What If They Gave a Crisis and Nobody Came? Interpreting International Crisis
by Ron Hirschbein
(Praeger Publishers,
1997; 240 pages;
$59.95 hardcover)
The Soviet Union twice began construction of nuclear missile bases in Cubaonce during the Kennedy administration in 1962 and again eight years later during the Nixon administration. Most of us are aware of (or remember) the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisisthe event that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. But how many of us remember anything about the 1970 Soviet nuclear submarine base at Cienfuegos Bay? Most analysts believe that the submarine base actually posed the greater threat to national security. So why is Kennedy’s crisis “the” Cuban Missile Crisis (always capitalized)? Ron Hirschbein explores these and several other international crises in his book, What If They Gave a Crisis and Nobody Came? Interpreting International Crises. He describes how very similar events were perceived very differently by two U.S. presidents and how that affected how they responded and how their responses were defined by the participants, the media, and the public. Hirschbein analyzes how “Kennedy’s political problems became the most unnerving crisis of the Cold War,” while “even a ‘quantum leap’ in Soviet strategic capability did not prompt Nixon to make a crisis move.”

In Chapter 3, The Essence of Indecision, Hirschbein argues that the Soviet missile base in Cuba “posed a problem for Kennedy’s international bargaining reputation and domestic political situation,” but that Kennedy didn’t need to perceive it as a crisis of national security. More accurately, Hirschbein posits, it was a personal crisis for Kennedy, who viewed the Soviet move as “the ultimate test of his authenticity” as a true hero. The following excerpt explores the “metaphorical narrative” that influenced Kennedy’s perceptions of these events.

Kennedy’s two books narrate exemplary crisis metaphors; indeed, these texts are sagas of contending crisis metaphors. (Certain historians, such as Garry Wills, argue that while Kennedy authorized these books by presiding over the writing and editing, he did not author them….) His narration seems self-confessional. These didactic accounts of great men and their crises begin when aspiring statesmenpoliticians called to greatnessare visited with cruel, unexpected calamities by foes, both foreign and domestic. But the ensuing crises are not about selfless jousts with fearsome foes. They are about a more formidable struggle, the defining crisis of one’s lifethe ultimate battle with the self.

For Kennedy, Cuba was not merely a concern, it was an obsession. In order to grasp his fixation, we must explicate the culturally transmitted metaphorical narratives that shaped and guided his actions. Simply put, what story was Kennedy enacting? These narratives are found in Kennedy’s two crisis sagas that presaged the crises of his presidency: Why England Slept and Profiles in Courage. Could it be that he interpreted the cryptic texts and symbolic performances of his adversary in terms of the unforgettable crisis narratives of yesterdaya dangerous venture in a new age of assured destruction?

Kennedy’s contesting selves emerge in the dramas in his texts. His romantic persona is enthralled with heroic morality plays in which steadfast courage conquers all. However, a careful reading reveals the persona of a pragmatic politician willing to compromise to make the best of a bad situation. His hubris is poignantly revealed in this dichotomy: he was loathe to publicly express, let alone embrace, his less grandiose self. (Perhaps the Socratic dictum needs post-modern updatingknow thyselves!) Kennedy’s personas are mixed and never reconciled. Struggling to define courage, he offers what could be construed as a gloss on the secret deal:

We should not be too hasty in condemning compromise as bad morals. For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals. Politics is a field where action is one long second best, and where the choice constantly lies between two blunders. [from John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, 1956]

But this celebration of supple, pragmatic courage is short-lived. A few pages later his ideal self prevails as he prescribes uncompromising courage for the Cold War, a Manichaean struggle in which compromise means surrender:

And thus, in the days ahead, only the very courageous will be able to make the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy…. And only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit…that gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity. [Profiles in Courage]

Kennedy had a problem with his bargaining reputation and domestic political situation; but he had a crisis because he took Krushchev’s actions personally. Vintage Kennedy crises are not about abstract, impersonal concerns. They are about a more formidable struggle, the defining event of his lifethe battle between a pragmatic self willing to make the best of a bad situation and a heroic self bound for glory. He construed Khrushchev’s challenge as his ultimate test: Could he be true to the best in himself? (Perhaps he was indecisive because he couldn’t decide what was best in himself.) In any case, for Kennedy a crisis is not about self-sacrifice; it is about self-love. As if to paraphrase Nietzsche, Kennedy explains that those canonized in his texts were true to themselves amid cruel and unexpected adversity, and self-doubt:

…precisely because they did love themselvesbecause each one’s need to maintain his own respect…was more important to him than his popularity… because his faith that his course was the best one, and would ultimately be vindicated, outweighed his fear of…reprisal. [Profiles in Courage]

Chapter 4, What If They Gave a Crisis and Nobody Came?, examines what constituted a typical “Nixon crisis,” how that view differed from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s view of crises, and why Nixon’s Cuban missile crisis has been reported and remembered so differently from Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis. The following excerpts analyze Nixon’s perception of the 1970 Cuban missile base and his responseor non-responseto it.

By secretly constructing a nuclear submarine base in Cuba, it seemed that the Soviets were inviting Nixon to the most momentous crisis of the nuclear agea potential Gotterdammerung. As Ambrose observes, Nixon declined: “[Nixon] rejected one obvious option, to play up the crisis as Kennedy had done almost exactly eight years earlier, on the eve of the ’62 elections” [from Steven Ambrose’s Nixon, Vol. 2, 1989]. Quite conceivably, he could have interpreted the memo as a disaster, a crisis, or a problem. While he briefly acknowledges the threat in several of his voluminous works, he downplayedif not ignoredthe submarine base during his presidency. His indifference is puzzling.

What, then, were Nixon crises? Like the fictive Willy Loman [in Arthur Miller’s play The Death of a Salesman], the real Richard Nixon endured crises when he felt cheated by life becausedespite his diligence and willingness to play the gamehe realized that he was not “well-liked” by the powers that be. As Willy confessed to his wife, “You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don’t seem to take to me.” Nixon had a similar apprehension: “It is true that of all the Presidents in this century, it is probably true, that I have less…supporters in the press than any other President. I’m one of the most hated” [quoted by Marvin Kalb in The Nixon Memo, 1994].

And yet, in Linda Loman’s poignant words, “attention must be paid.” For Nixon, in Wiker’s telling phrase, was one of us:

He was…Richard Nixon, Americanworking and scheming without letup to achieve his dreams, soured by the inequities of life, perhaps by his own fallibilities, surely by the cynical lesson that “in politics most people are your friends only as long as you can do something for them.”…Nixon was one of us. [from Tom Wiker’s One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream, 1992]

Given the possible outcome of a superpower confrontation, it was preferable to have “Everyman” in the Oval Office during the Cienfuegos incident, rather than a would-be hero like Kennedy: venality is preferable to grandiosity. (One can only speculate as to the disaster that might have occurred had Nixon emulated Kennedy. In light of the public humiliation the Soviets endured in 1962, and the nuclear parity they enjoyed in 1970, would they have felt emboldened to risk nuclear omnicide had Nixon promoted a public confrontation?) To be sure, Nixon’s responseor rather, lack of responsewas far from ideal; but politics is not noted for ideal solutions. It is, in the words of a colleague, “a choice between the undesirable and the unacceptable.”

Fortunately, Cienfuegos was simply not a vintage Nixon crisis: indifferent to that which did not personally concern him, lacking any sense of urgency or passion for risk-taking, he disregarded the Soviet base and vacationed as planned. In retrospect, it is difficult to see how the base would have made a difference in the scheme of things. Perhaps the thirty-seventh president must be credited for being in the right place at the right time, and for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Ron Hirschbein, professor of philosophy and coordinator of the War and Peace Studies program, has published widely on crisis management and nuclear strategy. He has been a visiting professor in the Peace and Conflict Studies program at UC, Berkeley and a visiting research philosopher at UC, San Diego.