Page 143 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Really? thought George. He was pretty sure President Kennedy and his brother did not see it that way.

"We expect to be acting against Cuba tomorrow or the next day," Bundy went on. "What's our military plan?"

This was not how George had thought the meeting would go. They should be talking about peace, not war.

Defense Secretary Bob McNamara, the whiz kid from Ford, answered the question. "A large air strike leading to invasion." Then he turned the argument back to Turkey. "To minimize the Soviet response against NATO following a U.S. attack on Cuba, we get those Jupiters out of Turkey before the Cuban attack--and let the Soviets know. On that basis, I don't believe the Soviets would strike Turkey."

That was ironic, George thought: to protect Turkey, it was necessary to take away its nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who George thought was one of the smarter men in the room, warned: "They might take some other action--in Berlin."

George marveled that the American president could not attack a Caribbean island without calculating the repercussions five thousand miles away in Eastern Europe. It showed how the entire planet was a chess board for the two superpowers.

McNamara said: "I'm not prepared at this moment to recommend air attacks on Cuba. I'm just saying we must now begin to look at it more realistically."

General Maxwell Taylor spoke. He had been in touch with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "The recommendation they give is that the big strike, Operations Plan 312, be executed no later than Monday morning, unless there is irrefutable evidence in the meantime that offensive weapons are being dismantled."

Sitting behind Taylor, Mawhinney and his friends looked pleased. Just like the military, George thought: they could hardly wait to go into battle, even though it might mean the end of the world. He prayed that the politicians in the room would not be guided by the soldiers.

Taylor continued: "And that the execution of this strike plan be followed by the execution of 316, the invasion plan, seven days later."

Bobby Kennedy said sarcastically: "Well, I'm surprised."

There was loud laughter around the table. Everyone thought the military's recommendations were absurdly predictable, it seemed. George felt relieved.

But the mood became grim again when McNamara, reading a note passed to him by an aide, suddenly said: "The U-2 was shot down."

George gasped. He knew that a CIA spy plane had gone silent during a mission over Cuba, but everyone was hoping it had suffered a radio problem and was on its way home.

President Kennedy evidently had not been briefed about the missing plane. "A U-2 was shot down?" he said, and there was fear in his voice.

George knew why the president was appalled. Until this moment, the superpowers had been nose to nose, but all they had done was threaten one another. Now the first shot had been fired. From this point on, it would be much more difficult to avoid war.

"Wright just said it was found shot down," McNamara said. Colonel John Wright was with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Bobby said: "Was the pilot killed?"

As so often, he had asked the key question.

General Taylor said: "The pilot's body is in the plane."

President Kennedy said: "Did anyone see the pilot?"

"Yes, sir," Taylor replied. "The wreckage is on the ground and the pilot's dead."

The room went quiet. This changed everything. An American was dead, shot down in Cuba by Soviet guns.

Taylor said: "That raises the question of retaliation."

It certainly did. The American people would demand revenge. George felt the same. Suddenly he yearned for the president to launch the massive air attack that the Pentagon had demanded. In his mind he saw hundreds of bombers in close formation sweeping across the Florida Straits and dropping their deadly payload on Cuba like a hailstorm. He wanted every missile launcher blown up, all the Soviet troops slaughtered, Castro killed. If the entire Cuban nation suffered, so be it: that would teach them not to kill Americans.

The meeting had been going on for two hours, and the room was foggy with tobacco smoke. The president announced a break. It was a good idea, George thought. George himself certainly needed to calm down. If the others were feeling as bloodthirsty as he was, they were in no state to make rational decisions.

The more important reason for the break, George knew, was that President Kennedy had to take his medicine. Most people knew he had a bad back, but few understood that he fought a constant battle against a whole range of ailments, including Addison's disease and colitis. Twice a day the doctors shot him up with a cocktail of steroids and antibiotics to keep him functioning.

Bobby undertook to redraft the letter to Khrushchev, with the help of the president's cheerful young speechwriter Ted Sorensen. The two of them went with their aides to the president's study, a cramped room next to the Oval Office. George took a pen and yellow pad and wrote down everything Bobby told him to. With only two people discussing it, the draft was done quickly.

The key paragraphs were:

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