The Charlotte News
Sunday, October 17, 1937
SIX EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: Taped session at the White House, October 16, 1962: Bundy: No question, if this thing goes on, an attack on Cuba becomes general war. And that's really the question whether . . .
Taylor : I'm [a pessimist,[?]] Mr. President. We have a war plan over there for you, calls for a, uh, for a quarter of a million Americans--soldiers, marines and airmen--to take an island we launched eighteen hundred Cubans against a year and a half ago.
[Faint laughter.]
So, said The News column editorial of yesterday, a war was nearly started between the United States and Great Britain back in 1859, (not 1856, apparently, as The News column suggests, in some faulty math, perhaps, perhaps not), over one man’s pig eating another’s potatoes and being shot for it, that is the pig; so much was the stir over the incident that it escalated quickly into international confrontation on San Juan Island, a disputed boundary area in the 1846 treaty establishing the Oregon Territory in the United States, that ships and military personnel were dispatched from both sides, including George Pickett for the Americans. The pigs did not prevail, however, and peace was restored on Animal Farm, also an area disputed by the Russians in earlier days to be their own, by virtue of early nineteenth century colonialization, as far south as Fort Ross, California.
But the incident did indeed nearly lead to war again between the two powers.
A couple of years later, America would tear itself apart over internal division respecting states’ rights and slavery. And four years of desperate turmoil would follow…
Then Grant and the Republicans and Big Business for a half century and more afterward, until a depression forced to the fore some new and creative ideas on how to make the society work better.
The President began his press conference of September 13, 1962 this way:
There has been a great deal of talk on the situation in Cuba in recent days both in the Communist camp and in our own, and I would like to take this opportunity to set the matter in perspective.
In the first place, it is Mr. Castro and his supporters who are in trouble. In the last year, his regime has been increasingly isolated from this Hemisphere. His name no longer inspires the same fear or following in other Latin American countries. He has been condemned by the OAS, excluded from the Inter-American Defense Board, and kept out of the Free Trade Association. By his own monumental economic mismanagement, supplemented by our refusal to trade with him, his economy has crumbled, and his pledges for economic progress have been discarded, along with his pledges for political freedom. His industries are stagnating, his harvests are declining, his own followers are beginning to see that their revolution has been betrayed.
So it is not surprising that in a frantic effort to bolster his regime he should try to arouse the Cuban people to charges of an imminent American invasion, and commit himself still further to a Soviet take-over in the hope of preventing his own collapse.
Ever since Communism moved into Cuba in 1958, Soviet technical and military personnel have moved steadily onto the island in increasing numbers at the invitation of the Cuban government.
Now that movement has been increased. It is under our most careful surveillance. But I will repeat the conclusion that I reported last week, that these new shipments do not constitute a serious threat to any other part of this hemisphere.
If the United States ever should find it necessary to take military action against communism in Cuba, all of Castro's Communist-supplied weapons and technicians would not change the result or significantly extend the time required to achieve that result.
However, unilateral military intervention on the part of the United States cannot currently be either required or justified, and it is regrettable that loose talk about such action in this country might serve to give a thin color of legitimacy to the Communist pretense that such a threat exists. But let me make this clear once again: If at any time the Communist build-up in Cuba were to endanger or interfere with our security in any way, including our base at Guantanamo, our passage to the Panama Canal, our missile and space activities at Cape Canaveral, or the lives of American citizens in this country, or if Cuba should ever attempt to export its aggressive purposes by force or the threat of force against any nation in this hemisphere, or become an offensive military base of significant capacity for the Soviet Union, then this country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies.
We shall be alert, too, and fully capable of dealing swiftly with any such development. As President and Commander-in-Chief I have full authority now to take such action, and I have asked the Congress to authorize me to call up reserve forces should this or any other crisis make it necessary.
This statement would cause him consternation at the first meeting on the missile crisis, October 16. He asked whether the TASS statement, insuring there would be no intent to locate offensive weapons anywhere outside the Soviet Union, was before or after this statement, to be informed that it was two days before, on September 11.
His openly honest concern to his closest advisors was that perhaps in some manner these statements had stimulated the Soviet Union to call his bluff, leading to the introduction of the missiles into Cuba. But the evidence was to the contrary, as the missiles were already being off-loaded by early September.
The U-2 flights of October 17, 1962 revealed a frightening new discovery when the film came back and was analyzed: an intermediate range ballistic missile installation was spotted at Guanajay, just west of Havana. This supplied a rocket capable of reaching a 2,200 nautical mile range, also, as with the MRBM, delivering a one megaton nuclear warhead, but with greater accuracy than capable by the MRBM. Thus, the threat had now escalated considerably, not only actually, but in political and psychological terms as well, since the examination of the October 14 photographs revealing only the MRBM's. The entire United States, save Washington state and northern Oregon, maybe that above the 42nd parallel, was now at risk, within the sights of the gunners manning the launchers at Guanajay, once they became operational. Direct hits were capable as far northwest as San Francisco, as far north as most of eastern Canada. The crisis had now taken a marked and precipitous turn for the worse. In addition, with this new photographic imagery, previous estimates of 16 to 24 missiles on the island were now upgraded to include as many as 32. Additional MiG and helicopter installations were also revealed in the new reconnaissance photos.
The President meanwhile, to keep appearances normal, attended a political fundraiser for mid-term elections in Connecticut, after attending a prayer observance at St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington in honor of the National Day of Prayer.
At the conclusion of this day’s meetings by the EXCOMM, minus the President, a memorandum was prepared by Ted Sorensen for the President’s consideration the following day, setting forth the particulars as to who now favored which action considered in the earlier Tuesday meetings with the President.
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