Robert McNamara Quotes

This quotation was used by the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to make the point that Fidel Castro was an evil and that the Democrats had not done anything about him. Four decades later Castro was still in place but neither party would chastise the other on this issue since both had their chance and neither succeeded.

McNamara stated that the Cuban Missile Crisis was more politically required than defense required. The Russians had nuclear missiles at the time that could reach the United States and didn’t really need missiles in Cuba to threaten America. Public opinion and the Republican Political doctrine persuaded President Kennedy that independent of safety and military factors, nuclear missiles in Cuba was a major political problem. See his comment to the President and the Other Officials dealing with the crises—{631968}.

This statement was made at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The immediate crisis had been averted and no more nuclear missiles would enter Cuba. But we had no leverage to get the few that were already there removed and it would be politically very difficult for the Kennedy administration to get the public to accept ANY nuclear missiles in Cuba. Hence, Stevenson’s statement. See {634554}. Neither side had great intercontinental ballistic missile capability at the time, and we had placed a large battery of missiles in Turkey very close to the Russian border. This gave the U. S. a major military advantage. We could deliver many more nuclear warheads to Russia than they could to the United States. The Russians with this proposal hoped to even the capability. The military advisers and the security and State Department advisors all thought that the U. S. should not give up its nuclear superiority. However, we had no international legal basis for denying the Cubans the right to locate any weapons on their soil, so to prevent the Communists from having nuclear missiles in Cuba we would have to use force which could easily escalate into a nuclear war. Kennedy and McCone both thought that since we had intercontinental ballistic missiles in production and coming on line and would not need the Turkey Missiles to strike all over Russia. So giving up our missile advantage for a short time would not expose us to any undue risk. The other advisors worried that the production of the ICBMs could be delayed—weapons systems were (and are) notoriously longer in production than estimated or planned. They also thought that the morale of the military and civilian population would suffer when they learned that we had given away our military advantage. There was a macho element in their thinking in that we would be giving in to intimidation and look like we were afraid to fight. Last, the political advisors thought that the right wing hawks would pillory the administration for its cowardice in allowing itself to be intimidated by the Russians. Their doctrine was that when faced with force, the Communists will always back down. In the final deal we agreed to remove our missiles from Turkey in 6 months and this would be done in complete secrecy and the Russians would keep the deal secret. That way, Kennedy got 6 more months of production which turned out to have been enough. The public would never know till years later and the Conservatives would not be able to publicly castigate Kennedy. Meanwhile, the conservatives would continue to believe that the Russians backed down in the face of force—the naval blockade as this was ‘proved’ their doctrine when the Russians had not backed down at all. The strategy and tactics of the Kennedy administration are still analyzed and argued about today with many Americans just realizing that we did not intimidate the Russians with force or the threat of force to remove their Cuban missiles.

Truman had to deal with Stalin for many years. In earlier days he had a much more favorable view of the Russians. See {626410} for his view 22 years earlier.

Russia then had designs on Afghani Territory. About a century later, Russia Invaded Afghanistan and tried to impose a communist government. It failed and the Afghans drove out the Russians.

This was one of the great blunders of the Central Intelligence Agency in American History. As the Central Intelligence Agency was writing this report the Russians were landing missile components in Cuba. Within days the Cuban Missile Crisis would erupt. The Central Intelligence Agency also missed the Communist Takeover in China, the fall of the Berlin wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the Hungarian Revolution, the Iran Revolution, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring just to list a few of the most dramatic events about which they failed to have any information in advance. At the same time they claimed that there were nuclear weapons in Iraq leading to the Iraq war and claimed the Soviets were on a track to have a better military and stronger economy—see {635791}.

Israel started it nuclear weapons program under Perez’s leadership. They do not admit that it is even in existence. Yet all their potential enemies in the Middle East realize that they have enough nuclear weapons capacity that if they are in danger of being overrun, they can literally destroy the attacking nation and all the countries that might be assisting that nation. Before Israel had developed this capability, some in the Middle East had as their objective to destroy the state of Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea”. No one believes that it is now possible to militarily defeat Israel without the attacking nations also being destroyed. For years, Israel has had the military might to conquer any nation in the Middle East and use their nuclear shield to protect them from any interference, but they have not done so demonstrating that the Israeli governments will not use nuclear weapons for any other purpose.