An anecdote from almost 50 years ago

Sandy Levinson

In 1962 I entered the Harvard Government Department as a graduate student, intending to become a "defense intellectual," as the term was then used. (I had written a senior thesis at Duke about deterrence theory, including the logic of "the rationality of appearing irrational." Richard Nixon, incidentally, made use of this logic, by his own account, when he became President later in the decade.) Among other things, as a firsit-year graduate student, I took a "seminar" (with 90 students!) with Henry Kissinger. By the end of the year, for a variety of reasons, I had migrated to Robert McCloskey, a truly wonderful human being, and a future career studying constitutional law. But that's not the anecdote.

In October 1962 there occurred the Cuban Missile "Crisis." I put the word in scare quotes because I was remarkably detached during those legendary 13 Days. The reason is simple: As a would-be "defense intellectual," up on my game theory, I "knew" that it was utterly irrational for the Soviet Union and the United States to engage in armed conflict that could easily lead to nuclear exchanges and World War III. Therefore it wouldn't (and, of course, didn't) happen. So I also knew that the negotiations with the Soviet Union were a form of kabuki theater without "real meaning," since there was only one possible ending. My complacence was vindicated, and I could feel more than a bit superior to those who weren't "defense intellectuals" and were actually worried that something ominous would happen.

A lot of things occurred during the 1960s, and one of them was a loss of faith in models of rational behavior that accounted for my complacence. Instead, I read Ted Sorenson's account, which indicated that JFK said there was a 1/3 chance of war breaking out. I also read more about the "wise men" advising Kennedy, including Dean Acheson, most of whom were lunatics who wanted the US to attack Cuba. There was also the little detail of an upcoming election, which made it impossible for JFK to accept the altogether rational assessment of his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the missiles in fact posed no threat to the US, because, under the altogether rational theory of deterrence, the missiles were unusable, unless the Soviets wanted to invite the obliteration of their society. (We now know, incidentally, that the Soviets unaccountably probably didn't have sufficient full-scale command and control over the missiles to assure their non-use.)

In any event, as we all know, it was ultimately Nikita Khrushchev, in his own way one of the great men of the 20th century, who "blinked" (and, of course, lost his job the next year, though, in a sign of changing times in the USSR, he lived out his life and died peacefully in old age). And, of course, one of the reasons he blinked, in addition to realizing that the United States might in fact go to war, is that Kennedy, though lying through his teeth to the American public about this, in fact basically promised to get rid of our Jupiter missiles in Turkey that to which the USSU could legitimately take umbrage. (Details of this lying are set out in a fine book on presidential lying by Eric Alterman.)

In any event, retroactively, I lost my complacence about the 13 Days. Ostensibly "wise men" threatened the lives of each and every one of us, and we escaped conflagration not only because JFK was willing to reject lunatics like Acheson (and others, including many Republican politicos screaming about the Communist threat 90 miles from our shores), but also because his adversary Khrushchev was willing to run the risk of sacrificing his own political future (as in fact happened). If I had known in 1962 what I learned afterward, and if I had been less of a complacent "defense intellectual," with my faith in the competence of our highest leaders, I, like those I considered bumpkins, would also have been scared to death.

It's also the case, incidentally, that the Cuban Missile Crisis exemplifies "constitutional dictatorship," for Kennedy, to the applause of his minions, made the decisions of life and death ultimately by himself, without the slightest formal consultation with Congress or authorization (which, of course, he would have received, and I suspect that Congress had passed a Cold War equivalent of the AUMF that Kennedy's lawyers could use as legal authority). It was an illustration of "imperial presidency" at its maximum. Again, at the time, I doubt that I thought twice about this aspect of the affair.

I will let all of you make any applications you wish to the present Debt Limit "Crisis."
Posted 6:40 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]