The Leviathan, The hegemonic power that has been the beacon of what liberty, equality and justice has stood for in the world at the brink of a nuclear war – The Cuban Missile Crisis! Today I watched a documentary style movie called ‘The Missiles of October’ starring a cast mostly unknown to me and of course, a very young Martin Sheen in yet another West Wing role – though this time NOT the president!! And West Wing it wasn’t. Terrible acting (even by Martin Sheen – Awful impersonation of Robert Kennedy!) and even worse direction and editing!

But at the core of the movie was the truth. The script was based on the transcripts of recordings of JF Kennedy and his team’s deliberations during the days that led up to the Cuban Missile crisis and gave an interesting insight into the dynamics of decision making at the highest levels. It was an insight into how group think can be manipulated in a team of people whose belief systems are separate and seem to have no common ground. It also gave an insight into the tremendous pressures of High Office and the way situations must be handled taking into consideration the consequences of even the most minor of actions in terms of not just physical consequences but that of the perceptions of the rest of the world and how actions can bereft oneself of the idealogical position of being a power that the rest of the world looks up to. From the moment JFK found out about the missiles, rattled off the names of his 14 advisors to be called for a meeting, to the pressures he faced from members of the ExComm to launch an all out offensive and making them come to a unanimous agreement on the course of action to be taken, the telefilm was definitely a gripping account of the first few days of the crisis. The way he handled building up the case in various campaigns around the US as his team fought out the next course of action in a closed room, to the mistakes he made in his dealings with the Russians – I could not but compare his situation to that of George Bush today and the magnitude of difference in the way both Presidents handled their relations with the American public and rest of the world.

Once the missiles were discovered, Kennedy wanted more proof that they were indeed not for defence purposes, before taking any further steps. That they were nuclear weapons and the enemy was a force as powerful as his, made his situation all the more precarious. The methodology of arriving at a unanimous decision was Robert Kennedy’s brain child. (He reminded me off Colin Powell, stuck among the rest of the Bush Adminstration – The sole voice of reason among wolves baying for blood!) While JFK’s decision to withhold information from the Russian Ambassador in hind sight was an error of enormous magnitude – seen from his viewpoint, it might have been the only way to preempt any Russian action.

Again, drawing parallels with the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq, the way the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction were handled and the way JFK handled the security threat of Russian Nuclear Weapons shows the concern of realists of the 1960’s with regard to world opinion and the maintainance of their image as the propagators of the concepts of liberty and freedom.

There is no question that in the age of the Cold War, JFK was a realist and so was Krushchev. But the way the game played out between the two was like an illegal drag race – the question was: who’d blink first?

We all know how the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, but I am curious to see how the game played out, in the minds of the actors involved. As I’m slowly learning – it is actor specific behaviour that determines the behaviour of the group. The leader with the influence to shape destiny can determine where destiny goes. As off now, the JFK team just wants to be the aggressor, to bomb a tiny nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida! But reasonable voices like that of Robert Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara are the conscience of the team, reminding them at every step that, the world is watching! And thankfully as we all know, John F Kennedy was listening!

Team cohesion and responsible action is the key to success. I think the core learning I’ve taken away tonight is the concept of group think. Just as JFK built consensus to have a strong ExComm behind him as he took action against the Russians, in any work place, a team that thinks as one (not just voices one opinion) is the strongest and most likely to succeed. In a consulting environment I believe team work will be the most important factor as will be the ability to step up and take responsible action.

Neo-Realism is “dead”!The criticisms that the concept had to face atleast the overarching one seemed to be it’s hang-up on “security”!

“The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy the world” – McNamara during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
“Is it fair that the switch is in one man’s hands?” – McNamara discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1980s.

At last count, the official version by Fidel Castro put the number of nuclear weapons on Cuban Soil at 162 during the missile crisis. That was far more than what the JFK Administration had ever calculated. As we continued watching ‘The Missiles of October’ I was taken aback at the sudden one-ness of the team in it’s thinking. Suddenly everyone agreed that a blockade was the best option. Legalities were taken care off. The acquisance of Charles De Gaulle was sought – the acceptance of US Allies to the agreed course of action was important according to JFK. (Again, I see the differences between George Bush and JFK), and even as the blockade was planned and set in motion – the US chose to uphold international law and faced off with the USSR in the UN Security Council.

What piqued my interest was the military and navy’s reactions – where it was obvious that they didn’t take the chain of command seriously and had serious differences with the administration’s views and McNamara’s control over them. Was it JFK’s relative youth? Or was it the ambiguity surrounding a civilian making military decisions? But as someone later pointed out – The US armed forces have a drastically different stance today. They are more cautious about going to war than even civilian administrations.

But it wasn’t suprising at all to see Congressmen and Senators agreeing to give JFK’s plan to go ahead with the blockade, but in the same breath saying, “it’s all on your head!” Truly, a self preserving politician’s inherent reaction! It is almost nerve racking that McNamara’s words were so phrophetic! If JFK had given in to the pressures he faced within his team, Congress and the armed forces, “bombed” Cuba and conducted an invasion, ala Bush and Iraq, the world as we know it would no longer exist. USSR would have an open invitation for aggression in Berlin and other European areas and could have launched a nuclear offensive from the USSR itself. And if the blockade had failed, the Realist camp on both sides would have then ensured that the world would have ceased to exist. What irony and a tremendous consequence to have on one’s conscience! Human fallibility is an underestimated weakness that can bring the world to it’s knees. But as I understand it, it is specific actors that can preserve or destroy us as a result of that fallibility.

Kruschev and his portrayal have been one-sided till date. We only know what the west allows us to know of his thought process, his rule and his ideology. This movie was no different, with assumptions being made on Kruschev’s behalf on what he was thinking even as he placed the nuclear weapons in Cuba, American discovery of those weapons and the subsequent negotiations thereafter. But one thing is clear – Underestimation of and lack of understanding actor specific actions elongated and extended the crisis, almost bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Actor specific information could have stopped the Russians from assuming they would get away with placing nuclear weapons in Cuba and would’ve allowed the Americans to be more direct in their negotiations to get those weapons removed from Cuba.

But here, let us not forget that Kruschev did blink first. But alas, JFK didn’t see it quick enough, putting his reaction off till the next morning. A gut reaction could have ended the whole thing. Instead he chose to rest, by which time, Kruschev was facing the Presidium and a new letter of conditions had already been drafted and sent, worsening the crisis.
But as I keep pointing out, along with McNamara, I’m absolutely struck by Robert Kennedy’s reactions through the crisis. His statements like, “you're going to kill an awful lot of people [with an air strike] and we are going to take a lot of heat for it.... You're going to announce the reason that you're doing it is because they're sending this kind of missiles, well, I think it's almost incumbent upon the Russians then to say, Well, we're going to send them in again, and if you do it again ... we're going to do the same thing to Turkey or Iran.” (I took down some of the dialogues. They aren’t direct transcriptions but, close to the words he uttered). His despondency is striking when he adds on the statement, "Now I know what Tojo must have felt like when he was planning Pearl Harbor." Attacking a much smaller country was not something the United States did. But it does it now since somehow, Democratization and the Axis of Evil has become far more of an issue than all out nuclear war.
Lessons learnt? Study your opponent or client as well as you study the system in which your opponent or client works in and when an olive branch or offer is extended, that actor specific study will help you know immediately whether it is an illusion or reality.

But one of the more haunting scenes that made a mark on me was the difference with which the US handled the Cuban Missile Crisis in the UN Security council in 1962, than it did Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2002. As I have referred to this situation before – the US had undeniable proof of the nuclear weapons when it went to the Security Council. It was able to win the support of all other countries on the basis of that evidence and was also able to put USSR on the spot. None of which happened in 2002, as the US blustered it’s way through the “evidence” of the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Evidence is crucial to presenting a case in any situation and as a consultant pointing out weaknesses in a system that might be in desperate need for repair, I know I will have to walk a thin line to prevent any backlash as also, present concrete evidence to warrant any change that I’d want to bring to the table.
But discounting all the bad acting and bad accents, maybe George Bush should be given a tape of The Missles of October – History was always a good teacher!

© All Rights Reserved Maithreyi Seetharaman 2005