President John F. Kennedy (in rocking chair) meets with United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai E. Stevenson in the Oval Office, White House, Washington, D.C.
Documents Chart Critical Contribution of U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson
in Missile Crisis Management and Resolution
Stevenson’s Diplomatic Admonition: “Blackmail and Intimidation Never;
Negotiation and Sanity Always”
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 the quid pro quo that 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 The Saturday Evening Post in 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.”
Document 1
National Security Archive Cuban Missile Crisis collections
On October 16, 1962, the day the CIA briefed President Kennedy on the existence of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba, Kennedy met privately with his ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson. Kennedy informed Stevenson that the initial consensus of his advisors, which the president supported, was to launch a series of airstrikes to take out the missiles. Stevenson advised the president to instead consider peaceful, diplomatic alternatives to convince Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to remove the missiles. In this memorandum, written the next morning to advance his argument for the use of diplomacy over the use of force, Stevenson cites the “incalculable consequences” of airstrikes in Cuba and urges Kennedy to make clear to his advisors that “the existence of nuclear missile bases anywhere is negotiable before we start anything.” He expresses his “misgivings about the proposed course of action” and insists that “it should be clear as a pikestaff that the U.S. was, is, and will be ready to negotiate the elimination of bases and anything else,” before risking an escalation to nuclear war. Among his recommendations are that Kennedy opens back channels of communication with both Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.
Document 2
National Security Archive Cuban Missile Crisis Collection
Stevenson pens a series of points he, and other Kennedy advisors, are considering at the outset of the missile crisis. His notes reflect the sense that the President will be forced to go public in just a few days with a statement about the missiles as rumors start to circulate that a superpower crisis is unfolding. They record his suggestions that the President pick an emissary, “preferably one who was known to be sympathetic with the original Castro revolution,” to secretly carry a message to Castro warning him that Soviet missiles on Cuban territory have put his country in grave danger. Simultaneously, the notes indicate, a different emissary would carry a note to Khrushchev, opening a channel to negotiate the withdrawal of the missiles.
Document 3
National Security Archive Cuban Missile Crisis Collection
In an effort to lobby President Kennedy to include a “political platform” in his October 22 public announcement of the U.S. response to the discovery of the missile sites, Ambassador Stevenson drafts a broad diplomatic plan to resolve the crisis and address the issue of nuclear weapons between the superpowers. His proposals call for negotiating the “neutralization and demilitarization” of Cuba, stationing United Nations peacekeeping and observer forces on the island, and organizing a summit meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev to address nuclear weapons. As a “gesture showing our wisdom and good faith,” Stevenson recommends “an offer to exchange Guantanamo for removal of Soviet installations in Cuba.” He also suggests holding out the option of later negotiations on U.S. missile bases in Turkey and Italy. “Inclusion of a political program in the initial speech,” Stevenson argues in his memorandum, “will drive home the essential point: that the United States wants a political settlement, not an escalated military involvement.” Anticipating pushback against a conciliatory approach to resolving the missile crisis, Stevenson submits that, “The offer would not sound ‘soft’ if properly worded; it would sound ‘wise.’” At a meeting of his Executive Committee of advisors, however, Kennedy dismissed the broad proposal and the Guantanamo option, although he held out the prospect of further discussion on a missile trade.
Document 4
National Security Archive Cuban Missile Crisis Collection
In anticipation of President Kennedy’s public announcement of the discovery of the missiles and the U.S. response, Ambassador Stevenson writes his own draft of what Kennedy’s address to the nation, and the world, should include on diplomatic initiatives to manage the crisis. His draft section of speech focuses on diplomacy and the United Nations. It calls on the U.N. to dispatch observation teams not only to Cuba, but also to Italy and Turkey to “insure that no surprise attack could be mounted in any of these countries pending a permanent solution to the problem of foreign missile bases.” In Stevenson’s version, Kennedy would guarantee the territorial integrity of Cuba and thereby eliminate the Soviet rationale of using the missiles to defend the island against a U.S. attack. The Soviet Union would withdraw their missiles and all military personnel; in return, the United States would “evacuate our base at Guantanamo.” With respect to future disarmament talks, Stevenson’s proposed language said that the U.S. would consider the “elimination” of bases in Turkey and Italy.
Document 5
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban Missile crisis and aftermath, volumes x/xi/xii, microfiche supplement
After an article titled “In Time of Crisis” from the Saturday Evening Post begins to circulate in Washington, White House aide Arthur Schlesinger sends the first of two protests to President Kennedy urging him to defend U.N. ambassador Adlai Stevenson whose “soft” positions during the crisis deliberations are targeted in the story. The article quotes a U.S. official as saying that Stevenson “wanted a Munich” and wanted to “trade U.S. bases for Cuban bases.” Written by two close Kennedy confidants, Charles Bartlett and Stewart Alsop, the story “seems to be wrong in every particular,” Schlesinger advises. The suggestion, he writes, that Stevenson “favored a Caribbean Munich is grossly unfair—and shows the number of people who still have their knives out for him.” Schlesinger advises Kennedy to authorize the release of a statement to the press calling the story “false and malicious.”
Document 6
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban missile crisis and aftermath, volumes x/xi/xii, microfiche supplement
In a second memo to President Kennedy, White House aide Arthur Schlesinger complains that the press is interpreting a statement put out by the White House on the “In Time of Crisis” story in the Saturday Evening Post as “a deliberately pallid defense of Stevenson.” Schlesinger urges the President to put out his own strong statement denying the story, and/or to give him permission to conduct “counter-leakage” and pass sections of Stevenson’s TOP SECRET October 20 memorandum to the New York Times.
Document 7
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban missile crisis and aftermath, volumes x/xi/xii, microfiche supplement
Faced with pressure from his top aides to defend the U.N. ambassador from harsh attacks in the media, President Kennedy writes a letter to Stevenson, carried to New York by White House aide Arthur Schlesinger. “This is just a note to tell you again how deeply I regret the unfortunate fuss which has arisen over the statements contained in the Saturday Evening Post article,” the letter begins. Kennedy notes that because his “personal friend” Charles Bartlett had co-authored the article, “everything controversial in his article would be laid at my door, whether I talked to him or not,” and conveys to Stevenson that “I did not discuss the Cuban crisis…with any newspapermen.” (In fact, Bartlett had shown Kennedy the passages on Stevenson prior to publication, giving him the opportunity to confirm or deny the charge that the U.N. ambassador “wanted a Munich” and had been the lone dissenter from the consensus of Kennedy’s other advisors. See Document 10.) Authorized by Kennedy, Schlesinger subsequently leaks an edited version of the letter, stripped of references to Bartlett, to the press to generate presidential support for Stevenson.
Document 8
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban missile crisis and aftermath, volumes x/xi/xii, microfiche supplement
Undersecretary of State George Ball calls Adlai Stevenson in New York to report to him on a letter that President Kennedy has written in support of Stevenson that is intended to be leaked to the press. Ball assures Stevenson that “there isn’t the slightest doubt in the world that as far as the President is concerned that (1) he had not talked to Bartlett, and this is said categorically. He did not know what Bartlett was going to write until it had been written and published. And (2) that he desperately wants you to stay.” According to this transcript of their conversation, Stevenson reports that the impact of the Saturday Evening Post article on his reputation and work at the U.N. “has been shattering.”
Document 9
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, American Republics; Cuba 1961–1962; Cuban missile crisis and aftermath, volumes x/xi/xii, microfiche supplement
Undersecretary of State George Ball and UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson once again confer on the telephone about the Saturday Evening Post article and the impact of the Kennedy letter of support. When Stevenson expresses his gratitude for Ball’s defending him, Ball admits how infuriating the article was: “I was never so angry about anything as that. The more I think of it the more…the piece was so vicious.” “It was, you know,” Stevenson responds, “and it did incalculable damage.”
Document 10
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Oral History Collection
In an oral history conducted by former White House aide Fred Holborn for the John F. Kennedy Library, Charles Bartlett, a close friend of the president and co-author of the controversial Saturday Evening Post article, relates how he and co-author Stewart Alsop learned of Adlai Stevenson’s advocacy for diplomacy during the missile crisis and reflects on the major political fallout after the article was published. In some detail, Bartlett describes sharing the section on Stevenson with President Kennedy in advance during a dinner in Middleburg, giving him an opportunity to confirm or deny the story. “And he sort of had that wary look, you know, but he said, ‘Did you hear about that?’ I said, ‘Yes, we got it.’ He said, ‘Are you going to put it in the article?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ That was the only real comment that he made. My own guess, knowing him well, would be that he was not too displeased that this had turned up.”