The Cold War (33 page)

There was more irony in the fate of the tunnel itself. Although it was “blown” from the beginning, the Soviets couldn't blow up the American operation until it had served its purpose for Soviet, as well as American, intelligence. Thus ended a classic modern spy story, illustrating the dividends and the waste of major operations and the sometimes strange rules of the game, which some participants are beguiled into playing for itself, with little wisdom about the national interest.

After sentencing to forty-two years in prison—a year, some say, for each British agent sent to death because of his treason—George Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs, London's maximum-security prison, in 1966. His method remains secret; he himself remains unrepentant. Britain's most wanted criminal—whose
parents named him after King George V, Britain's monarch at the time of his birth—lives a quiet life in Moscow as a Middle East expert for the Russian Republic's successor to the KGB.

Not long after leaving BOB in 1959, Bill Harvey began working directly for John Kennedy. The stylish young president placed “America's James Bond” in command of ZR/Rifle, a new CIA program for developing the capability to perform assassinations anywhere in the world. Thus Harvey would run “wet” operations for the man with whom he shared a claim of never going a day without enjoying a woman. Fidel Castro was among the first targets. Drinking more than ever, Big Bill negotiated with Mafia mobsters who made attempts to kill the Cuban leader in the early 1960s.

Then he incurred Bobby Kennedy's wrath—not, as was then supposed, because the Cold War cowboy took it upon himself to send sabotage teams into Cuba during the possibly calamitous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. His offense was open rebuke of the Kennedys during a supremely tense Cabinet meeting at the height of that crisis. Referring to the CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba some eighteen months earlier, Harvey expressed the fury of much of the intelligence community over Kennedy's refusal to provide air support for the ill-trained anti-Castro brigade facing disaster at the Bay of Pigs. “If you hadn't fucked up in the first place,” he was said to have informed the president, “we wouldn't be where we are now.” Beyond their hearing, he called the Kennedy brothers “fags” and “fuckers.”

“Exiled” to Rome, Harvey guzzled before, during, and after bizarre episodes involving revolvers—one pointed at a policeman who stopped him for speeding—and on trips to relive his glory in Berlin. A handful of CIA colleagues attended the legend's funeral in 1976. Some remembered the gold medals the CIA had awarded them two decades earlier, for what the agency then believed was the Cold War's greatest espionage coup.

DINO A. BRUGIONI

Most published accounts and studies of the Cuban Missile Crisis tend to concentrate almost exclusively on the debates and decisions of the Kennedy White House during those harrowing days of late October 1962. Since that time, however, major aspects of the crisis, strangely overlooked, have come to light. One is the preparation for war, against both Cuba and the Soviet Union, that took place in a period just short of two weeks and turned southern Florida into a D-Day–like staging area. The result would prove to be the largest short-term mobilization of men and equipment since World War II—exceeded in size only by Desert Storm and the invasion of Iraq. The plans for the invasion of Cuba, which came close to happening, were mostly unknown at the time; even now the exact tactical details of Operational Plans 312-, 314-, and 316-62 remain classified. Fortunately for the world, the trains (as well as the planes and ships) could be stopped, and were. This would not be another 1914.

Dino A. Brugioni, who worked at the time of the crisis for the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) of the CIA, was a key member of the team that, on October 15, confirmed the presence of Soviet surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba. Here he tells the story, as it unfolded day by increasingly tense day, of the preparations to invade Cuba and destroy the missile sites if the Soviets—in the person of their leader, Nikita Khrushchev—had refused to back down. If the operation developed with unbelievable swiftness and was for the most part efficient, remember that in 1962 the U.S. armed forces had reached a Cold War peak of morale and readiness. And in this case they would have been meeting a threat, not half a world away as they did in Korea or Vietnam, but a hundredodd
miles off their own shores. Still, that extraordinary mobilization did not come off without some typically American glitches.

The Cold War would pivot on the Cuban Missile Crisis. This would be the ultimate confrontation between West and East. It was, as John Lewis Gaddis has written:

DINO A. BRUGIONI is a renowned authority in the analysis of aerial photography and is a founder of the National Photographic Interpretation Center of the CIA. He is the author of
Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
from which this article was adapted. He has also written
Photo Fakery: The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation
. Brugioni lives in rural Virginia.

October 15–16, 1962. Throughout the summer of 1962, the CIA had maintained close surveillance over the heavy volume of Russian shipping exiting the Baltic and Black seas bound for Cuba. The dramatic increase in Soviet cargoes and the arrival of numerous “technicians” at Cuban ports became a paramount intelligence concern. A U-2 mission over the island on August 29 revealed that the Soviets were constructing an islandwide SA-2 surface-to-air-missile (SAM) defense network. Soon after, the discovery of Komar guided-missile patrol boats and coastal cruise-missile sites to defend against an amphibious landing alerted the U.S. government to more sinister possibilities.

The emerging picture of a Soviet military build-up in Cuba particularly worried John McCone, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Of the SA-2 missiles, he stated: “They're not putting them in to protect the cane cutters. They're putting them in to blind our reconnaissance eye.” McCone insisted that the number of U-2 flights over Cuba be increased, and he expressed to top policy makers his concern that the Soviets might introduce offensive missiles in Cuba. On September 4 and 13, President Kennedy issued warnings to the Soviets that “the gravest issues” would arise if they installed surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) in Cuba. In official statements and high-level meetings with U.S. officials, the Soviets stated emphatically that they would not deploy offensive weapons in Cuba.

On Monday, October 15, interpreting a U-2 mission flown over Cuba the day before, NPIC discovered two medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM)
sites under construction in the San Cristóbal area. When the president was briefed on October 16, he ordered the island completely covered by U-2 missions. Interpreting the photographs that these flights brought back, the center found four additional MRBM sites and three intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) sites under construction. (The MRBMs could reach just beyond Washington, D.C.; the IRBMs could hit all parts of the United States except the extreme Northwest.) NPIC also spotted four mobile Soviet combat groups.

General Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saw the secret Soviet move into Cuba with nuclear missiles as a major effort to change the strategic balance of power. It was an attempt to erase in one stroke the U.S. nuclear superiority to the Soviets. That superiority, according to a top-secret estimate, was at least seven to one. (In meetings with Americans in Moscow in 1989, Soviet officials stated that the ratio was closer to fifteen to one—or greater—in favor of the United States.) Taylor and the other members of the JCS recommended a preemptive air strike, an airborne assault, and an invasion to wipe out the missile bases. As Dean Acheson, then a senior adviser with the National Security Council (NSC), put it—and Taylor agreed—one does not plan a military operation of the magnitude of the Soviets' with the expectation that it will fail.

The NSC debated three courses of action: a “quarantine” (actually a blockade) of Cuba, air strikes against the missile sites, and an invasion. The president chose the quarantine. At the same time, preparations were set in motion for the alternatives. Acheson began to press for a declaration of war against Cuba. He wanted to make it plain to the Soviets that “their bayonets had struck steel instead of mush.”

To the intelligence community, the Soviet-Cuban venture had the Khrushchev stamp: a gamble—bold, large, premeditated, but not carefully thought through. That gamble would become a colossal Soviet blunder. Militarily, as General Taylor would remark, the Soviets chose the wrong issue and the wrong battlefield.

JCS contingency plans for air strikes, a quarantine, and the invasion of Cuba had been completed by the summer and were known as Operational Plans 312, 314, and 316, respectively. Practice for these operations had already been scheduled to take place with an amphibious brigade landing exercise from October 15 to 20 on Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico. At the last moment the exercise had been canceled because of bad weather. But thousands of marines were still on their ships, ready for a real landing.

During the same period, the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force were engaged in exercises called “Three Pairs” and “Rapid Roads” in central Texas. Units of the 82nd Airborne Division, the attacking force, were waiting at the James Connally Air Force Base at Waco, Texas, when ordered to return to their home
base, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Tactical Air Command (TAC) fighters that were to support the 82nd Airborne were sent to airfields in Florida. The 1st Armored Division, which was to be the aggressor force in the exercise, was told to return to base at nearby Fort Hood and await orders.

October 17–19. The JCS, through Admiral Robert Lee Dennison, commander in chief of Atlantic (CINCLANT), began alerting naval Task Forces 135 and 136 to head for the Caribbean. Commanding officers were told to round up their men as inconspicuously as possible. Task Force 135 consisted of two attack carrier groups built around the nuclear-powered U.S.S.
Enterprise
and the U.S.S.
Independence,
along with fifteen screening destroyers. It was to proceed to positions off the southern coast of Cuba. Task Force 136, the blockading force, consisted of the aircraft carrier
Essex
and cruisers
Newport News
and
Canberra,
along with an underway replenishment group and nineteen destroyers. The quarantine line was marked by twelve destroyers on an arc five hundred miles from Cape Maisí.

Lieutenant General Hamilton Howse, commanding general of the Strategic Army Command (STRAC) and the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, ordered the commanders of the 101st Airborne Division, the 1st Infantry Division, the 2nd Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division to report to his headquarters immediately. He briefed them on October 19, a Friday, with aerial photos provided by NPIC and ordered them to bring their commands to full alert status.

The 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions stationed at Fort Bragg and at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were alerted for immediate movement to intermediate staging areas in southern Florida. The 1st Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the 4th Division at Fort Lewis, Washington, were also alerted for possible movement. The 2nd Division at Fort Benning, Georgia, would be moved to New Orleans for embarkation. The 1st Armored would be sent to Fort Stewart, Georgia. The commanders assembled their staffs and gave detailed instructions for the movement of men and matériel from their commands to Georgia or Florida.

One of the first priorities was to establish an impenetrable air-defense umbrella over forces gathering in Florida. Just ninety miles and five minutes of jet flying time from Havana, Key West would become one of the principal bases of the crisis. Rear Admiral Rhomad Y. McElroy, the Key West commander, cleared Key West International Airport and the nearby U.S. naval air station at
Boca Chica of all utility and support aircraft in order to accommodate the navy and marine strike, reconnaissance, and defense aircraft that had already begun arriving from bases along the East Coast. Naval Squadron VF-41, transferred to Key West from Oceana, Virginia, on October 6, was already patrolling along the Florida Keys and the north shore of Cuba. All leaves were cancelled at the base.

Meanwhile, military aircraft of all types, from fighters to reconnaissance planes packed with computers and sophisticated listening equipment, began to converge on other Florida air bases. By the evening of October 19, hundreds of fighters were lined up wing tip to wing tip, ready for action.

Army air-defense battalions, equipped with Hawk and Nike Hercules SAMs, were given the highest priority for rail, air, and truck movement. From as far away as Fort Lewis, equipment was moved south to defend the Florida airfields that were most vulnerable to Cuban attack. The Hawk surface-to-air missiles battalion at Fort Meade, Maryland, was ordered to proceed posthaste by road to Key West. The loading was quickly accomplished, but it was evident that there had been little regard for weight or orderliness in the packing of the equipment. The unit selected U.S. Highway 1 as the fastest route to Florida. As the convoy moved through Virginia, a state highway patrolman noticed that a number of trucks appeared to be overloaded. He signaled the convoy to follow him to the weighing station. There his suspicions were confirmed. The military officers protested vehemently that they had an important defense mission to perform in Florida—they couldn't yet say what it was—and that precious time was being wasted. The patrolman remarked that military convoys were always in a hurry. He calmly proceeded to write out a warning to the U.S. Army to be more careful in future loading of convoys.