The Role of Bobby Kennedy throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis
On the morning of Tuesday October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was reading the Tuesday morning newspapers in his bed at the Whitehouse. Not twenty fours hours before, McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, received the results of Major Richard S. Heyser's U-2 mission over San Cristobal Cuba. In light of recent mysterious Soviet and Cuban activities developing in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the president's administration had given the order to conduct reconnaissance missions over the island of Cuba. In particular a fifty-mile trapezoidal swath of territory in western Cuba was to be looked upon under intense scrutiny. A CIA agent reported in the second week of September that this stretch of land was being guarded closely by Peruvian, Colombian, and actual Soviet soldiers. There was a real reason to be suspicious of the activity in western Cuba. The first of this U-2 reconnaissance mission would reveal a shocking discovery.(Chang & William p.33-47) The U-2 reconnaissance reports that Bundy received in full detail two 70-foot-long MRBMs at San Cristobal. The news that Bundy would eventually have to expose to President Kennedy would sound alarms not just in his administra
The stopping of Russian ships by the American navy would cause chaos and possibly even retaliation by Russian ships. 267) At least the blockade could buy time and allow the Soviets to retreat without a single shot being fired. However Kennedy was confused and extremely frustrated by the current situation. Kennedy whom the president would rely on and trust the most in this situation. He even wrote to President Kennedy himself that his ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin in Washington enjoyed his "complete trust," to encourage the use of regular diplomatic communications. 45) This would be the group of Washington's sharpest and most influential minds that would more or less decide the fate of the nation and the world. Bolshakov was not informed about operation Anadyr. There was no small talk about Bolshakov's vacation, which months before the men had considered taking together. "I think we should be under no illusions that this would probably in the end lead to the same thing," he said with some resignation. Khrushchev was reluctant to agree on such a volatile issue as Berlin, but did promise not to do anything until after the American elections in November and the Americans did cease to send spy planes over the Atlantic. 157-9) Frank Holeman had first met Bolshakov in 1951 at a Soviet held lunch-in in Holeman's honor. 234) He was prepared to do what ever was necessary to remove those missiles from Cuba. This devastating news from Cuba would result in the tense period in Cold War history to date and perhaps its tensest period in the entire history of the war. The channel had already been used in negotiations involving a nuclear test ban treaty and the continuing stalemate in Berlin.
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