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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Douglas Brinkley
Aired October 13, 2002 - 07:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: It has been 40 years since the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was mid October of 1962 when President John F. Kennedy learned the Soviet Union was strategically placing nuclear missiles inside Cuba, about 90 miles from the United States.
The president quarantined the island. The stalemate between the world's two most powerful countries at the time ended two weeks later when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev finally agreed to remove the missiles.
When President Bush delivered his speech last week outlining his intentions for Iraq, he recalled remarks President Kennedy made during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley is the author of "The Mississippi and the making of a nation." That's his latest book. He joins us this morning from New Orleans to discuss whether there are similarities between the situation with Iraq and the one that the U.S. faced with the Soviets in 1962.
Mr. Brinkley, thanks for being with us this morning.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Good morning.
SAN MIGUEL: Before we get into any kind of parallels between Cuba and Iraq, I have to ask for your comments about some of the disclosures that came out during this 40th anniversary conference that went on in Havana over the weekend.
Apparently we were much closer. We've already talked about how close the world was to nuclear conflict at the time. Apparently we're even closer than before than we thought. A U.S. naval officer says his destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine carrying a nuclear weapon on October 27th of '62, and documents recently released show that the U.S. only photographed 33 of 42 medium ballistic missiles in Cuba, and never located the nuclear warheads.
Your thoughts about that and the pressures that must have placed on Kennedy and Khrushchev?
BRINKLEY: Well, that is a bit of startling new historical news. And it usually takes something like 40 years for all the documents to become made available. We really won't know what's going on in the thinking of the situation room at the White House, with national security, with Pentagon people, CIA today until about 40 years from now.
But it just shows you how wise President Kennedy's diplomacy was. What we've learned now is that there were nuclear warheads on the island of Cuba, and that if we did go forward, which many very smart people were advocating including somebody I've written about, Dean Atchisson, the former Secretary of State, who was considered a hawk in the crisis, that we had to go bomb, that the key was to immediately bomb those sites before they became operable, and they could launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
If we had done that, it seems very clear that the Soviets already had nuclear weapons there, and would have used them. And then of course, the new submarine disclosure. So I think this conference in Cuba is producing some very fertile, new material regarding the missile crisis.
SAN MIGUEL: And possibly some lessons to be applied to the situation that's going on right now between the U.S., the U.N., and Iraq. Let me ask you about, you know, the controversy now is involving a new -- a possible new policy for the U.S. of preemption, of attacking Iraq before Iraq causes any more kind of trouble to the U.S. or the West.
Would you have considered Kennedy's blockade of Cuba a preemptive action?
BRINKLEY: No, it wasn't. And they didn't consider it a blockade. They called it purposely a quarantine, because a blockade is considered an act of war, where a quarantine isn't.
It's very semantic. It's essentially the same thing, but the Kennedy administration was very careful about that distinction. So when the quarantine occurred, it seemed, at least to the Kennedy administration, the least provocative strong measure they could make.
And of course, all of us probably remember, either from the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, "13 Days," or reading about it, there's that moment when the Soviet ships are about to hit the quarantine line, and there's this tense moment. Will they try to break it? Will we have to fire on the Soviet ships?
And of course, they turn back. And there's a great sigh of relief. But the key to the Cuban Missile Crisis for us to remember right now is the tireless negotiations that went on within the Kennedy White House to try to find a way to avert war.
War was always a possibility. In this case, it wasn't a third rate country in the Middle East like Iraq. We were dealing with a very serious nuclear power in the Soviet Union. So the prudence, but I would call it tough prudence of John Kennedy and his advisers. And eventually they made that deal behind the scenes, not publicly, that we would remove Jupiter missiles out of Turkey if they would defang, if you'd like, Cuba from having any kind of, you know, nuclear capability.
SAN MIGUEL: And the argument being that those Jupiter missiles were already becoming obsolete, and you know, that made it easier for the U.S. to put them on the table, so to speak.
The other issue that's going on right now is multilateral action versus unilateral action. Should the U.S. act alone versus, you know, not having the support of other nations. I know that President Kennedy really wanted the organization of American states, all the Latin American countries, behind him on this. He talked about wanting unanimous support.
And now we talk about, you know, getting a resolution here in the U.N. Where do you see the parallels here?
BRINKLEY: Well, you know, there are some parallels. First off, the United Nations is playing a huge role in both crises. There's that faint -- probably the two most famous moments in the U.N. history of an American speaking at the U.N. was Adlai Stevenson when that famous moment, when he said well I can wait until hell freezes over, which has become a famous news clip. And I think President Bush's recent speech.
The difference is I think that in the Kennedy years, there was more of a feeling that we must have people behind the United States on our -- if we're going to war with Cuba, or if there's an action. And I think the Bush administration sees it as a second tier problem. They've already announced the Bush doctrine that we'll go it alone with preemptive strikes anywhere in the world, whenever we feel like it, but first we'll try the U.N.
So I think there's a slight difference there, but the fact that they're both using the U.N. and trying to build up some sort of global support for their diplomacy or their possible war effort right now is a similarity between the two.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, we could examine this much -- in must more greater detail, but we have to go now. Douglas Brinkley, noted presidential historian, author of -- his new book is "The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation from the Louisiana Purchase to Today." Thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate you getting up early.
BRINKLEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 13, 2002 - 07:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: It has been 40 years since the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was mid October of 1962 when President John F. Kennedy learned the Soviet Union was strategically placing nuclear missiles inside Cuba, about 90 miles from the United States.
The president quarantined the island. The stalemate between the world's two most powerful countries at the time ended two weeks later when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev finally agreed to remove the missiles.
When President Bush delivered his speech last week outlining his intentions for Iraq, he recalled remarks President Kennedy made during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley is the author of "The Mississippi and the making of a nation." That's his latest book. He joins us this morning from New Orleans to discuss whether there are similarities between the situation with Iraq and the one that the U.S. faced with the Soviets in 1962.
Mr. Brinkley, thanks for being with us this morning.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Good morning.
SAN MIGUEL: Before we get into any kind of parallels between Cuba and Iraq, I have to ask for your comments about some of the disclosures that came out during this 40th anniversary conference that went on in Havana over the weekend.
Apparently we were much closer. We've already talked about how close the world was to nuclear conflict at the time. Apparently we're even closer than before than we thought. A U.S. naval officer says his destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine carrying a nuclear weapon on October 27th of '62, and documents recently released show that the U.S. only photographed 33 of 42 medium ballistic missiles in Cuba, and never located the nuclear warheads.
Your thoughts about that and the pressures that must have placed on Kennedy and Khrushchev?
BRINKLEY: Well, that is a bit of startling new historical news. And it usually takes something like 40 years for all the documents to become made available. We really won't know what's going on in the thinking of the situation room at the White House, with national security, with Pentagon people, CIA today until about 40 years from now.
But it just shows you how wise President Kennedy's diplomacy was. What we've learned now is that there were nuclear warheads on the island of Cuba, and that if we did go forward, which many very smart people were advocating including somebody I've written about, Dean Atchisson, the former Secretary of State, who was considered a hawk in the crisis, that we had to go bomb, that the key was to immediately bomb those sites before they became operable, and they could launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
If we had done that, it seems very clear that the Soviets already had nuclear weapons there, and would have used them. And then of course, the new submarine disclosure. So I think this conference in Cuba is producing some very fertile, new material regarding the missile crisis.
SAN MIGUEL: And possibly some lessons to be applied to the situation that's going on right now between the U.S., the U.N., and Iraq. Let me ask you about, you know, the controversy now is involving a new -- a possible new policy for the U.S. of preemption, of attacking Iraq before Iraq causes any more kind of trouble to the U.S. or the West.
Would you have considered Kennedy's blockade of Cuba a preemptive action?
BRINKLEY: No, it wasn't. And they didn't consider it a blockade. They called it purposely a quarantine, because a blockade is considered an act of war, where a quarantine isn't.
It's very semantic. It's essentially the same thing, but the Kennedy administration was very careful about that distinction. So when the quarantine occurred, it seemed, at least to the Kennedy administration, the least provocative strong measure they could make.
And of course, all of us probably remember, either from the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, "13 Days," or reading about it, there's that moment when the Soviet ships are about to hit the quarantine line, and there's this tense moment. Will they try to break it? Will we have to fire on the Soviet ships?
And of course, they turn back. And there's a great sigh of relief. But the key to the Cuban Missile Crisis for us to remember right now is the tireless negotiations that went on within the Kennedy White House to try to find a way to avert war.
War was always a possibility. In this case, it wasn't a third rate country in the Middle East like Iraq. We were dealing with a very serious nuclear power in the Soviet Union. So the prudence, but I would call it tough prudence of John Kennedy and his advisers. And eventually they made that deal behind the scenes, not publicly, that we would remove Jupiter missiles out of Turkey if they would defang, if you'd like, Cuba from having any kind of, you know, nuclear capability.
SAN MIGUEL: And the argument being that those Jupiter missiles were already becoming obsolete, and you know, that made it easier for the U.S. to put them on the table, so to speak.
The other issue that's going on right now is multilateral action versus unilateral action. Should the U.S. act alone versus, you know, not having the support of other nations. I know that President Kennedy really wanted the organization of American states, all the Latin American countries, behind him on this. He talked about wanting unanimous support.
And now we talk about, you know, getting a resolution here in the U.N. Where do you see the parallels here?
BRINKLEY: Well, you know, there are some parallels. First off, the United Nations is playing a huge role in both crises. There's that faint -- probably the two most famous moments in the U.N. history of an American speaking at the U.N. was Adlai Stevenson when that famous moment, when he said well I can wait until hell freezes over, which has become a famous news clip. And I think President Bush's recent speech.
The difference is I think that in the Kennedy years, there was more of a feeling that we must have people behind the United States on our -- if we're going to war with Cuba, or if there's an action. And I think the Bush administration sees it as a second tier problem. They've already announced the Bush doctrine that we'll go it alone with preemptive strikes anywhere in the world, whenever we feel like it, but first we'll try the U.N.
So I think there's a slight difference there, but the fact that they're both using the U.N. and trying to build up some sort of global support for their diplomacy or their possible war effort right now is a similarity between the two.
SAN MIGUEL: OK, we could examine this much -- in must more greater detail, but we have to go now. Douglas Brinkley, noted presidential historian, author of -- his new book is "The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation from the Louisiana Purchase to Today." Thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate you getting up early.
BRINKLEY: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
