Bitter Week

At 5:15 one morning last week, President Kennedy's military aide, Brigadier General Chester Clifton, got an urgent telephone call. He told the caller to telephone the President at his weekend home in Middleburg, Va. Shortly afterward, in keeping with instructions he had given, the President was awakened and told that an invasion force of Cuban revolutionaries had landed as planned on the south coast of Cuba. So began John F. Kennedy's darkest and bitterest week as President.

Soon after he took office in January, Kennedy was faced with making a command decision on Cuba. His early hopes of avoiding clashes with Fidel Castro had rapidly faded. Now the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency urged upon him a project that the CIA had been working on for months during the Eisenhower Administration: an invasion by U.S.-trained Cuban refugees, with the U.S. providing air cover and logistical support. Shockingly misinformed, the CIA assured the President that the invasion would touch off uprisings against Castro and massive defections from his armed forces.

"The Great Revolution." Fearful that open U.S. help for the invasion would turn Latin Americans, Asians and Africans against the U.S., the President vetoed air cover and logistical support. But accepting the CIA's assurances about uprisings and defections, he approved a too-skimpy, all-Cuban invasion that was doomed to bloody defeat. Secretary of State Dean Rusk went along with the plan, and so did the top foreign policy thinkers on the White House staff: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., McGeorge Bundy and Walt Whitman Rostow. Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles opposed the project, somewhat deviously, by leaking to the press stories of sharp conflict within the Administration. The most outspoken opposition came from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman William Fulbright: he was convinced that the invasion attempt would fail.

A few days after he had approved the invasion, President Kennedy tried to assure the world that the U.S. would not actively associate itself with any such enterprise. Said he at his press conference a fortnight ago: "There will not be, under any conditions, an intervention in Cuba by U.S. armed forces." Apart from the damage it did to the morale of anti-Castro Cubans, the President's absolute promise acted last week as a barrier against effective action during the critical hours.

During those critical hours, John Kennedy to all outward appearances acted coolly. The day after the invaders landed, Kennedy responded forcefully to Nikita Khrushchev's message threatening to give Castro "all necessary assistance in beating back the armed attack." Dissatisfied with the answer drafted by the State Department, Kennedy dictated a reply himself. What was going on in Cuba, he told Khrushchev, was a "struggle for freedom" against an "alien-dominated regime." The U.S. "intends no military intervention in Cuba," but "in the event of any military intervention by outside force," the U.S. is ready to "protect this hemisphere against external aggression . . .

"I believe, Mr. Chairman," said the President, "that you should recognize that free peoples do not accept the claim of historical inevitability for Communist revolution. What your Government believes is its own business ; what it does in the world is the world's business. The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution of those determined to be free."

Two Cigars. That evening the President interrupted his preoccupation with Cuba to don white tie and tails and host a lively White House reception for members of Congress (see The Presidency). As soon as it was over, he hurried to the Executive Wing, where high Administration officials were agonizing over the dismal reports from Cuba. The session lasted until 4 a.m.

Next morning the last, faint ray of hope for the invasion dwindled away, and a sour fog of failure settled upon the Administration. Shortly after noon, the top New Frontier lieutenants gathered at the White House for a meeting that went on for seven hours. Present were Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary Rusk, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, CIA Chief Allen Dulles, Information Agency Director Edward R. Murrow, Presidential Assistants Schlesinger, Bundy and Rostow, congressional leaders of both parties, and high military brass. The President was composed, even cheerful. He smoked his normal quota of two cigars, showed no signs of anguish, leveled no reproaches at the military and intelligence chiefs who had misjudged so grievously.

Around 5 p.m., while the meeting was still going on, six Cubans headed by Jose Miro Cardona, president of the anti-Castro refugees' Revolutionary Council (see cover story), were ushered into the President's office. They went away still grim-faced, but heartened a bit by his, promise that he intended to carry on the fight against Castro to the end.

The Debris of History. After the Cubans departed, Kennedy called in Ted Sorensen, his No. 1 aide and speechwriter, told him that he had decided to throw away the speech he was scheduled to give next day to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and deliver a totally different speech, mostly about Cuba. The President talked over his ideas with Sorensen until it was time to get ready for the week's second white-tie interruption: a reception at the Greek embassy for visiting Premier Constantine Karamanlis. Sorensen worked through the night.

The speech to the A.S.N.E. marked the end of John F. Kennedy's earnest three-month pursuit of that cold war will-o'-the-wisp called "easing of tensions." He contradicted his own week-old declaration that the U.S. would not "under any conditions" intervene in Cuba. Said he: "If the nations of this hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against outside Communist penetration, then this Government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations, which are the security of our nation. Should that time ever come, we do not intend to be lectured on intervention by those whose character was stamped for all time on the bloody streets of Budapest . . .

"The message of Cuba, of Laos, of the 'rising din of Communist voices in Asia and Latin America," said the President, "these messages are all the same. The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive . . . I am determined upon our system's survival and success, regardless of the cost and regardless of the peril."

Hue of Resolution. The President's , words were resolute--but there remained the problem of translating them into action. At midweek aides reported that the President was "firmly and irrevocably" determined to bring Castro down. But then came sobering reflections on ways and means. An invasion of Cuba by U.S. marines, or even by Cubans backed up by U.S. air and naval support, would bring a barrage of world protests upon the U.S., and perhaps also bring Communist counterthrusts in Berlin or South Viet Nam or elsewhere. In the face of such considerations, the hue of resolution quickly faded. By week's end aides were no longer reporting that the President was "determined to beat Castro." He was, instead, "determined to try to beat Castro."

In his frustration, the President showed signs of feeling lonely and let down. Disappointed at the performance of his military, intelligence and foreign policy advisers in the Cuba mess, he turned again to the young men who had served him so effectively during his drive for the presidency, especially Bobby Kennedy and Ted Sorensen. The President told Sorensen to start shifting his attention from domestic politics to foreign relations.

In this somber mood, President Kennedy called a full Cabinet meeting, only the third since his inauguration. He also called a National Security Council session, again only the third since the start of his Administration. (Under Eisenhower, the Cabinet and the NSC met every week.) In a crisis that plainly called for a moratorium on party politics-as-usual, the President talked earnestly with Republican leaders. He held a surprise meeting with Richard Nixon at the White House, and another with Arizona's conservative Senator Barry Goldwater. Later on, he met with Dwight D. Eisenhower at the presidential mountain retreat, Camp David, to discuss Cuba and.other blotches of trouble on the world map. And so a bad week for the U.S. at least ended with a flourish of national unity.

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