‘The Frightful Desire to Do Something’

Abstract

On the morning of Friday 26 October President Kennedy told ExComm that by itself the quarantine would not remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba. There were only two ways: trading them out or ‘to go over and just take them out’, he believed.² At the United Nations U Thant was about to begin exploratory talks with the Cubans, Soviets and Americans. With the crisis reaching its climax, Kennedy and his colleagues debated the diplomatic and military options. With recognition that action against Cuba was likely to provoke a Soviet response against Berlin, the British, French and German Ambassadors in Washington were kept closely in touch with developments, and a North Atlantic Council meeting was scheduled for Sunday 28 October. Kennedy spoke to Macmillan on the telephone and Ormsby-Gore held conversations and meetings with senior administration officials, including the President. The British government was actively, if not intimately, involved in the Kennedy administration deliberations. This chapter explores relations between Washington and London as the crisis reached its climax, and how Macmillan reconciled his impulse to act (and to be seen to act) with his desire to support Kennedy.

HMD, 4 November 1962, in Macmillan, End of the Day, p. 216.