i would argue, the right way to signal it. and, i am afraid it fell into a narrative of, sometimes, president biden, just like senator biden, saying things off the cuff that he should not say. now, i think that the united states has to be very careful about how it draws the line regarding the use of nuclear weapons. not that everyone should doubt that we do not want them to do it. but, i think one of the lessons of the cuban missile crisis is, if you draw a red line you have to be ready. if the other side crosses it. and so, i would love to hear what you think, tom, or any of you, and how you feel about what kind of redline you withdraw. my concern is, we will draw a red line and, if he decides to cross it, for whatever reason, we might have to do something we really do not want to do. and, it reminds me of a very sad story. actually, i often cannot tell the story without feeling very emotional. but, not a lot of people know this. in 1994 the leaders of the american jewish community went to the joint chiefs of staff and sent to the joint chiefs of staff, please, please, threaten to use chemical weapons against germany, if they continue to kill jews. and, there was a very powerful joint chief of staff who met and discussed the records that were, obviously, talked about declassified. and the joint chiefs of staff said we think the best way to save jews is to end this war fast. we cannot anticipate hitler but we know he is committed to killing jews and he might just he might just continue killing jews. do we have to use chemical weapons? we do not want to use chemical weapons against germany. they have a lot of chemical weapons. they will use them against allied soldiers. so, we are not going to threaten to do something we do not want to do. and so, the jewish leaders were told, we are going to end this war as fast as possible. there was a discussion about how do we deter a criminal foreign leader from engaging in brutality, and in this case, genocide. and so, the question, i think we have to consider, what exactly were we threatening to do? if putin used the weapons. >> it's okay not to say stuff . this is part of the problem of transparency that, you know, one of the reasons i used to love watching biden on the sunday show is because he has no inner monologue. he thinks and he says it. i actually wrote a piece about the armageddon comment, i don't think it is as bad as it is reported, stipulated that you don't want the president saying this kind of stuff off the cuff. on the other hand, you do want the president looking across the atlantic and saying, i'm thinking about this stuff because i know you are, let's, you know, keep a cool head. there is another way to approach this. it is not to draw red lines. simply to say, you know, we've had a long strategic relationship. i don't have to draw a red. this is not like obama having to tell assad, okay, you know, because, like, we have never really had a conflict with you. window backing ourselves into a corner. i think rather, you know, when we say, look you've done with us for a long time, you know there will be serious consequences from what you're doing, don't even think about taking those next steps, no, we're not gonna draw a red line, we're gonna be quiet about that, that's how you know when we're really serious. i'll add one thing, i traveled to london and to moscow right after 9/11. in a very roomier plane, and what really struck people was not that bush, you know, we can talk about the wisdom of the reaction of 9/11, i'm just saying, it's a signaling pattern, what really struck people about bush in the white house as they weren't saying anything. and that scared are, i mean, in a good way, my british colleagues, even my british colleagues, you guys, what are you guys doing, i said, i was teaching and i said, i don't know, but it's not gonna be pretty, you could almost see that there were more gravitas in just saying, okay, we've been attacked, we will get right back to, we're not gonna shoot arose off, that i think had a bigger influence than saying, you know, drawing lines. >> it's interesting, there has been, i mean, it's been reported there have been at least some quite deliberate efforts in how explicit they are by the administration to convey to putin, if you do the following, these things might happen. one, before the war begins, he goes to moscow, right? he visits with his counterparts there, he talks to putin who is in sochi, actually, it's during a covid lockdown. so, he's led moscow, he goes to the kremlin to speak on the phone to speak with putin. it's based on, you know, meaning that he basically lays out, there is going to be a response, and how explicit the director got with that. but it's made clear that we're not gonna sit here and take this, things have happened. we reported at the post that there is similar communication on the question of tactical nuclear weapons. i almost wonder if we don't have to say anything because, not that there is a doctrine for this that is well understood if he is a tactical nuclear weapons, here's how we're going to respond. there is a body of thinking about, it is a really great piece that -- did in the atlantic, he kind of hold people that are in the same non generation, people thinking through this. what's fascinating is that, there is no consensus, but many people raise the point, which putin must understand, certainly, i would think his generals do, maybe they don't, actually, they are not getting great advice. you know, basically hypothesizing, if you use a tactical nuclear weapon in ukraine, that the response could be overwhelming force. use a tactical nuclear weapon, find, we just orient higher military in ukraine, we being the united states. and they don't mean to suggest to be flippant about it, would be at war with russia, i think he gets that. i think there is a universe in which putin understands that if he does this thing, the response would be overwhelming and potentially given the russian military's performance on the battlefield over very quickly. >> a number of things, it's always a more, actions i always, it is often a more effective deterrent to say, there is a whole range of bad things that could happen. that is for you to worry about, we're not gonna tell you what they are, there is a whole bunch of things that could happen, we're not picking from, if we're criticizing biden about the armageddon comment, the smartest comments he made, if he uses tactical nuclear, what are you gonna do? biden said, look, that is gonna depend on the situation, right? it is exactly the right thing to do for president to say, i'm not gonna lay out hypotheticals, i'm not gonna say, if this, than that, it's simply to say that this happens, bad things can happen. i don't want to tell you what they are, again, the whole point of a deterrent threat is you worrying about that, and i think people who keep saying, where the red lines? tell me which thing. i just don't think that is wise. and i think, i personally emigrated meyer of the way the biden administration has been handling this whole situation from the get-go. >> i mean, there was still debate after the war began over which sanctions to impose, it was not, we knew there would be sanctions, but the brits and the americans were debating which ones even as it is happening, so, they don't decide these things in advance. >> i believe we have, i mean, this is a great conversation, i know it equally interesting questions, i want to say that one of the great consequences i believe of the way the biden administration handled information and intelligence before was that the europeans were ready to lead in sanctions. it was so important for nato that germany be the one to announce that nord stream 2 wasn't happening, it was so important that this not be viewed as the united states imposing a world view on europe, that europe accepts that this is an attack on european sovereignty and i don't think that would've been possible if the united states, to some extent the brits, had not been sharing all this intelligence with these countries and advance, saying, we think this is what is gonna happen, many of these countries said that we don't agree, it wasn't just ukraine, the germans did not agree. but when it happened, they were ready. so, i think the alliance management is important part of the story to. questions, please, and if you have them, please go up to the microphones, there are two microphones. we will start with you. >> we have a question from online. we know jfk spoke with general eisenhower and saw his opinion during the crisis, is there any more to eisenhower's involvement behind the scenes the public is not aware of. >> may i? but the public is not aware of, may i take this one? this is a great story. again, it is not secret it is just in the weeds, but very important. president kennedy did not feel he had a mandate when he was elected. very close election we can debate forever. you know, whether, well, he won, there is no question. , john kennedy chose republicans for important parts of his administration, his secretary of defense was a republican. his national security adviser is a republican. he kept on the same director of central intelligence, or republican. he kept hoover, and the endothelial at the fbi. so, and so, this is an important part of the story. so, the president's understanding of decisions that would get and would sort of be accepted to all american's certainly shaped his approach, who was the most famous, most popular, most beloved republican in the united states in 1962, it was dwight eisenhower, and dwight eisenhower wasn't actually just a beloved republican, he's a beloved american, he had enormous prestige, so many americans had fought under him in world war ii, all americans have a certain age remember him as one of the great pictures of that terrible war, john kennedy needed dwight eisenhower to be on his side, and john kennedy's outreach to eisenhower was a beautiful story. it involves his brother and his brother's relationship with a republican, the second director of -- the kennedy administration, also republican, it is important for jon kennedy, to know that macomb was on board with the decision to go with the quarantine, and it is important for home to be the representative of the administration to old man eisenhower so that eisenhower would approve and so the kennedy brothers, president, bobby, follies friendship with macomb, it prepared him to go and talk eisenhower but all the options in the hope that eisenhower would come to conclude they chose in the right one. and he does, so, eisenhower's role is very important. so is macomb's. had eisenhower thought the decision was wrong, i'm not sure how things would've played out, but it would've been a real complication for president kennedy. the management of eisenhower was a part of the cuban missile crisis that matters. >> it's something we've lost over the years, these two men really understand their roles. when you listen to the tape, it is so wonderful, this guy is old enough, he's old enough to be jfk's dad, basically. well, mr. president, heras you r hero, former president. , when they're talking, jack kennedy was jack, says, well, mister president, here's what i think, kennedy says, well, general, what do you think, they go back, i mean in that moment, they are, jack kennedy as the president, eisenhower gets to keep the title of general, he was a general, it just struck me that we don't do that as well anymore, really moved listening to his old man saying, well, mister president, and the younger man saying, well, general, the other part of the question, is that happening right now? i don't know, i don't know who biden talks to. i'm sure after 400 years in the senate he has a lot of friends and other people throughout washington that, i say that, i actually like that we elected to senate foreign relations chairman, that made me happy as president, but i'm sure there's people he talks to, i don't know. what's that? >> i'm sure he talks to mitch mcconnell. and i would be shocked if he hadn't actually talked to george w. bush. i mean, certainly is talking to barack obama. i bet he is talking to george w. bush. another question? >> i was going to ask about the jfk secret peace negotiations after the cuban missile crisis, so, he apparently had a journalist meeting with castro in october of 1963. actually, the journalist john daniel was with castro on november 22nd 1963, this is a back channel or a attempt at a -- apparently those going on, i don't know, i haven't heard a lot about it, there is a discovery channel documentary back in 2003, i don't know if anyone would want to talk about that. >> i am writing a book about president kennedy and his, because i'm very interested in his use of back channels. the president liked back channels. he used when with the russians, with the soviets, he used them with segregationists southern governors, he used, he was more than willing to use whatever tools were at his disposal, so, as he was ratcheting up the operations, the covert operations against cuba in the summer of 63, he supported this effort to see if something could happen with castro. it is completely consistent with john f. kennedy, who is a problem solver, he wanted to work a problem, so, yes, he did one, but he was also approving cia operations that involved some pinprick sabotage. and if you're interested in learning more about this, there are conversations from november 1963 that were taped. i seem to remember john f. kennedy talking to george bundy about, not necessarily about daniel, but outreach to castro. that was very consistent. he likes to have lots of options. >> hi, i have a question about bobby kennedy here broaching with khrushchev's representative about removing the missiles in turkey and italy, which actually gave khrushchev a way to save face in this crisis and arguably was why the crisis was averted in the first place. and, what can we learn from the and the current situation? that perhaps the west can do with putin. so, it feels like he's saving face. what i'm trying to say is even as heinous as someone is, sometimes you need to provide a way out just to save lives. >> i'm gonna cut your important question in half. i'll deal with the first half, and i'll throw the other half to the panel. those of us who study soviet history are debating the extent to which the turkish offer really was decisive. >> okay. >> khrushchev and already gathered members of his government to discuss exception kennedy's offer not to invade cuba before the news came in from soviet ambassador to britain and that he'd been meeting with bobby kennedy. we will never know if he, if khrushchev would have gone ahead with accepting the invasion pledge. it was a way of saving face. we will never know for sure. one thing that we do know is that we should not put too much emphasis on the turkish offer as an explanation for khrushchev, his decision to end the crisis. why do i say that? because khrushchev never mentioned that offer, even in his memoirs. he made a promise to the united states that he would never go public with it. but there is nothing preventing him from talking about it in this memoirs. so, he was much prouder of the no invasion pledge, plus, my russian colleague and i discovered that the soviet leadership had already been told that nato is going to deploy submarines in the mediterranean and submarines are really great way of delivering a nuclear weapon. you do not need these are bums, which are static. so, the soviets knew that the united states was gonna increase the amount of nuclear power in the mediterranean, of course, the symbolic importance of the turkish missiles, in terms of the balance of power, it did not make a single bit of difference. where it's really important for understanding the psychology of john kennedy. if you want to see leadership, listen to the tapes of october 27th, 1962. everybody surrounding the president is telling him, do not accept the demand to dismantle the turkish missiles. and the president disagrees with him. he says, history, i'm paraphrasing, he was more eloquent, history will never forgive me if people learn that i gave up the opportunity to end this crisis peacefully just because of a set of obsolete nuclear missiles and turkey. so, i think the turkish missile story tells a lot about john f. kennedy, after not as much as people say about khrushchev. i want the panel to think about this. >> i'm going to just say, it is not up to us to decide when ukrainian should stop fighting. that is not our decision. and, you think about obstacles. >> i don't mean to imply that. >> no, no, i'm sorry, i don't mean to be vehement. every time this conversation comes up, it is almost like, when will you westerners pressure the ukrainians to surrender their territory to an invading army? you know, my answer is, well, first of all, why would i do that, second of all, i cannot, they live their, it's their decision to keep fighting, the answer is, yes, but you're giving them weapons that allow them to continue the fighting. the thing about an off ramp is, you have to want one. putin keeps burning bridges behind him, not just to put himself in a bad situation, but because and, i'm going to say this, i do not mean this flippantly, because he is bad, i don't say he's stupid, but he's a bad strategist, he is just lousy at this, we have internalized this narrative about putin, you know, this i see, chest playing, he is a thug, he doesn't know it is doing half the time. you know, hey, here's a good idea, let's conscript 300,000 guys and throw the men. you could've almost up to him ahead of time, this will humiliate you again. and it is going to anger everyone in russia that has been staying out, you know, you promised this was not gonna touch these people in moscow, petersburg, other places, he is so isolated. this is a point i want to come back to about cuba, we didn't get it wrong, khrushchev got it wrong, the problem isn't a personalized system of government, you can be really write about how most of the government feels about something. but if that one guy makes a bad decision, it defeats all of your ability to do forecasting, protection, and all of that other stuff, remember, that after 1962, we found out the soviet general staff was totally against this whole idea, it's the chief of the soviet general staff who coins the phrase, uses the phrase, this was harebrained scheming, so, you know in a way, i guess i would've found the article and said, khrushchev didn't get it wrong, everybody in moscow thought so too, but the same problem with putin, when i hear about off-ramps, it's like, you know what do you do with a guy who says, no, before we talk, i want to humiliate myself one more time with a really bad decision that is gonna put me in an even worse position, i do not know, i genuinely, i am not a professional diplomat, i do not know what you do about a situation like this. >> it's hard to have an off ramp when you annex the territories you don't even control. i mean, that is not the basis for an off ramp. question, we have time for two more. one, one. >> another online question, did president kennedy want the -- raised, i thought he was angry that it is raised without his instruction to do so? >> i'm sorry, i can't, do you know anything about that? >> it seems unlikely would've happened without him knowing about it. i mean, he is the commander-in-chief, but i do think i've read that he wasn't happy about it, so, those two things do not make too much sense. >> i think he was very unhappy there was a way in which some of the, some of the u.s. air force were harassing cubans, which he felt was ratcheting up the tensions at a time that was not helpful because he was engaged in a secret negotiation by that point, epistolary negotiation with khrushchev. >> one thing worth noting, as an analog, since urging comparing contrast to ukraine, after the war began remember putin had a televised meeting where he is sitting down with his defense minister, i can't member who else was there. >> chief of the general staff. >> they're both kind of like, this is not going well. and he makes the announcement that we're raising our strategic alert levels of nuclear forces, i've talked to a number of intelligence officials who said that after that happened they saw nothing. >> one thing, something else i remembered reading that kennedy was unhappy about, the united states undertook a nuclear test during the cuban missile crisis, which he had not wanted to have happened, he was also unhappy because the cia undertook a sabotage operation that was supposed to, also baton rouge operations are supposed to be suspended during this period, i'd have to look into, i thought the death con levels something he had to prove his commander-in-chief. your question, sir. >> you may not want to tell your opponent what you're going to do next if he does this say that, but how about telling your opponent what you are not going to do, and this particular situation, putin has threatened to use what the world interprets as a tactical nuclear weapon. he hasn't used those words. how about we tell putin and the world, we can communicate with putin privately, okay? what's important is you tell the world here so that putin knows he's facing this message, we are not going to respond in kind. you use a nuclear weapon in ukraine, we are not gonna use the nuclear weapon, we have other alternatives. in other words, you make a pledge, not what if you crossed the line, but here is a line we're not gonna cross. >> alexis? >> i guess, you know, obviously, i can think of a lot of people who would be very happy about that, but the only important person, really, is putin, and how would he respond to that. would he respond to that thinking that was a sign of weakness? or would that make some impression? how might that, i think it's an interesting question, but what would be the consequence of him making a statement like that? >> i wonder, i agree, it all depends on what putin thinks, i think there is a certain kind of gesture that michael along with saying, we will not go to that level, now, at the same time, i wonder if the united states might deliver that message, without even explicitly saying, we won't use tactical nuclear weapons, but we will throw everything else in there and destroy your army within a matter of a week, you will wish we as a tackler nuclear weapon. it can be some kind of, you know, we're not gonna do this, but, you would not necessarily get to, you know, the peaceful approach that maybe you'd want to advocate for, but there would have to be some kind of messaging with it. it could not just be, we're taking an option off the table, you should interpret that as we won't do anything, even approximating the level of destruction of a tactical nuclear weapon, which we could cause without that tactical nuclear weapon in ukraine. >> the problem in this hypothetical's timing,, there is a time to say stuff, like, i wrote a book about nukes, one of the arguments i make, it aggravated my colleagues, i think the time has come, it's okay for the united states to have this is part of its doctrine. the united states will never be the first to use nuclear weapons and any conflict. announcing that right now would be bad. this is not the time to say, by the way, in the middle of all this we've rethought. i think this is a great time for the united states to use the russian formulation, there have been no changes in our strategic doctrine, the end. because the timing of when you say something has a lot of impact, this is not, you know, if the president tomorrow said, hey we're, gonna have a full review of the american nuclear posture, which we need, but not tomorrow, not announced from the white house podium. i don't think that's a good idea because of the timing. again, i think this is a case where saying less is better than saying more. >> thank you, tom. i would like to give john f. kennedy the final word, when you listen to this segment from december 1962, you might want to replace soviet union with russia, you might not, but listen to the president explained why at the very least the decade of the 1960s was so dangerous. let's go. >> the real problem is the soviet desire to expand their power and influence. if mr. khrushchev would consider himself with the real interest of the people of the soviet union, that they have a higher standard of living, to protect his own security, no real reason why the united states in the soviet union, supported by some thousands of miles of land and water, both rich countries, both with very energetic people, it should not be able to live in peace. it is this constant determination, the chinese show -- the soviets also shown that they will not settle for that kind of a peaceful world, but must settle for a communist world. that is what makes the real danger, the combination, these two systems and conflict around the world and nuclear age, is what makes the 60 so dangerous. >> i want to thank you. [applause] i want to thank my panelists. and, allen? >> thank you. extraordinary. [applause] thank you for this remarkable and thought-provoking discussion, thank you all for being with us this afternoon and throughout the day. again, i'm alan price, director of the john f. kennedy presidential library and museum, on behalf of all of my library and foundation colleagues, we have been delighted to welcome you to the special conference, the cuban missile crisis, lessons for today, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis. today's exceptional conversations will remain on our website. we hope that you will revisit them and share them with colleagues and friends again, thank you for joining us. [applause] >> if you're enjoying american history tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs like lectures in history, the presidency, and more, sign up for the american history tv newsletter today, be sure to watch american history tv every saturday or anytime online at c-span.org slash history. >> and with great confidence in our caucus, i will not seek reelection to democratic leadership in the next congress. >> in november, house speaker nancy pelosi announced he was stepping down after two decades at the top leadership spot, and on sunday, christmas day, we'll talk with journalist susan page, who wrote a biography on miss pelosi, we'll discuss the lawmakers most memorable moments as party leader, using the c-span archives. >> violating the speaker, you have brought us closer to the ideal of a quality. that is americas heritage and americas hope. >> this is a historic moment, i think the leader for acknowledging it. thank you, it is a historic moment for the congress, it's a historic moment for the women of america. >> watch her conversation on speaker of the house nancy pelosi's career, sunday at 10 am eastern on c-span and online at c-span.org. >> a new 118 congress convenes on tuesday, january 3rd, and in eastern. for the first tireturn to washia divided government. republicans will control the well democrats retain control of the senate by a slim majority. the new incoming members are younger with an average age of 47, compared to the average age of 58 in the previous session. the new congress will be more diverse with a record number of women serving, including more women of color. follow the process as the 118 congress gavels into session, holds the election for new speaker of the house and new members take the oath of office. congress, new leaders, watch the opening day over the 118th congress tuesday, january 3rd, at noon eastern, live on c-span and c-span two. also on c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.

Related Keywords

New York ,United States ,Moscow ,Moskva ,Russia ,Taiwan ,Afghanistan ,United Kingdom ,Paris ,France General ,France ,Washington ,Cuba ,China ,California ,Whitehouse ,District Of Columbia ,Kremlin ,Nicaragua ,London ,City Of ,Ukraine ,Germany ,Macomb ,Villa Clara ,Iraq ,Petersburg ,Sankt Peterburg ,Saudi Arabia ,Sochi ,Krasnodarskiy Kray ,Kyiv ,Kyyiv ,Misto ,Spain ,Turkey ,Americans ,America ,Ukrainians ,Chinese ,Turkish ,Soviets ,Russian ,Germans ,Saudis ,Cubans ,Spanish ,Soviet ,British ,Russians ,American ,Cuban ,Shane W Harris ,Dwight Eisenhower ,Ronald Reagan ,Nikita Khrushchev ,Pat Howard ,George Bush ,Jack Kennedy ,Baron Sea ,Jon Kennedy ,Jimmy Carter ,Ted Sorenson ,Kenneth Keating ,Robert Kennedy ,John Kennedy ,John F Kennedy ,Bobby Kennedy ,Penn Koski ,