Former Kennedy Advisors Muse Over Cuban Missile Crisis

Former advisors to John F. Kennedy ’40 relived the tension of the Cuban missile crisis at the Kennedy School of Government’s ARCO Forum Friday, 40 years after the U.S. teetered on the brink of nuclear war.

Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and former Special Counsel and Adviser to President Kennedy Theodore Sorensen charmed the packed crowd with their frank recounting of the 1962 nuclear face-off between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

We were “arguing what in the hell to do,” McNamara said of the White House 40 years ago.

The missile crisis was “the most dangerous moment in our recorded history,” said Graham Allison, director of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The discussion centered around news clips of the time and portions of the movie Thirteen Days.

McNamara looked delighted with the Hollywood version of his argument with Admiral George Anderson in which he shouted not to open fire on Soviet ships approaching the American naval quarantine.

“I’d just like to say, that’s how ambassadors of Portugal are made,” said Sorensen, who is currently a fellow at the Institute of Politics.

Anderson was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal following the missile crisis.

McNamara said of Anderson, “He didn’t know a damn thing about his geo-politics.”

Although the policy dispute dramatized by Hollywood did have basis in fact, he said the movie did not get everything right.

“It never occurred that way,” McNamara told the audience. “If I made [the film], it would’ve been more accurate.”

The former advisors also enthralled the audience with little-known or recently-discovered details of the crisis.

McNamara said Soviet submarines armed with nuclear warheads had lost communication with Moscow and lurked in waters near the U.S. for four days after the crisis was resolved.

The crowd gasped as he added, “When they got back, they were given hell for not using [the warheads].”

“We lucked out,” McNamara said several times during the discussion. He attributed much of the narrowly-averted disaster to misunderstanding.

A question-and-answer session followed the discussion.

Audience members said they enjoyed the open, candid tone of the event.

“McNamara is one of the wittiest, most intelligent guys I’ve ever heard speak,” said Joey M. Hanzich ’06.

When asked, McNamara declined to comment on America’s present treatment of Iraq, saying that as a former secretary of defense, it wasn’t his position to criticize the president’s current foreign affairs policy.

But he did assert his stance on nuclear weapons—a statement that received the biggest applause of the evening.

“We’ve got to get rid of the damn things.” McNamara said.