One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war (36 page)

He had tried to get some rest before his long flight to the North Pole, but had only managed a couple of hours' fitful sleep. Pilots had traipsed in and out of the officers' quarters all evening in their heavy snowboots, laughing and slamming doors. The more he tried to sleep, the more awake he felt. In the end, he gave up and went down to the operations building, where there was a vacant cot. He set his alarm for 8:00 p.m., four hours before takeoff.

The mission was to collect radioactive samples from the Soviet nuclear tests at Novaya Zemlya. Compared to flying a U-2 over hostile territory and taking photographs of missile sites, the assignment lacked glamour. The participants in "Project Star Dust" did not usually fly anywhere near the Soviet Union. Instead, they flew to some fixed point, like the North Pole, to inspect the clouds that had drifted up there from the testing site, more than one thousand miles away. They collected the samples on special filter paper, which were mailed off to a laboratory for analysis. Often there was nothing, but sometimes, when the Soviets had conducted a big test, the Geiger counters clicked away furiously. Out of forty-two missions already flown in October from Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks in central Alaska, six had returned with radioactive material.

Maultsby was used to the routine. As the pilot of a single-seater plane, he would be on his own for nearly eight hours. He had plotted the route ahead of time with navigators. For most of the way, he would navigate by the stars, with the help of a compass and sextant, like the seamen of old. A search and rescue team, known as "Duck Butt," would tag along for part of the trip, but there was little they could do if something went wrong. It was impossible for them to land on an icecap. If he had to bail out near the North Pole, he would be alone with the polar bears. "I wouldn't pull the ripcord," was the best advice they could give him.

The preflight ritual was always the same. After waking up from his nap, he went to the officers' mess for a high-protein, low-residue breakfast of steak and eggs. The idea was to eat something solid that would take a long time to digest, avoiding trips to a nonexistent bathroom. He changed into long underwear, put on a helmet, and started his "pre-breathing exercises," inhaling pure oxygen for one and a half hours. It was important to expel as much nitrogen as possible from his system. Otherwise, if the cabin depressurized at seventy thousand feet, nitrogen bubbles would form in his blood, causing him to experience the bends, like a deep-sea diver who comes to the surface too quickly.

Next, he climbed into his partial-pressure flight suit, which had been specially cut to his 150-pound frame. The suit was designed to expand automatically in response to a sharp loss of cabin pressure, forming a corset around the pilot and preventing his blood from exploding in the rarefied air.

A half hour before takeoff, he was attached to a walk-around oxygen bottle and transported to the plane in a van. He settled into the cramped cockpit and strapped himself into the ejection seat. A technician hooked him up with the internal oxygen supply, and connected various straps and cables. The canopy was closed above him. Neatly sewn into the seat cushion was a survival kit, which included flares, a machete, fishing gear, a camp stove, an inflatable life raft, mosquito repellant, and a silk banner proclaiming, in a dozen languages,
I am an American.
A pamphlet promised a reward to anyone who helped him.

Maultsby's compact build--he was only five foot seven--was a plus for a U-2 pilot. The cockpit was exceptionally cramped. To build a plane capable of soaring to a height of fourteen miles, the designer, Kelly Johnson, had ruthlessly cut back on both the weight and size of its fuselage. At one point, he vowed to "sell my own grandmother" for another six inches of precious space for an extra-long camera lens. He dispensed with many of the features of a modern airplane, such as conventional landing gears, hydraulic systems, and structural supports. The wings and tail were bolted onto the fuselage rather than being held together with metal sheets. If the plane was subjected to too much buffeting, the wings would simply fall off.

The U-2 had many other unique design features, in addition to its flimsy construction. To gain lift at high altitude, the plane needed long, narrow wings. Maultsby's plane was eighty feet wide wingtip to wingtip, nearly twice the distance from nose to tail. The willowy wings and light airframe allowed the plane to glide for up to 250 miles if it ever lost power from its single engine.

Flying this extraordinary airplane required an elite corps of pilots, men who were physically and mentally equipped to roam the upper reaches of earth's atmosphere at a time when manned space flight was still in its infancy. A U-2 pilot was a cross between an aeronaut and an astronaut. To be selected for the program, he needed to demonstrate a combination of athleticism, intellect, and utter confidence in his own abilities. Training was carried out at "the ranch," a remote airstrip in the Nevada Desert. Also known as "Area 51," the ranch was already becoming notorious as the site of numerous alleged UFO sightings, most of which were likely sightings of the U-2. Seen from below, with the sun glinting off its wings, the high-flying spy plane could be mistaken for a Martian spacecraft.

At midnight Alaska time--4:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time--Maultsby got the thumbs-up from his mobile control officer. He roared down the runway, pulling the control stick that gave the plane lift. The pogos--sticks with auxiliary wheels that prevented the U-2's long wings from scraping the ground--dropped away. The flimsy plane soared into the night sky at a steep angle like some exotic black bird.

A U-2 pilot needed to combine two contradictory qualities. To sit strapped into an uncomfortable ejector seat for up to ten hours, he had to transform his body into "a vegetable," shutting down his normal functions. At the same time, his brain had to operate at full speed. As Richard Heyser, the pilot who discovered the Soviet missiles in Cuba, liked to say: "Your mind never relaxes. If it does, you're dead."

Maultsby was about an hour out of Eielson when he flew over the last radio beacon on his way to the North Pole. It was on Barter Island, on the northern coast of Alaska. From now on, he would rely on celestial navigation to keep him on track. The Duck Butt navigators wished him luck and said they would "keep a light on in the window" to guide him back on his return six hours later.

5:00 A.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27 (NOON MOSCOW)

In Moscow, eleven time zones ahead of Alaska, Nikita Khrushchev had just convened another meeting of the Soviet leadership. "They're not going to invade now," Khrushchev told the Presidium. Of course, there was "no guarantee." But an attack on Cuba seemed "unlikely" at a time when the Americans were talking to the United Nations about a possible solution to the crisis. The very fact that Kennedy had responded to proposals by U Thant, the United Nations secretary-general, suggested that he was not about to invade Cuba just yet. Khrushchev was beginning to doubt the president's "bravery."

"They had decided to settle matters with Cuba and they wanted to put the blame on us. But now, it seems, they are reconsidering that decision."

Khrushchev's mood had changed many times during the course of the week. He seemed to have a different opinion about the likelihood of an American attack on Cuba every time he met with the Presidium members in the wood-paneled conference room down the corridor from his office. News that the Americans had discovered the missiles had filled him with alarm. Kennedy's decision to go with a blockade rather than an air strike relieved his worst fears. Reports that the Strategic Air Command had declared DEFCON-2--one step short of nuclear war--produced another fit of anxiety. But nothing happened, and he was now feeling a little more relaxed. The immediate pressure was subsiding.

His responses to the crisis reflected his shifting moods, which were in turn shaped by the signals he received from Washington, official and unofficial. His intelligence folder on Friday morning included the distressing news that Kennedy had decided to "finish with Castro" once and for all. The report was based on flimsy evidence: overheard snippets of a conversation at the National Press Club in Washington and a lunch between an American reporter and a Soviet diplomat. But it helped persuade Khrushchev to send his conciliatory-sounding message to Kennedy about untying "the knot of war."

After another night pondering his options, he believed there was still some time left for negotiation. The Friday message had been vaguely worded, suggesting only that a U.S. noninvasion guarantee would remove "the necessity for the presence of our military specialists in Cuba." He knew he would probably end up withdrawing the missiles, but he wanted to salvage what he could in retreat. The most obvious concession to demand in return was the withdrawal of American missiles in Turkey.

Khrushchev had good reasons to believe that Kennedy might consider such a compromise. Early on in the crisis, Soviet military intelligence had reported that "Robert Kennedy and his circle" were willing to trade U.S. bases in Turkey and Italy for Soviet bases in Cuba. The information was considered authentic because it came from an agent named Georgi Bolshakov, who had served as a Kremlin backchannel to Bobby Kennedy. More recently, Khrushchev's interest had been piqued by a syndicated column by Walter Lippmann calling for a Cuba-Turkey missile swap. The Soviets knew the columnist had excellent sources in the Kennedy administration. It seemed unlikely that he was speaking only for himself. Khrushchev understood the Lippmann column as an unattributable feeler from Washington.

"We won't be able to liquidate the conflict unless we satisfy the Americans and tell them that our R-12 rockets are indeed there," he told those meeting in the Presidium. "If we can get them to liquidate their bases in Turkey and Pakistan in exchange, then we will have won."

Other Presidium members expressed approval as Khrushchev dictated the text of another message to Kennedy. As usual, he dominated the meeting with his forceful personality. If the others had concerns about the way he was handling the crisis, they kept their objections to themselves. Unlike his rambling letter of the previous day, Khrushchev's latest message outlined explicit terms for a deal.

You are worried about Cuba. You say it worries you because it is only ninety miles across the sea from the shores of the United States. However, Turkey is next to us. Our sentinels are pacing up and down and watching each other. Do you believe you have the right to demand security for your country and the removal of weapons that you consider to be offensive, while not recognizing the same right for us?...

This is why I make this proposal: We agree to remove those weapons from Cuba that you categorize as offensive. We agree to state this commitment in the United Nations. Your representatives will make a statement to the effect that the United States, bearing in mind the anxiety and concern of the Soviet state, will evacuate its analogous weapons from Turkey.

Under Khrushchev's proposal, the United Nations would have responsibility for ensuring implementation of the deal through on-site inspections. The United States would promise not to invade Cuba. The Soviet Union would give a similar pledge to Turkey.

This time, Khrushchev was unwilling to entrust his message to time-consuming diplomatic channels. He wanted to get it to Washington as quickly as possible. He also calculated that publication of a reasonable-sounding proposal would buy him some extra time, since it would put Kennedy on the defensive in the battle for international public relations opinion. The message would be broadcast on Radio Moscow at 5:00 p.m. local time, 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning in Washington.

In the meantime, Khrushchev wanted to make sure a war did not begin by mistake. He had little choice but to approve the measures taken by General Pliyev the previous evening and reported overnight to Moscow, including the activation of air defenses. But he also moved to strengthen Kremlin control over the nuclear warheads. He ordered the return of the R-14 warheads to the Soviet Union aboard the
Aleksandrovsk.
And he had his defense minister send an urgent cable to Pliyev removing any ambiguity about the chain of command for nuclear weapons:

It is categorically confirmed that it is forbidden to use nuclear weapons from the missiles, FKRs, and Lunas, without approval from Moscow. Confirm receipt.

One big problem remained: selling a Cuba-Turkey deal to Castro. The proud and hypersensitive Fidel was likely to react angrily to any negotiations behind his back that involved removing Soviet missiles from Cuba, particularly if he heard about the proposal first on the radio. Khrushchev entrusted the job of calming Castro down to Alekseev. The ambassador was instructed to depict Khrushchev's message to Kennedy as a shrewd attempt to forestall the threatened U.S. invasion of Cuba. The Americans "know very well that they would be branded as aggressors if they staged an intervention under the present circumstances. They would be shamed before the entire world as enemies of peace who did not hesitate to copy the worst examples of Hitlerite barbarity."

As Khrushchev was dictating his message to Kennedy, thousands of jeering Muscovites were protesting in the street outside the U.S. Embassy. They waved banners with officially approved slogans like "Shame on the Yankee aggressors!" "Away with the Blockade!" and "Cuba yes, Yankee no!" Some protesters even got on top of stalled trolleybuses along the Sadovoe ring road to shake their fists at the embassy and hurl stones and ink bottles, shattering a few windows.

"Who gives you the right to stop ships on the high seas?" a demonstrator asked an American reporter who was circulating in the crowd. "Why don't you just leave Cuba alone?" A World War II veteran suggested that both sides simply give up all their military bases "and we'll be friends as we were in the war." A woman with a drawn face complained that Americans did not understand war because their country had never been invaded. "If you had experienced war the way we did, you would not always threaten us with war," she argued.