(Host)The
final presidential debate, which will focus on foreign policy, takes
place next Monday night in Florida. This morning, commentator and
veteran ABC News foreign correspondent Barrie Dunsmore offers a
historical context for viewing that discussion.
(Dunsmore)
Exactly fifty years ago we were in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis
– when the world came frighteningly close to World War III. In the
aftermath of the assassination of President John Kennedy, the books
written by his former aides glorified his role, which given the
circumstances is understandable. But these accounts also created myths
which distort the lessons we should have learned from having come so
close to nuclear annihilation.
Four years ago. Michael Dobbs
wrote "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the
Brink of Nuclear War." It is based on a great deal of new material and
in my view is the best single book on the subject of the missile crisis.
Dobbs does not set out to denigrate Kennedy. On the contrary in his
account Kennedy emerges as a hero, but a different kind of hero than the
myths suggest. He is not the tough guy, standing up to the Communist
menace and willing to risk human extinction to prove that America’s
power can never be challenged.
Just this past week, Dobbs wrote
in a New York Times Op-Ed piece that Kennedy at one point calculated the
chances for war at one in two. This was not caused by a clash of wills.
The real danger arose from nuclear war by miscalculation.
As
Dobbs documents in his book, Kennedy was under enormous pressure within
his thirteen member committee on national security. He was the most
dovish member of the committee and when he decided to hold off an
immediate invasion of Cuba and set up a naval blockade to stop further
Soviet arms shipments, he was bitterly opposed. General Curtis Lemay,
the Air Force Chief of Staff warned the blockade would send a message of
weakness. Said Lemay, "It will lead right into war. This is almost as
bad as the appeasement at Munich."
Although both Kennedy and
Khrushchev were bellicose in the early days of the crisis, Kennedy later
tried see things from Khrushchev’s perspective – and sought to give him
a way out.
And so when the Soviet leader publicly offered to
swap the obsolete U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey for the Russian
missiles in Cuba, Kennedy privately called it a "pretty good
proposition" and sent his brother Robert to meet with the Soviet
Ambassador in Washington to seal the deal. Ultimately then, it was a
principled compromise which literally saved the world.
As I have
written previously, I believe the United States needs a president who
not only understands the meaning of nuance, but is also prepared to
conduct relations with the rest of the world in a balanced and
thoughtful manner. That means deftly using all the strengths of this
country – economic, diplomatic and yes moral – not just military. It
also means showing the judgment of a President Kennedy rather than the
jingoism of a General Lemay. No future crisis will likely be as serious
like the one fifty years ago. But you never know.