The Storm over Cuba

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It was his first news conference in almost three months and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance looked far more somber than usual. Just a few days earlier, it had been confirmed and publicly revealed that a combat brigade of between 2,000 and 3,000 Soviet troops is stationed in Cuba—a disclosure that in turn produced a storm of angry reaction in the Senate. Although the State Department had emphasized that the Soviet force "poses no threat to the U.S.," Vance now assessed the situation in more ominous terms. In a solemn voice he told reporters, "We regard this as a very serious matter, affecting our relations with the Soviet Union. The presence of this [combat] unit runs counter to long held American policies ... I will not be satisfied with maintenance of the status quo."

Two days later, as the tempest grew, Jimmy Carter took to television, both to endorse the Vance warning and to call for "calm and a sense of proportion." Said the President: "We consider the presence of a Soviet combat brigade in Cuba to be a very serious matter and that this status quo is not acceptable." In the terse five-minute statement, Carter confirmed that "we are seriously pursuing this issue with the Soviet Union." But the Soviet force, he stressed, is not an assault force and does not have the capability to attack the U.S. Concluded the President: "This is a time for firm diplomacy, not panic and not exaggeration."

In the Senate, where many key figures face difficult re-election campaigns, the news of the Soviet troops came at a most sensitive political moment right in the middle of the SALT II treaty debate. SALT'S opponents immediately linked the troops and the treaty, demanding to know how the Soviets could be trusted in an arms-control agreement when they made provocative military moves in the Caribbean. And how could the U.S. claim to be able to monitor weapons development deep inside the Soviet Union when it could get caught by surprise by a Soviet combat brigade 90 miles from Florida? Suddenly and improbably, what should have been a minor diplomatic squabble with the Soviets—one that could have been handled quietly and with minimum strain—had escalated into a major domestic political issue, strained U.S.-Soviet relations and endangered SALT II. Gloated Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, an avowed SALT foe: "Unless I have misread the mood of my colleagues, SALT II is dead unless those Soviet troops are taken out of Cuba."

An even louder voice of protest was that of Democrat Frank Church of Idaho, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and thus formal sponsor of the SALT treaty. Church, who first made public the Soviet move on Aug. 30, dramatically postponed the SALT hearings for a day in order to summon Vance and CIA Chief Stansfield Turner to testify about the combat brigade. Said Church: "There is no likelihood that the Senate would ratify the SALT II treaty as long as Soviet combat troops remain in Cuba."

"It tempts me to say, I told you so,' " purred Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker, who had previously differed with Church in his estimate of Soviet intentions. Added Baker: "You've created a crisis. Now what are we going to do about it?"