Perspectives on the ‘missile crisis’

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 17

Perspectives on the ‘missile crisis’

The Brink. By David Detzer. Dent, 1980. 229 pp. $21.95.

(Reviewed by

Hugh Priest)

In October, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis seemed of little importance to me. I was a bridge watchkeeping officer in' a weather ship in the Antarctic. As the Cuban crisis reached its height, so too did a very nasty Antarctic storm. We received only brief, factual summaries via morse code, voice radio being impossible. We actually had all the facts that anyone else in New Zealand had, but none of us saw them as adding up to anything very important., I have since wondered whether our lack of interest was due to getting' only the facts and none of the media ballyhoo; or whether our

own unpleasant situation' made everything else seem trivial. I favour the ballyhoo theory and reading this book has not altered the balance.

In summary, this book presents the crisis as a situation which could easily have got out of hand, but which was probably never in any real danger of doing so.

When the crisis was over, our media presented it as a victory for- a bold, hard-line Kennedy over the sneaky, timid Russians. Kennedy told the Russians where to get off and they ran for home with their tails between their legs. It does sound a. bit unlikely and, according to this book, it probably was not like that at all. The author suggests that it .was a very dangerous thing to believe.

The real guts of. the matter, Detzer proposes, is that America agreed to remove all its. missiles from Italy and Turkey if Russia would remove hers from Cuba. Certainly, within three months America did remove them and another 60 from Britain as well — hardly a coincidence. In retrospect it does look as if it was a highly successful Russian bluff. By shipping a few obsolete missiles to Cuba, the Russians got rid of a whole arsenal of missiles aimed at themselves. Was it an American or a Russian triumph? There are some, interesting sidelights on history in this book. It seems that Kennedy was very frightened (which was sensible) and incapable of making decisions (which -was not). He 'got very angry with his advisors when they would not tell him what to do, and just as angry when they did. The Secretary of Defence, Mr McNamara comes out badly. Apparently he tried to take personal charge of the main operations room and got firmly ushered out by the Admiral in charge. McNamara was completely in the wrong but got his revenge later by sacking the Admiral. Adlai Stevenson is the only major American figure to come out of the crisis looking better than he had before.

Occasionally the book degenerates into an absurdly melodramatic style, but over all it is well written and difficult to put down once begun. There is evidence of very, thorough research. At the end are given 21 pages of notes, six pages of alphabetic bibliography and a very full index.