Reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis
The ineffectiveness of diplomacy in dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis
The quarantine of Cuba
Mr. Secretary
Effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the build up of nuclear weapons
Effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis on United States-Soviet relations
The Berlin Crisis
The drive to build up conventional forces in Europe after the Berlin crisis

 
 

Reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer

In terms of Vienna and the Cuban Missile Crisis, do you think that what happened in Vienna had anything to do with the crisis?

Rusk

I don't think we ever really knew just why Mr. Khrushchev decided to try to put missiles into Cuba. Um, it's possible that, in his own mind, those missiles in Cuba were linked to his strategy with respect to Berlin, that he would use missiles in Cuba as a, an additional leverage to persuade us to come to some major compromise on Berlin. But it may also be that the military effect of missiles in Cuba, which would give them a capacity to knock out our, uh, strategic bases with almost no advance warning, would be so tempting that he wanted to take the chance, even though there just might be an American reaction. My impression was that Mr. Khrushchev did not have his scenarios ready for a sharp and strong American reaction to the missiles in Cuba. Uh, he seemed to be caught with his scenarios down. Uh, but, um, in any event, I think it would be pure speculation, uh, to try to figure out what was in his mind when he decided to attempt to put those missiles in, in Cuba.

Interviewer

You were there in Vienna. Did you see Kennedy as coming across as weak? Was that your perception?

Rusk

Not at all. Um, the, uh, Mr. Khrushchev started out that summit with a long ideological exposition of the doctrine of the world revolution and things like that. Kennedy did not reply in kind; he, in effect, said, "Well, Mr. Chairman, you're not going to make a communist out of me, and I'm not going to make capitalist out of you, so let's get down to business." Some of the Kremlin watchers thought that Kennedy should have replied in kind. Frankly, I, uh, um, agreed with President Kennedy because it was just a waste of time to do that. He did, uh, talk with Khrushchev about the problem of Laos; and it appeared they made a little headway on that. Preparing the way for the Laos Conference of 1961-62. But then came the ultimatum on Berlin, and the net result of that... uh, summit, was a, uh, very serious crisis over Berlin.

Interviewer

There's a scene at the end of Vienna, of Kennedy and Khrushchev shaking hands, and I think you're there on the edge. Was that a particularly tense scene?

Rusk

Well, there's no question that, uh, the, that summit ended with a note of high tension. Now, these two did treat each other courteously, from the purely personal point of view, because in diplomacy you must try to do that. But, uh, Kennedy was, uh, greatly disturbed that Khrushchev would try to intimidate this young, new President of the United States. And it left a very bad taste in his mouth.

Interviewer

One of the first questions from the ExComm meetings that Kennedy brought into the room and raised in discussion was "why Khrushchev did this?" And you raised Berlin and also, I think, China. Can you just tell us about that?

Rusk

Well in, uh, when, uh, when such a crisis arises, one of your first, uh, efforts is to try to figure out what is in the other fellow's mind, and of course we, we tried to do that. And I had the benefit of the advice of Llewellyn Thompson, our former ambassador in Moscow, and a very careful Kremlin watcher. And during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he played our in-house Russian, to give us his advice as to how the Russians would respond to this or that. But, um, I don't think we ever felt that we really knew for certain just why Khrushchev thought that he could put those missiles in Cuba without a very strong American reaction. It may be that he was influenced by the fact that Kennedy did not follow up the, uh, Bay of Pigs with American forces. Uh, it may be that, uh, he had the Berlin strategy in mind. It may be that the, uh, strategic advantages of having missiles in Cuba were very large in his mind. Whatever they were, uh, I think we -- a-and motivation really was not the central point -the central point, from our point of view, was to get those missiles out of Cuba.

Interviewer

What was your first reaction? What did you think had to be done right away?

Rusk

Well, when I first heard that these missile sites were under construction in Cuba, uh, I had in mind two very important points. From a military point of view, the presence of missiles which could knock out our own strategic bases with no advance warning, would be a significant change in the underlying strategic relationship. Missiles fired from the Soviet Union into the United States would at least give our bombers a, bombers a chance to get off the ground and certain, uh, precautionary steps taken with regard to our missiles. Uh, but from a political point of view, it seemed clear to me that the effect in the Western Hemisphere and in NATO, of our accepting these missiles in Cuba, would be devastating. And so, uh, actually I felt that, uh, we had to find some way to get those missiles out of Cuba. This was... for, the first intrusion into the Western Hemisphere, of that kind of offensive weaponry on the part of the Soviet Union.

Interviewer

What was the tone of those meetings?

Rusk

The ExComm group was... very calm. We, of course, were deeply disturbed, and Mr. Khrushchev thought that he could do this kind of thing with impunity. But we began immediately to think about what our own response should be or must be, and certain working groups were established to look at the alternative lines of action that were in front of us. The one line of action in, in which there was no working group was the idea of doing nothing, because we felt we simply could not accept these missiles in Cuba. Um, and so, um, uh, we went to work straightaway. I myself did not join anyone of these working groups, because I felt that as Secretary of State, I should reserve my own position until the President and I heard from all of these working groups, and then... I would give him my recommendation as Secretary of State.

Interviewer

I understand that initially you favored some sort of an air strike.

Rusk

Now when you box the compass of the possible lines of action, you, you think and talk about a good many different things. But, uh, that's a very different thing from, uh, bringing a judgment to bear, uh, at the end of the day as to exactly what action we should take. Uh, you see, ln between the meetings of these worklng groups, I had a lot of discussions with individuals such as Robert McNamara, Llewellyn Thompson, McGeorge Bundy, and, uh, as we pro-, proceeded, uh, we developed a consensus among some of the key people, like those I just mentioned, that we should use, uh, a quarantine, um, at least as a first step. Now, if the quarantine did not work, then we might have to, uh, try something else. But we were determined to find a way to get those missiles out of Cuba. There's one factual point, which has not been generally discussed. We never saw a warhead on a missile on a launcher all ready to fire, in Cuba. Um, now, had we seen that, then it could have been quite a different, and much more dangerous, crisis. One can not describe what the effects might have been, because only President Kennedy could have, uh, faced that, and, uh, and, uh, he did not have to face it. But there was an urgency of time about the Cuban Missile Crisis which was very important to us. We felt that we must wind up that crisis before those missile sites became fully operational.

The ineffectiveness of diplomacy in dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer

Why was there not more of an effort on the diplomatic side?

Rusk

Well, there were, uh, many diplomatic efforts made, including with the Russians; just before President Kennedy gave his Monday evening television speech on the subject, I called in the Soviet ambassador, gave him a copy of the speech and went over that with him, and told him what was coming, and, uh, we communicated, uh, during the week, uh, directly with, uh, Mr. Khrushchev. But, uh, also this matter was taken up for discussion in the united Nations Security Council. As a matter of fact, it was very important that the Security Council be there, where this matter could be discussed for a few days. During which it was less likely that one side or the other would lash out in fury over the situation, and to give, uh, the two capitals a little more time to put their heads together and find a solution. But, uh, then there was a... extraordinary amount of diplomatic activity with regard to our allies in this hemisphere, in NATO, and with... nonaligned countries, so that it was... we had one of the most elaborate diplomatic scenarios that we've ever had on any problem, in connection with the, the, um, Cuban Missile Crisis.

Interviewer

But the work with the allies and the OAS was done really after the division had been made.

Rusk

That's correct, um... President Kennedy immediately made the decision, when the air photographs of these missile sites became known to us. That, um, we would not make public the presence of these missile sites in Cuba until we were prepared to tell the world what we were prepared to do about it, because... to do... to, to make the presence of the missiles, uh, prematurely known, would have caused all sorts of panic and confusion and complete disarray, and so we deliberately held that information for almost a week, while, uh, we were deciding what our response should be.

Interviewer

But neither you nor Kennedy nor any other of the groups seemed to want to try any direct communication with Khrushchev.

Rusk

Oh, there were communications with, uh, with the Russians during this period. But the point is that we could not rely on negotiations alone to find the answer. Because, uh, of this time factor. I mean, they could have spun out the negotiations or the, or the, uh, deliberations of the U.N. Security Council, until all these missile sites had become operational. Then that would have been quite a different ball game. Uh, so, uh, we did not think that negotiations alone, without some backup by American action, would have any chance of the kind of success that we thought we had to achieve.

Interviewer

The second or third day of the crisis, there was a meeting with Gromyko. can you describe that meeting?

Rusk

Well, that came, uh, on the Thursday prior to the Saturday on which President Kennedy made his final decision and the Monday television appearance. And during that meeting with Mr. Gromyko, uh, president Kennedy, who was sitting there with a desk full of photos of the missile sites in Cuba, gave Mr. Gromyko every opportunity, in effect, to confess to the presence of these missiles. Uh, Mr. Gromyko, um, simply, uh, played it with his usual poker face and insisted that there were only defensive weapons, uh, in Cuba. Um... President Kennedy, at one point, reached in his pocket and drew out some excerpts from statements he had made in earlier press conferences, as to the gravity of the crisis that would result if such missiles were discovered in Cuba. And Mr. Gromyko played it, played it cool. Um, and, so President Kennedy, in his Monday evening speech, stated he thought Mr. Gromyko had deceived him on the, on this matter.

Interviewer

Do you know now, 25 years later, whether or not Dobrynin or Gromyko knew...

Rusk

Well, I'm quite certain that Mr. Gromyko knew. I'm not completely certain that Ambassador Dobrynin knew. It's entirely possible that he was kept in the dark.

Interviewer

What was the president's, and your, reaction following the Gromyko meeting?

Rusk

Well, we were, uh, disappointed that he had not come clean on these missiles in that Thursday meeting. But, uh, it was not, uh, a complete surprise, because that's... usually the Russian way of doing things. Uh, but then, uh... that same day, I invited Mr. Gromyko to have dinner with me over in the State Department, and we spent the evening in some very serious discussion, although no direct m-mention of the missiles in Cuba during that discussion. But those were serious times, and... the discussion was very serious indeed. The, the Soviets did a brilliant technical job with... with regard to these missile sites. They brought everything in, prefabricated, from the Soviet Union, including the concrete covers that covered the cables running from the radar positions over to the firing positions. And we could see an empty pasture being developed into a missile site, just day by day. Um, oddly enough the Soviets used exactly the same pattern for these missile sites they had used on their own missiles in the Soviet Union. Had they completely, uh, changed the pattern, it might well be that we would not have picked them up by air photographs and identified them in time.

Interviewer

How important was the OAS group?

Rusk

It was very important, because, uh, of the...

Interviewer

Can you start that again?

Rusk

Yes. Yeah... The approval of the OAS was very important from a fundamental legal point of view. Some of the lawyers in the Department of Justice thought that we ought to use the doctrine of self-defense in our response to the Cuban missile... But we in, uh, the State Department did not wish to expand the concept of self-defense to that kind of situation, because after all no firing had taken place, nobody had gotten shot at, and so we, uh, thought it better to rely upon the provisions of the Charter of the Organization of American States and the Rio Treaty. And to let the OAS consider whether this, these missiles in Cuba were a threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere. So I went over to the meeting of the OAS on the Tuesday morning following President Kennedy's speech, and the action of the OAS was unanimous and very strong, that these missiles were, in fact, a threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere and must be removed. Now, we didn't ask -- not have to... twist any arms in the OAS over this issue; indeed, Mexico, which u-, usually votes against such things, was one of the first to come forward and say, "What can we do to be helpful?" So, that, uh, unanimous resolution of the OAS, which was soon, then, reported to the U.N. Security Council, was a very important step, both legally and, and from the point, and, and leg-, and legally and politically.

Interviewer

Were you surprised by the speed at which the OAS moved?

Rusk

Not really; when you take a look at these missiles and their range... across the hemisphere, uh, and the intrusion of a major, uh, power into the Western Hemisphere, uh, this, uh, stimulated, uh, all sorts of, uh, hemispheric considerations in the minds of the governments in the OAS, and, uh, there was just no problem about, uh, the strength of their reaction.

Interviewer

One other diplomatic approach was that of John Scali. What role did that play in this thing?

Rusk

Well, John Scali's contact in the Soviet Embassy was known to be a KGB representative, and, uh, we found that quite useful because when that channel confirmed what we were getting through the official channels between us and the Soviet Union, that, uh, seemed to indicate that what we were getting was the real stuff, because it was confirmed through the Scally-Fo-, Fomin communication. So, uh, I think John scally played a very useful role, although it was only one of the channels of communication being used.

Interviewer

The first letter of Khrushchev's, where he talks about "pulling on the knot of war"... do you recall the reaction when that came through?

Rusk

Well, I think it was on the Thursday following President Kennedy's television speech that we received a long message, which seemed clearly to be a personal message from Khrushchev himself. He gave us some concern because it was distraught and emotional and suggested that maybe the old man was losing his cool, and, uh, we didn't like the... thought that someone whose finger was on the nuclear trigger was, was, uh, losing his cool. Um... but, uh, then, um, the next day we received another long communication from him, which appeared to be a committee kind of draft, a Foreign Office kind of draft, and, uh, it was not so emotional in terms. But, in the Khrushchev letter, there was a hint that, if we would indicate that we would not invade Cuba, that the missiles could be removed, so, instead of answering the Friday letter, we went back and answered the Thursday letter. And that indeed proved to be the combination which got the missiles out of Cuba. But, uh... we, of course, inspected both communications under a magnifying glass, and did a lot of reading between the lines to try to figure out what was happening in the Politburo.

Interviewer

As a secretary of state, with many years of experience, how did you react to that first letter?

Rusk

It was, but it. ...

The quarantine of Cuba

Interviewer

Some "revisionists" have criticized the blockade as being "provocative." How do you feel about that?

Rusk

Well, when we first looked at the idea of a blockade, we found that, from the point of view of international law, that the idea of a blockade had become very complicated, with all sorts of rules affecting the nature of the blockade itself and relations with neutral shipping and all sorts of things. And so, we decided to use something called a "quarantine," partly because no one knew what "quarantine" meant, and that left us with maximum flexibility in how we would actually handle the situation. The quarantine was aimed at offensive missiles, not at general shipping into Cuba, and at one point, you may remember, President Kennedy, um, pulled back the outer line of the quarantine to a little further south, to give Mr. Khrushchev more time to get things sorted out in Moscow. On the first day or so of the quarantine, certain ships, Russian ships, in which we were specially interested, were coming through the Strait of Gibraltar. They seemed to be specially configured, and might well have been bringing in warheads and things of that sort. But we were interested and pleased that immediately those ships turned around and headed back to the Black Sea, and, uh, that was responsible for my, uh, remark that we were "eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked." Um, but, uh, nevertheless, uh, the quarantine was used as a flexible instrument, which gave us a chance not to drive Mr. Khrushchev into a corner from which he could see no escape.

Interviewer

Could you tell us this "eyeball to eyeball" thing again? That comes out of some sort of a children's game?

Rusk

Yes, uh, down here in Georgia, we, uh, children used to play a game in which we would stand about two feet from each other, and stare into each other's eyes, and the first one who blinked lost the game. And this remark was, um, directly drawn from those childrens' games. But I was furious when some indiscreet, foolish colleague leaked that remark in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, because at a time when any consideration of face or prestige might have made a difference, for some colleague to leak that, I thought, was wholly irresponsible and unforgivable.

Interviewer

Could you tell us this children's game business again...?

Rusk

That remark about being "eyeball to eyeball" came from a children's game which we used to play down here in Georgia. The game involved children standing about two feet from each other and staring into each other's eyes, and the first one that blinked lost the game. It's not easy -- you ought to try it some time. But, um, that was made at a fairly early stage of the crisis, when certain Russian ships, in which we were interested, turned back and seemed to be headed for the Black Sea. But, I've seen a television program in which, uh, at that moment, uh, that remark, uh, stimulated a lot of laughter and clapping, as though our high school team had just scored a touchdown. It wasn't that way at all, it was very serious business, and we knew that we were a long way from a resolution of the crisis.

Interviewer

Was that to you the most critical moment in the thirteen days?

Rusk

Well, that was an uncomfortable moment, but I think the critical moment really came on the following Sunday, when Mr. Khrushchev announced that, uh, he was withdrawing the missiles from Cuba, because, um, had the quarantine not worked, in terms of getting the missiles out of Cuba, we would then have had to consider direct military action against Cuba, and we had assembled in Florida an enormous and overwhelming conventional force. Florida was about to sink under the sea with the military power that we had there at that time! But fortunately President Kennedy did, did not have to face that decision, and so no one can say what his decision might have been.

Interviewer

How close do you think we did come to a nuclear exchange?

Rusk

It's hard for us to say, because the nuclear decision was really in Mr. Khrushchev's hands. We had an overwhelming conventional superiority in the vicinity of Cuba, and so we did not have to consider nuclear weapons with respect to Cuba. And therefore, uh, the nuclear problem was in Mr. Khrushchev's hands. Now, we did not think that he would launch nuclear weapons over this matter, but we cannot be sure; then we had to take that into account. And so that made it a very dangerous crisis. Um... In retrospect, uh, I just don't think any of us know how close Mr. Khrushchev might have come to, uh, using nuclear weapons in that situation. But in any event it was too close for comfort. And I think both we and the Russians came out of that crisis pretty sober and prudent, because each side had had a chance to look down the cannon's mouth, and we did not like what we saw.

Interviewer

Can you tell us about your feelings that morning after Kennedy's speech on the 22nd?

Rusk

Well, I'd gotten home about two o'clock that evening, 'cause a lot of things to do during, uh, the evening following Kennedy's speech. And I got, uh, three or four hours' sleep, and I remember waking up the next morning and saying to myself, "Well, I'm still here; this is very interesting." Because that meant that Mr. Khrushchev's im-, immediate response was, had not been to launch nuclear missiles. But, uh... you know, you had, you had to... think about such things, and take them into account.

Interviewer

There must have been tremendous pressure on you and the others...

Rusk

Yes, um, there was a lot of pressure on the members of ExComm.

Mr. Secretary

Rusk

President Kennedy and I decided from the beginning that we would continue to meet our public appointments, so as not to create a premature sense of panic about a great crisis, which we were not ready to, uh, take hold of and announce our action with respect to... Uh, and then in between times, and late at night, we spent a lot of time with each other, talking over the situation and all of its, uh, alternatives: it was very tense. And that raises, to me, a very interesting question. We sustained that crisis for thirteen days, with calm and, I think, rationality. But how long can frail human beings, in whatever capital, sustain a crisis of that seriousness and that magnitude, given the factors of weariness and loss of sleep, and, uh, not knowing what the other side is going to do, concern, suspicion, things of that sort. How long can human beings sustain a crisis of that level? I think that's something that... we ought to think about, and. .. another reason why we should... try to avoid letting such crises come about.

Interviewer

You were prepared to invade on Monday or Tuesday if Khrushchev had not backed down.

Rusk

Well, if the... if the missiles had not been... taken out... to Mr. Khrushchev's announcement on the Sunday, we had the capability of moving into Cuba on the following Tuesday, so there was about 48 hours leeway. But only President Kennedy could have decided whether or not we would have moved into Cuba, and so one can only speculate about whether that action would have been taken. But we had the capability of moving in.

Interviewer

And you knew by then that some of the missiles were ready to fire.

Rusk

Well, the warheads on missiles, on launches, were simply not seen during this crisis, so we had not yet reached that point.

Interviewer

But you had to assume, I would think, that they were there.

Rusk

Well, we were looking at them. We were looking at them, day by day, hour by hour. Not only with high-level reconnaissance, but with low-level photographic reconnaissance, and so, uh, we didn't have to speculate about that point, we'd just look and see.

Interviewer

But you never knew if the warheads were actually there, even to this day.

Rusk

Well we, we saw what appeared to be the "igloos" in which warheads might be stored, but I cannot recall that we actually saw a warhead physically present there, although we had to assume that they probably were.

Interviewer

Did it worry you, the talk of an invasion?

Rusk

Well, an invasion would have been, uh, a very serious matter. Indeed, uh, some of our friends in the Western Hemisphere, who were most strongly opposed to Castro, nevertheless strongly advised against an invasion of Cuba, on the grounds that the large numbers of casualties which would occur, particularly among Cubans, would inflict a scar on the hemisphere for perhaps generations to come. So we were not itchy to move into Cuba. Um, but, um, fortunately that, we didn't need, we didn't have to face that decision.

Interviewer

How concerned were you about things getting out of control militarily, both in the U.S. and on the Soviet side?

Rusk

President Kennedy was, in effect, the action officer in this crisis, and so he, uh, followed the details of action very closely indeed. Now, for example, when the American U-2 pilot was shot down, over Cuba, there were some who wanted us immediately to retaliate by strikes against Cuba. President Kennedy decided that the main purpose was to get the missiles out of Cuba, and he did not allow that diversion to occur. And then in the middle of the crisis, uh, one of our planes based in Alaska, made a air reconnaissance flight to the North Pole and back. But when he made his turn at the North Pole to come home, he apparently got his navigation wrong and found himself down over Siberia. Fortunately, he got on his radio and, in open English, talked back to his base, saying, "Hey, I'm lost, I'm, I think I'm over Siberia, tell me how to get home!" Apparently the Soviets overheard that chatter and decided that he was indeed lost, and although they scramble planes, they did not shoot him down. Well, Kennedy was, uh, pretty upset about such an incident occurring right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, you have to take into account that when large numbers of people are involved, human frailty can play a part, and, uh, so we had to watch it very closely.

Effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the build up of nuclear weapons

Interviewer

I understand Kennedy and McNamara and the others were in direct communication with some of the ships out in the blockade.

Rusk

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, the, uh, the President wanted to know about and follow every action taken. We... we let a, a number of ships through that were bringing oil or, uh, nonmilitary goods; we were concerned only in the offensive weapons, in trying to ensure that they did not get through.

Interviewer

That must have been upsetting to some of the military people, having the president in direct contact with captains on the bridges of the ships.

Rusk

Well, some of them might, but, after all, the President is Commander-in-Chief; and the first duty of a man in uniform is to do what he's told.

Interviewer

Were you aware that the Soviets had actually lost control of at least one of those SAM sites, and that therefore the implied threat of Robert Kennedy that if another U-2 was shot down the United States would have to react -that Khrushchev was not in control?

Rusk

Well, I've heard the rumor that, uh, Castro himself pulled the trigger on that missile that shot down our U-2; I don't know whether that was true or not. Ah, but, we had no doubt that the Russians had full control of those nuclear weapons in Cuba, and indeed of those missile sites. I don't think the Russians would have allowed Mr. Castro to have, be in any position to take action with them on his own. So we weren't particularly concerned about this. Actually this crisis was not between us and Castro: it was a crisis between us and Khrushchev, and the Soviet Union, and we dealt, really, uh, with this matter as a Russian problem and not as a Cuban problem.

Interviewer

Can you tell us about the meeting with Robert Kennedy before he met with Dobrynin?

Rusk

I don't know whether the notes on those conversations are public yet, and so it's not for me to, uh...

Interviewer

Some of it's been published in Robert Kennedy's book...

Rusk

Oh, yes, part of it. Well, I think... I think, uh, Robert Kennedy wanted to emphasize to Ambassador Dobrynin that this was a very dangerous crisis, that unless these missiles were removed promptly, that this could move into another military stage, which might get out of control, and that time was of the essence, and that was the central message which Robert Kennedy... gave to Ambassador Dobrynin. We used Robert Kennedy deliberately because, uh, that was an out-of-channel method of communication; after all, he was the President's brother; and our experience had been that the Soviets usually pay more attention to such out-of-channel communications than they might for something you would send through the, our embassy, or the Soviet embassy in Washington. And I think it, it was, it was a useful thing to have Bobby Kennedy talk directly to the Soviet ambassador.

Interviewer

This was also, I understand, the first time that the offer of a "trade" was made.

Rusk

Well, it was something less of an agreement. It was more a question of information. When President Kennedy took office, he had in front of him a very critical report of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, about this... emplacement of these missiles in, um, Turkey and in Italy, on the grounds that these missiles were obsolete and that they were vulnerable. There was one report that anyone driving down a public highway with a 22-caliber rifle could put holes in these, uh, Jupiters. And, uh, we even laughed about the question as to which way these Jupiters would go if we fired them. They were very primitive missiles. So, in the early spring of 1961, I was in Ankara for a foreign ministers' meeting, and I talked to a very high official of the Turkish government about getting these missiles out of Turkey. Well, he was concerned about having some time, because they had just put through the Turkish Parliament the appropriations for the Turkish share of the costs of these missiles, and then he said it would be very bad for the morale of Turkey if they were removed before Polaris submarines became available in the Mediterranean to take their place, and we would not have Polaris submarines until the spring of '63. So I came back and reported that in great detail to President Kennedy. Well now, I don't know where the Soviet intelligence, uh, had picked up the prospect that as a NATO matter these missiles would be removed from Turkey, uh, but, um, in any event, when that issue was raised, it was almost a red herring, an irrelevant issue, because those missiles were coming out anyhow. And Robert Kennedy informed Ambassador Dobrynin that those missiles were on the way out and presented no problem. Now whether Mr. Khrushchev interpreted that as an agreement or not, I don't know, but, um, it certainly was not the careful, detailed negotiation that would normally accompany an agreement on something like that.

Interviewer

So you didn't see that offer.

Rusk

Oh, I think it might, I think it might have helped Khrushchev within his own circles in the Politburo. Ah, but, um, it was something that was on the way, that was going to happen, and, um, so that it, it really, uh, did not lend itself to the kind of an agreement that would, uh, become a legally binding instrument on both sides; after all, the Jupiters were also taken out of Italy and Thor missiles were decommi-, decommissioned in Britain, because we were in the process of, uh, standing down some of these first-generation weapons.

Interviewer

What do you feel about the role of nuclear weapons in all this?

Rusk

We had the impression that somehow the Russians might have counted missiles during this crisis. Um... and they, we figured that we had a superiority in, in missiles. Actually, we didn't count missiles. We thought that we had to get these missiles out of Cuba in any event. But perhaps the Russians thought... that we had taken missiles into account, because I think it's clear that shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis they began to build up their missile forces. And indeed, uh, very shortly after that crisis was over, a high-ranking Russian said to John Jay McCloy in New York, "Well, now, Mr. McCloy, uh, you got away with it this time, but you'll never get away with it again." So I think that nuclear weapons were in the background, but fortunately, uh, they did not move front and center, and it's important for us to be able to say today that we've put behind us more than 40~ years since nuclear weapons have been fired in anger.

Interviewer

Does it concern you that some people in the present administration have used the lesson from the Cuban Missile Crisis that nuclear superiority can prevail?

Rusk

Oh, I think that's... given the vast, uh, stockpiles of nuclear weapons, both in the Soviet Union and in the United States, um, the overkill factor is such that, uh, these numbers, uh, reach a point where they are not relevant. I remember Mr. Kissinger once said, uh, "What in the name of heaven is nuclear superiority?" It's the perceptions that are in peoples' minds...

Effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis on United States-Soviet relations

Interviewer

We ran out towards the end of that last response. Can I ask you again what role you feel nuclear weapons played?

Rusk

Well, the presence of nuclear weapons in the background was always in our minds. But, um, the nuclear decision was in Mr. Khrushchev's hands. We did not think that he would use a nuclear strike over this matter, but we could not know that, so we had to take it into account. And that factor made, I think, this crisis the most dangerous crisis the world has ever seen, uh, because of the possibility that there might have been a full nuclear exchange between the two superpowers, but fortunately, um, the prop-, the crisis was resolved without those possibilities becoming real, and today we can say that we've put behind us more than 40.5 years without the firing of a nuclear weapon in anger, and that's a very important thing to be able to say.

Interviewer

How do you feel about some who take the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis as one of nuclear superiority?

Rusk

Well, the, the size of the inventories of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union and United States, makes the question of, uh, superiority in numbers more or less irrelevant; the overkill factor is so great. Um, and so, um, it, it really is the perceptions in people's minds about what the numbers mean that are important, not the numbers themselves; we can kill each other several times over. And, include the human race in that. So I don't think that that factor plays as much of a role as perhaps it might have to some in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Interviewer

Is there a danger, then, in trying to draw those conclusions from a time when the United States had massive superiority? At the time, I think, the Soviet Union only had about four ICBM's...

Rusk

Oh, I think they had more than that, but, uh, they had enough to destroy major population centers in the United States, and, uh, the destruction could have been, uh, incredible. Um, but, um, I think, uh, we reach a point where a nuclear war is simply that war which must not be fought. Because such a war would not only eliminate the answers, it would eliminate the questions, and I think there's great truth in Chairman Khrushchev's remark once that, in the event of a nuclear war, the living will envy the dead. And I'm very optimistic avoiding, about avoiding nuclear war in the longer range. I don't think that the leaders in Moscow have any more interest in destroying Mother Russia than our leaders have in destroying our beloved America. And so I don't like....any of this "doomsday" talk with which our young people are being battered these days.

Interviewer

How important was the Cuban Missile Crisis in leading to a partial test ban?

Rusk

Well, I think we and the Russians came out of the missile crisis, uh, pretty sober, recognizing that such crises must be avoided because they are just too darn dangerous. And we proceeded to, uh, try to find points of agreement between the, on large matters or small, that might help to broaden our mutual interest in the prevention of nuclear war, and reduce the range of issues on which violence might occur, and so we had the test ban treaty and the civil air agreement and the consular agreement and two important space treaties -- a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and, the discussions which led to the ABM treaty in the early Nixon years, and so, um, I think it's important that, uh, we and the Soviets recognize that somehow, whatever we think of them and they think of us, we've got to find some way to inhabit this speck of dust in the universe at the same time. That's the bottom line in our relations with the Soviet Union.

Interviewer

Did it frighten Khrushchev and Kennedy, those 13 days?

Rusk

Depends on what you mean by "fright," uh, it was a very serious crisis, but fortunately for everybody, uh, President Kennedy, uh, was very cool during this crisis. He, uh, had ice water in his veins, and, um, now we don't know exactly what the scene was in the, at the table of the Politburo in, in Moscow, but somehow at the end of the day Mr. Khrushchev reached the right conclusion, and we were able to come through this without a... nuclear war.

Interviewer

We're thinking of concluding this film with that scene of the test ban signing.

Rusk

Well, that nuclear test ban treaty gave president Kennedy great satisfaction, um, and I suspect Mr. Khrushchev himself was pleased with it, because, you see, it was Khrushchev himself who turned the key that unlocked the possibility of the test-ban treaty. We'd been locked up in negotiations on the issue of how you verify underground shots, and in the face of that difficulty Mr. Khrushchev said, "Well, then, let's go ahead in the atmosphere, underwater, and in out of space, and leave the underground problem for later." Well, that made the test ban treaty, uh, possible. So I think that was, uh, that was influenced by the sobriety and the prudence that immediately followed the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Interviewer

What do you think today is the essential lesson or the lessons of the crisis?

Rusk

I think the primary lesson that we learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and I hope it's learned on both sides -- is that we must try our best to prevent such crises from arriving on the scene, because they're just too utterly dangerous. You see, uh, we and the Russians should not play games of "chicken" with each other, to see how far one might go in a particular adventure, without crossing that lethal line into nuclear war, because down that path lies the possibility of mistake and miscalculation. And I personally think that we [and] in Moscow should watch the level of rhetoric between our two capitals, because if that rhetoric becomes too vitriolic over too long a period of time, there's always the possibility that one side or the other will begin to believe its own rhetoric and then we could have some problems. And so we ought to keep in mind that, that necessity, sheer necessity, uh, of, um, working things out so that we and they can live on this earth at the same time.

Interviewer

Are you concerned at all that those of you who lived through those 13 days are the only ones who remember those essential lessons?

Rusk

Well, I'm, uh, a little concerned that such lessons may not pass automatically from one mind to the other as leaders succeed each other. I think it would be well to have a, um, a committee of experts, drawn from the Soviet Union, United States, Britain, France, and China, who would be available to spend the day with each new leader of, uh, nuclear powers, to be sure that they fully understand the total effects of nuclear war, both direct and indirect, because an understanding of that point is the beginning of wisdom, with respect to how one deals with such crises and such weapons.

Interviewer

Tell us just as a last thing, that story about driving to Washington...

Rusk

Well, when I was a small boy growing up...

Interviewer

I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

Rusk

Yes. When I was a small boy growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I memorized and recited the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first question in that catechism is, "What is the chief end of man?" And in the catechism it has a theological answer. But during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as I was driving through the streets of Washington and saw people on the sidewalks and passing by in cars, I realized, uh, that this first of all questions, "What is the chief end of man?" "What is life all about?" had become an operational question before the governments of the world. And that to me was a very sobering thought.

The Berlin Crisis

Interviewer

You went with President Kennedy to the Vienna summit in early 1961. Do you recall what threats Khrushchev made to Kennedy at that time?

Rusk

Well, toward the end of that, uh, summit meeting, Mr. Khrushchev, in very harsh terms, presented President Kennedy with an ultimatum on Berlin. He said that he was going to make certain arrangements with the East Germans, and that would include control over the access routes to Berlin and so forth, and then he said, uh, "If there's any attempt on the part of the West to interfere with these arrangements, there will be war." Well, now, in diplomacy you almost never use the word "war"; you speak of the "gravest possible consequences" or something of that sort. But, uh, Mr. Kennedy had to look Khrushchev straight in the eye and say, "Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war. It's going to be a very cold winter." Uh.... Kennedy was disturbed that Mr. Khrushchev thought that he could intimidate this young, new president of the United States, but that, that meeting launched a, uh, very serious, dangerous crisis over Berlin.

Interviewer

Let me ask that question again... from the last point about the "cold winter."

Rusk

Well, at the end of that summit meeting, Mr. Khrushchev, in very harsh terms, presented an ultimatum to President Kennedy about Berlin; he said that he was going to make an agreement with the East Germans, under which the East Germans would have control over the access routes to Berlin. And, um, then he said, "If there's any attempt on the part of the West, uh, to interfere with these arrangements, there will be war." Now in diplomacy you don't use that word "war" very often; you talk about the "gravest possible consequences" or something of that sort. But Kennedy had to look Khrushchev straight in the eye and say, "Then, Mr. Chairman, there will be war. It's going to be a very cold winter."

Interviewer

Did the Berlin crisis center around the problem of access?

Rusk

Well, there was first the safety of the city itself, and the some three million people in West Berlin, but then the access was a vital appendage to the problem of Berlin. And we all could remember that in 1948, Joseph Stalin blockaded West Berlin, and we had to use a dramatic airlift to feed the people of Berlin, while arrangements were worked out to lift that blockade.

Interviewer

Some people refer to the erection of the Berlin wall as the "dissipation" of the crisis. do you agree with that?

Rusk

Well, Berlin had been a little hole in the Iron Curtain, which extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and during, uh, 1961, the flow of, uh, people from East to West became a hemorrhage, and we, uh, felt that the Russians and the East Germans would undoubtedly take some step to stop that flow of talent from East to West; we did not know exactly how and exactly when, but when the Wall went up, in August, 1961, uh, that was clearly an effort by the East to keep their own people in, and that itself was not an issue of war and peace between East and West. It was painful, and it was disagreeable, and, uh, there were some problems with the morale of the people of West Berlin. But that had never become a, an issue of war and peace.

Interviewer

So the tensions continued after the wall went up.

Rusk

Yes.

Interviewer

Um, could you make that a statement.

Rusk

Well, I had, uh, follow-up talks with Mr. Gromyko about Berlin, following the June, 1961, summit. At the beginning of those talks, Mr. Gromyko, um, took the same harsh line that Mr. Khrushchev had taken, but I had to remind him that, if they wanted war, they could have war in five minutes; all they had to do was to start one; but if they did not want war, we'd better talk about it some more. And so, Sir Alec Douglas-Home of Great Britain and I talked with Mr. Gromyko at considerable length on several occasions, and we talked and talked and talked and finally, I think, talked a good deal of the fever out of that problem.

Interviewer

Back here in the States, fall and summer of '61, there were several options being considered to deal with the problems of access to Berlin. Could you tell me about some of them?

Rusk

There was intense, uh, discussion among the United States, Great Britain, France, and West Germany, about what steps might have to be taken with respect to Berlin, if Mr. Khrushchev moved on that city. Um, basically it had to do with a graduated response: um, we wanted to make it clear to Mr. Khrushchev that, uh, his effort to seize Berlin would be resisted, but we did not want to move instantaneously to an all-out nuclear war. And so the graduated response might well, at the end of the day, have led to nuclear exchanges, but, um, that, uh, was a matter of, uh, NATO planning as well, and, uh, I have no doubt that Mr. Khrushchev, through his own services, became aware of the fact that the West was prepared to take this very seriously, and to use force to oppose it.

Interviewer

Do you feel that Kennedy would have used the nuclear option if the crisis in Berlin had escalated?

Rusk

No one can possibly know the answer to that question, because President Kennedy never had to face it, and only he could have made the primary judgment as to what that response might be. Ah, but fortunately it didn't come to that point, so that it's almost futile to try to speculate about what might have been.

Interviewer

Were nuclear options considered as a possible response?

Rusk

Well, it, uh, was recognized that the kinds of graduated responses which the West was prepared to make could lead, at the end of the day, to the use of nuclear weapons.

The drive to build up conventional forces in Europe after the Berlin crisis

Interviewer

The Berlin crisis was the first time the concept of flexible response, graduated escalation, and graduated response was exercised. Later, in May, '62, and June, '62, secretary McNamara presented this new strategy to the allies. Do you recall the trip you made to discuss this with the allies?

Rusk

Well, Robert McNamara had a very inquiring and analytical mind, which caused him to ask penetrating questions about the conventional wisdom and the slogans of the day. Now, back in the first part of the 50's, there was a good deal of talk about massive retaliation, and in NATO they talked about a "plate-glass" or a "tripwire" strategy, which suggested that if there was any significant fighting along that dividing line in Europe that we'd move promptly to nuclear weapons. Well, later in that same decade of the 50's, the Soviets achieved a full-strength capability against Western Europe and the United States, and in that situation the "trip-wire" doctrine simply became so irrational that it was incredible. And so McNamara felt, and I agreed with him, that it would be necessary to strengthen the conventional forces of NATO, partly in order to give credibility to the nuclear deterrent. You see, increased conventional forces would force the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies, to make it clear that they were indeed engaged in a serious and all-out attack on Western Europe, whereas a slight skirmish might be for some other purpose. And so, uh, McNamara and, as a matter of fact, the Kennedy administration, moved toward the idea of balanced forces, partly because the so-called "nuclear deterrent," the "massive-retaliation" doctrine, had become, uh, simply incredible.

Interviewer

Who did you see on that trip to Europe?

Rusk

Well, I typically met with foreign ministers, um, of the NATO allies, um, and, um, of course, uh, one of the consequences of the trip-wire theory and massive retaliation was that it was sort of cheap for our allies, in terms of conventional forces. But... and so they were reluctant, I think, to undertake the additional costs of a build-up in conventional forces. Uh, this, uh, change in doctrine, therefore, was, uh, not particularly welcomed initially by our NATO allies, but the more they thought about it, they more -- the more they realized that this was a sensible approach. Because the earlier approach had simply become, uh, irrational.

Interviewer

But weren't they concerned that the emphasis on conventional forces would undermine the credibility of the nuclear "guarantee"?

Rusk

Oh, I don't think so; the, um, uh... it's customary for our allies in Europe to worry a bit about the commitment of the United States to NATO, but, uh, when I first became a NATO foreign minister, I was aware of the habit, for Secretaries of State, to begin each meeting with a ringing affirmation of American dedication to NATO. Well, I told my NATO colleagues that, uh, I was going to stop that, because there was no question about American commitment to NATO, but if they wanted a general pledging session in which all members came in and affirmed their, uh, renewed support for NATO, I would join them. Uh, but, uh, there's no reality in, in any fears of that sort; after all, the American people have taken almost 600,000 casualties in dead and wounded in support of collective security since the end of World War II. And we have, uh, 300,000 troops or so in Germany. And so I don't see any basis for a European anxiety on that point.

Interviewer

But they were anxious, weren't they?

Rusk

Well, it's, um, it's typical for politicians to be anxious about something.

Interviewer

Did they express this anxiety to you?

Rusk

Well, they were a little reluctant at the beginning, but they soon, uh, came to the same conclusions that McNamara and we had reached, and, uh, the only problem then became the rate at which they would increase their expenditure for conventional forces in pursuance of a balanced-force doctrine.

Interviewer

So you didn't feel it was your job to go there and reaffirm the American commitment?

Rusk

That really wasn't, uh, necessary in my mind, and I told them why I was not going to waste a lot of breath each time we met in such an exercise. Um, remember, also, that McNamara was re-, meeting regularly with the defense ministers of NATO. And so, on the matter of strategy, I was more or less in, uh, first-line support of McNamara, and it was not I who had, who had to carry the main argument or the main discussion with our allies on that point.

Interviewer

Could you repeat that statement in full sentences?

Rusk

I don't quite understand what you mean.

Interviewer

Did you have to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to our allies?

Rusk

No, I felt that it was not necessary for the United States, unilaterally, to, uh, affirm its support for the security of NATO Europe. That, they oould take for granted, and if they wanted to have a general pledging session, in which all members of NATO affirmed their support, that was fine. Uh, but, uh, I did not think it necessary; after all, we had, uh, 300,000 troops over there. And that is enough of a guarantee for anybody.

Interviewer

Were you at the Glassboro summit?

Rusk

Yes, I was there.

Interviewer

Do you recall the meetings and the exchanges?

Rusk

Yes, um... President Johnson and Premier Kosygin met, uh, all a-, all alone with an interpreter, uh, in which they worked out a formula on Vietnam, which Mr. Kosygin would relay to Hanoi. But I think the most important thing that happened there was that President Johnson raised, with Premier Kosygin, the problem of antiballistic missiles. Prior to Glassboro, we had done a lot of homework for about a year preceding, and we'd come to the conclusion that if we and the Soviets began to deploy antiballistic missiles, the inevitable result would be that each side would simply multiply its own offensive missiles, in order to be able to smother the ABM's before the main strike came in, and that such ABM's would have a very destabilizing effect on the arms race. So President Johnson put that point very convincingly to Mr. Kosygin, but it was clear that Mr. Kosygin had no brief on the subject, that the politburo had not considered it, that they had not really done their homework, and so he was unable to respond in any way to President Johnson's, uh, rather insistent, uh, request that we take this matter up for direct negotiations. Following Glassboro, the Soviets then went home and did their own homework, and came to the same conclusion that we had reached, and so that resulted in the ABM Treaty, which was, uh, finally, uh, put together in the early years of the Nixon administration.

Interviewer

The Soviets are known to have had, at least in the early 60's, a very heavy reliance on nuclear weapons. According to McNamara, Kosygin was very adamant on the point about defense being moral and offense...

Rusk

Well, Mr. Kosygin's first response to President Johnson on this was that you can not really object to defensive weapons. Well, that was what I would call the naivete of the first look, because when the Soviets went back and did their own... an-, analytical work, they reached the same conclusion that we had reached under McNamara's leadership, namely, that ABM's would multiply offensive weapons and have a very destabilizing effect on the arms race.

Interviewer

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Rusk

Oh, I think, I think you've got more than you will use anyhow.