Washington D.C., October 17, 2022 - In a secret “eyes only” memorandum for John F. Kennedy, written 60 years ago today at the outset of the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson admonished the president to abandon his initial plan to attack Cuba and to consider, instead, the diplomatic option of dismantling U.S. missile bases in Europe in return for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Air strikes against Cuba would “have such incalculable consequences,” he argued, “that I feel you should have made it clear [to your advisors] that the existence of nuclear missile bases anywhere is negotiable before we start anything.”
The memorandum, which was a follow-up to a private meeting Kennedy and Stevenson had on October 16 about the unfolding missile crisis, concluded with Stevenson’s mantra for U.S. diplomacy in the face of Soviet provocation: “Blackmail and intimidation never; negotiation and sanity always.”
A handwritten draft of Ambassador Stevenson's sign-off to Kennedy: "Blackmail and intimidation never; negotiation and sanity always."
Ambassador Stevenson’s early suggestion of negotiating a missile swap helped set the stage for the ultimate resolution of the dangerous crisis 11 days later, after President Kennedy agreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to trade U.S. Jupiter missiles based in Turkey for the withdrawal of the newly installed Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. But the part of the accord that ended the crisis was kept TOP SECRET for decades. Officially, the Soviets agreed to pull the missiles out of Cuba in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade the country in the future. Publicly, the Kennedy White House promoted the narrative that the Soviets had "blinked" and retreated in the face of U.S. resolve and determination. Instead of receiving credit for his cogent advice, Ambassador Stevenson became the sacrificial lamb of the missile crisis.
To safeguard the secret of thequid pro quothat ended the crisis, administration leakers cast Stevenson as a “soft” appeaser who “wanted a Munich” and “to trade US bases for Cuban bases.” The disparaging allegations were made in an influential article, “In Time of Crisis,” that appeared in TheSaturday Evening Postin early December 1962. The two authors of the article, Kennedy’s close friend Charles Bartlett, and confidant Stewart Alsop, later admitted that the president had known about the story in advance of publication and had even participated in editing drafts. “My own guess, knowing him well, would be that he was not too displeased that this had turned up,” Bartlett later stated in an oral history, describing how he briefed the president on the accusations against Stevenson (that would later appear in the article) during a mid-November dinner in Middleburg, Virginia, where the Kennedy’s often spent weekends.
“Neither Stevenson nor the Kennedy-led secret diplomacy that resolved the most dangerous conflict in modern history have received full and due historical recognition,” according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project and authored an article in Foreign Policy magazine this week on Stevenson’s contribution to the missile crisis. “Stevenson’s approach, ‘Blackmail and intimidation never; negotiation and sanity always,’” Kornbluh noted, “is more relevant today than ever.”
On the 60th anniversary of the missile crisis, the Archive is posting a collection of declassified documents on Ambassador Stevenson’s critical role as crisis advisor to President Kennedy and on the political fallout from the “In Time of Crisis” article. The documents include: his October 17, 1962, private memorandum to Kennedy; his TOP SECRET recommendations for a broader U.N.-backed disarmament effort as a way of ending the missile crisis in Cuba (and avoiding missile crises elsewhere in the future); communications from Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Undersecretary of State George W. Ball defending Stevenson;and President Kennedy’s letter to Stevenson, in the wake of the Saturday Evening Post article, expressing “regret” at “the fuss” over the ambassador’s contribution to the crisis deliberations.
In the wake of the Saturday Evening Post controversy, Time Magazine published a cover story on Adlai Stevenson. It quoted him as stating: "We seem to be living in an era when anyone who is for war is a hero and anyone who is for peace is a bum." (Time Magazine)
“Adlai’s strong and early advocacy of ‘exploring the possibilities of a peaceful solution’ provided Kennedy with a blueprint to do exactly that,” wrote the late historian, Martin J. Sherwin, in his comprehensive book, Gambling with Armageddon. “In fact, Stevenson’s suggestions of October 16 and 17 were congruent with nearly all the steps that the president followed in resolving the crisis.”
