William Chafe: Something in JFK pulled him from brink
As we remember John F. Kennedy this week, on the 42nd anniversary of his assassination, it is particularly appropriate to recall his wisdom in dealing with the imminent threat of nuclear conflagration during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
Secretly, the Soviet Union had installed more than 150 missile sites in Cuba, capable of launching atomic bombs targeted at Washington and New York. Kennedy's military advisers, as well as every other member of the executive committee he formed to deal with the crisis, urged him to bomb the missile sites and invade the island.
As we now understand, such a measure would have instigated an immediate counterattack by the Soviets. Civilization as we knew it would have been destroyed. Against this unanimous advice, John F. Kennedy stood alone -- except for his brother Bobby -- and said no, the United States would not initiate Armageddon; instead, we would seek a peaceful solution.
Where did Kennedy find the strength to resist the call for military action? There are many answers to the question, but perhaps the best one goes back to his experience as commander of PT 109 when it was split in two by a Japanese destroyer in the Pacific. With no other American vessels in the vicinity, Kennedy rallied those in his crew who survived, saved one wounded man, and then swam island to island until he finally secured their rescue.
In the aftermath, Kennedy wrote Inge Arvad, the woman he had fallen in love with a few months earlier, to share his thoughts. "We get so used to talking about … millions of soldiers that thousands of casualties sound like drops in the bucket. But if those thousands want to live as much as the ten [in my crew], the people deciding the whys and wherefores had better make mighty sure all this effort is … worth it, for if it isn't, the whole thing will turn to ashes."
The experience made him question the rationale for war, and look with skepticism toward generals who sent men into battle with no sense of the consequences. "This thing is so stupid," he said, "that while it has a sickening fascination for some of us, myself included, I want to leave it far behind me when I go." Kennedy had never written like this before, nor had he allowed himself to become so committed to an emotional issue.
When the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, Kennedy saw with skepticism the same bravado he associated with the generals who had sent him on his PT 109 suicide mission. Earlier, during the crisis over the Berlin Wall, he had been appalled at the ease with which military men contemplated millions of lives being lost in atomic conflict.
Something in him called him back from the brink....