Table Of ContentThe Silent Guns of Two Octobers
The Silent Guns of Two Octobers uses new as well as previously under-a ppre-
ciated documentary evidence to link the Cuban missile crisis to the Check-
point Charlie tank standof to achieve the impossible—c raft a new, thought-
ful, original analysis of a political showdown everyone thought they knew
everything about. Ultimately the book concludes that much of the Cold War
rhetoric the leaders employed was posturing and that neither had any inten-
tion of starting a nuclear war. Theodore Voorhees reexamines Khrushchev’s
and Kennedy’s leadership, decisions, and rhetoric in light of the new docu-
mentary evidence available to solve fve mysteries. Voorhees examines the im-
pact of John F. Kennedy’s domestic political concerns about his upcoming frst
midterm elections on his handling of the Cuban missile crisis through his use
of back-c hannel dealings with Khrushchev during the lead-u p to the crisis and
in the closing days, when the two leaders managed to reach a settlement.
Theodore Voorhees Jr. is Senior Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP.
The Silent Guns of
Two Octobers
Kennedy and Khrushchev
Play the Double Game
Theodore Voorhees Jr.
University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
Copyright © 2020 by Theodore Voorhees Jr.
All rights reserved
For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected]
Published in the United States of America by the
University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid- free paper
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-P ublication data has been applied for.
First published May 2020
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-P ublication Data
Names: Voorhees, Theodore, Jr., 1949– author.
Title: The silent guns of two Octobers : Kennedy and Khrushchev play the double game /
Theodore Voorhees, Jr.
Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2019044530 (print) | LCCN 2019044531 (ebook) | ISBN 9780472131921
(hardcover) | ISBN 9780472126712 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. | Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, Germany, 1961–
1989. | Cold War—D iplomatic history. | Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917–1 963. |
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894–1 971. | United States—F oreign relations—S oviet
Union. | Soviet Union—F oreign relations—U nited States.
Classifcation: LCC E841 .V66 2020 (print) | LCC E841 (ebook) | DDC 909.82/5—d c23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044530
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044531
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Kennedy Holds All the Cards 19
Chapter 2. Cat-a nd-M ouse Games at the Berlin Wall 32
Chapter 3. S uperpower Smackdown: Khrushchev’s Boasting
versus the Kennedy Brothers’ First-S trike Innuendo
and Caribbean War Games 51
Chapter 4. Both Sides Can Play Defense 67
Chapter 5. A Devil’s Bargain and a President’s Word 84
Chapter 6. Keeping the Lid On 124
Chapter 7. Painted into a Corner 139
Chapter 8. Composing Flat Lies 163
Chapter 9. Pawn Trading 185
vi Contents
Chapter 10. Who Plays the Berlin Card? 212
Chapter 11. Spiking the Guns 236
P ostscript: Secrecy and Concealment Placed a Cloud
over the Reputations of Some of the Kennedy
Administration’s Most Respected Ofcials 275
Notes 281
Selected Sources 357
Index 367
Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform
via the following citable URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11441532
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for the encouragement I received from scholars, friends, col-
leagues, and a few mentors with whom I shared my evolving ideas that set
this book project in motion. I am indebted to Cold War and missile crisis
scholars Philip Nash, David Barrett, Gregg Herken, Jim Hershberg, and Ed-
ward Luttwak, who read early versions of my work in progress and ofered
helpful comments. I received assistance from the library stafs at the John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library; Yale University Library Special Collections;
Georgetown University, Booth Center for Special Collections; National De-
fense University Special Collections; the National Archives and Records Ad-
ministration; and the Institute of World Politics. I am indebted to my law
frm, Covington & Burling LLP and its librarian, Larry Guthrie, for their sup-
port of my research eforts at every stage, and to my assistant, Karen Lee
Banks. IWP professor Dave Thomas graciously provided leads and insights
and shared useful materials retrieved from his eclectic personal collection of
declassifed Cold War military and intelligence artifacts. Many friends and
colleagues ofered encouraging feedback along the way, including Mary Ann
Bell, Walter Earle, Tom Geoghegan, Richard Nash Gould, Charles Miller,
Brad Snyder, and Col. H. Wayne Whitten USMC. I am grateful for the help of
Elizabeth Demers, my editor at University of Michigan Press, who corrected
most of my bad writing habits. Finally, this project would not have reached
fruition without the tremendous boost I received late in the process from
two outstanding Cold War historians: Sheldon Stern and Marty Sherwin.
Neither Sheldon nor Marty had any reason to respond to the persistent in-
quiries of a complete stranger apart from their natural kindness and irre-
pressible fascination with the iconic Cold War events covered in this book,
and their dedication to the chief and endless task of all historians: to set the
record more straight than it was when they found it.
Introduction
At abo t 5:00 p.m. Berlin time on the evening of October 27, 1961, two and
a half months after the Soviet bloc’s sudden erection of the Berlin Wall
blocking the fight of refugees to the West, ten Soviet T- 54 tanks came into
position on the eastern side of the wall at the Friedrichstrasse Plaza border
crossing, their cannons aimed at the American zone. A short time later, ten
US Army M- 48 Patton tanks stood directly opposite, approximately one hun-
dred yards away on the American side of the crossing known as “Checkpoint
Charlie.” Within hours the confrontation had sharply escalated as the num-
ber of battle tanks working their way toward the plaza had grown to thirty
for each side. By this time US president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier
Nikita S. Khrushchev had become personally engaged and were directing
events. The dispute had begun over a seemingly minor matter of bureau-
cratic protocol on the rules for determining whether US civilian ofcials
crossing over to East Berlin in government vehicles could be stopped by East
German border guards for an inspection of their credentials. But the specta-
cle of heavy tanks menacing one another across a tense Cold War border
seemed to threaten a “hot” war that could escalate to nuclear Armageddon.
Exactly one year later, on Saturday evening October 27, 1962, the world
witnessed an even more alarming confrontation that once again set of nu-
clear alarm bells. This time the Soviets had been secretly ferrying nuclear-
armed medium- and intermediate- range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and
IRBMs)1 to Cuba, about one hundred miles of the coast of the United States.
Just the month before, Kennedy had twice formally declared that he would
not countenance a Soviet military installation in the Western Hemisphere,
and so it seemed that an American armed attack or even full-s cale invasion
would soon make good on the president’s “red line” warning. Tensions
mounted sharply earlier in the day when a Soviet surface-t o- air (SAM- 2 or
