Kennedy’s Senate Gadfly

Seventy-second Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

Congress to Kennedy: Confront the Soviets in Cuba!

In late summer members of Congress began calling on the Kennedy administration to confront the continuing Soviet buildup in Cuba. The Kennedy administration routinely responded that it had no evidence the USSR was sending anything but defensive weapons, technicians, and trainers to Cuba.

The most pointed and vigorous demands came from Republicans. It was, after all, a mid-term election year and election day loomed.

The administration’s most vociferous critic was Senator Kenneth Keating, R-New York.

Keating’s Early Charges

• Aug. 31: on the floor of the Senate Keating said he had reliable information that over 1,000 of the recent Soviet arrivals in Cuba were military troops. The administration said it had no such information.
• Sept. 9: Keating and other senators warned, on radio and television, that the administration was considering a “horse trade” with the Soviet Union involving Berlin and Cuba, a deal the senators labeled “a betrayal.” These warnings were probably triggered by President Kennedy’s September 7th request for Congressional authority to call 150,000 reservists to active duty because of worsening of tensions over Berlin.
• Sept. 20: Keating told a retail druggists’ convention that the Kennedy administration was playing right into the Soviets’ hands by agreeing that their military aid to Cuba was entirely “defensive.” By doing so, the Kennedy administration gave credence to the Soviets’ charge that Cuba needed this defensive aid to deter a U.S. invasion.

The Charge of Oct. 9th

On October 9th Keating, speaking on the Senate floor, demanded that the Kennedy administration set a “deadline” for the Organization of American States to take action “against Cuba.” If the OAS failed to agree to such a deadline, Keating further demanded that the U.S. act unilaterally “against the Castro government.”

The Lulu Charge of Oct. 10th

The charge Keating leveled in the Senate on October 10th was a lulu—even a double-lulu. In it, Keating charged that the Soviets had begun building sites for six and maybe more intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. He again refused to identify the sources of his information, saying only that they had so far proved absolutely dependable, and were so in this instance.

Awkward Timing of Keating’s Charges

In late September and early October, reports of Soviet missile activity in Cuba had become too numerous to ignore. But by curtailing U-2 reconnaissance missions on September 10th, the Kennedy administration had deliberately cut itself off from the one source of unimpeachable evidence that could verify those reports.

As of October 10th, when Keating made his most recent and startling charges, there had been no U-2 over-flights of Cuba for five weeks, a fact that the Kennedy administration very much wanted to keep from the public.

Indeed, by early October 1962, the curtailment of U-2 reconnaissance missions engineered by Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and Bobby Kennedy no longer seemed such a good idea. No one in the Kennedy administration wanted to be father of the “photo gap.”

Dean Rusk Shoves “Photo Gap” Down Memory Hole

Dean Rusk’s autobiography shows vividly the lengths to which one of the principal authors of the photo gap sought to deny its existence. Rusk wrote (emphasis added),

 “That same summer Senator Kenneth Keating of New York…charg[ed] that strategic missiles were in Cuba. But Keating would not share with us any of his alleged sources so we could check them out. Reconnaissance over-flights [sic] and on-the-ground espionage within Cuba yielded little new information.”

“Reconnaissance over-flights” indeed! Rusk himself had seen to it that after September 5th  there would be none. “On-the-ground espionage within Cuba” was in fact the administration’s only source of “new information.” But of course Rusk does not say any of that.

This blatant misrepresentation explains why we must verify public figures’ memoirs and autobiographies with independent and unimpeachable evidence.

Next: Resuming Over-flights of Cuba

In tomorrow’s post we’ll look at how the Kennedy administration took its first steps toward resuming U-2 over-flights of Cuba—in the nick of time.

Email your questions to phufstader@sbcglobal.net or post a comment.

Sources and Notes

Election day 1962 was Tuesday, November 6th, exactly the same date as this year’s election day.

Kennedy’s request for authority to call 150,000 reservists to active duty was reported in E. W. Kenworthy, “President Seeks Right to Call Up 150, 000 Reservists.” New York Times, September 7th, 1962, p. 1.

Keating’s Aug. 31 charge was reported at the very tail of a Sept. 1 New York Times article by Arthur J. Olsen: “Boats off Cuba Fire at U.S. Navy Plane; Havana Cautioned,” p. 1. The boats were Cuban. The plane was a twin-engine S2F Tracker carrier ASW aircraft manned by reservists on a training mission.

Keating’s Sept. 9 charges are covered in an AP story printed in the New York Times on the 10th: “Keating Opposes a deal on Cuba. Fears a U.S.-Soviet ‘Trade’ That Involves Berlin.”

Keating’s Sept. 20 speech to the retail druggists was reported in an unsigned p. 6 article in the Times: “Keating says U.S. Echoes Soviet Stand on Cuba Move.”

Keating’s Oct. 9th Senate statement was covered by an Associated Press article reprinted by the Times on p. 2 of the Oct. 10th issue: “Keating Calls for Deadline.” The Congressional Record for Oct. 9th would have Keating’s statement verbatim, as he made it.

Keating’s Oct. 10th charge on the Senate floor was reported in an unsigned, three-paragraph  special to the Times datelined Washington and published on p. 3 of the October 11th issue.

Dean Rusk, As I Saw It. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991, pp. 229-230. Readers familiar with George Orwell’s 1984 will recognize the term “memory hole.”

For more on Keating’s sources, see Max Holland, “A Luce Connection.” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall 1999, pp. 139-167. I suspect they were either Cuban exiles or U.S. agents whose reports were leaked by someone inside the CIA—or both.