Russia: The Adventurer

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Of the three main proposals that came from the Kremlin, the first will doubtless make the most fascinating reading for future scholars. In essence, it flatly offered to get Moscow's missiles out of Cuba if the U.S. agreed to drop any plans to invade. To date no one except top Kremlin and Washington officials knows what else it contained, because after its arrival on the night of Oct. 26. President Kennedy classified it top secret. From the accounts of those who have seen it, it was an unusual document, written in short sentences, obviously at top speed, and with great emotion. It was filled with expressions of fear that events were outracing the statesmen, threatening to tumble out of control. Khrushchev literally begged Kennedy to keep things under control, promised he would do the same. He compared his struggle with Kennedy to two men pulling on a rope with a knot in the middle. The harder we pull, wrote Nikita. the tighter the knot gets.*

Upping the Ante. The note was all the more curious in the light of the second message, which was broadcast by Moscow Radio next morning, before Kennedy had even answered the first one. This new proposal abruptly upped the ante by proposing U.S. evacuation of its bases in Turkey for a Soviet dismantling in Cuba.

This helped explain the series of events that had taken place in Turkey itself earlier in the week, after Kennedy's first television announcement of the Cuba missiles threat. Out of the blue, Soviet Ambassador Nikita Ryzhov sought an audience with Foreign Minister Feridun Erkin, confronted him with a blunt demand for immediate withdrawal of U.S. missiles and NATO installations in Turkey. Premier Ismet Inonu himself drafted the note of rejection. Next Ryzhov arrived with a second, blunter ultimatum: Withdraw the U.S. bases or the Soviet Union will put Turkey's cities first on the list for annihilation if war comes. "If you don't think we are ready to make war over Cuba, you are mistaken," added Ryzhov. Reportedly, Premier Inonu's response to the nuclear threat was: "Don't make me laugh." The Turks stood firm, just as President Kennedy did when the Turkish swap offer arrived at his desk. In Khrushchev's third and final note, he reverted to his first offer, agreed to withdraw the missiles for a no-invasion offer.

Lie After Lie. Inevitably, Moscow's erratic behavior all that week again raised the question of internal strife in Moscow. Some Kremlinologists theorize that Khrushchev had dashed off the first excited note in a panic after convincing himself that the U.S. was on the verge of a Cuba invasion, then was forced by a more militant Kremlin faction to make his Turkey demand. But a majority of Western experts and diplomats see the zigzagging messages as evidence of Nikita Khrushchev's bargaining methods, or simply of confusion. In any case, argue several experts. Khrushchev could not have fired his messages off so swiftly had each one been the subject of a great debate in the Presidium. In Russia, fights take time.