The following is a quote from a lecture by Noam Chomsky as included in the newly-published book Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance. Buy it cheaply at Haymarket Books.

After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev came along. He understood that Russia couldn’t compete with the United States economically; it was inconceivable. So he wanted to cut back military spending on both sides. This is the Kennedy years. As to the reception of his offer, I’ll quote Kenneth Waltz, one of the leading international relations scholars. The Kennedy administration, he writes in PS: Political Science and Politics (December 1991), “undertook the largest strategic and conventional peace-time military build-up the world has yet seen … even as Khrushchev was trying at once to carry through a major reduction in the conventional forces and to follow a strategy of minimum deterrence, and we did so even though the balance of strategic weapons greatly favored the United States.” Once again, Kennedy’s decision harmed security, but enhanced state power. That’s a consistent pattern.

It was soon learned how seriously the security of the population was endangered by Kennedy’s reaction to Khrushchev’s offer: in October 1962, the month that Kennedy’s associate historian Arthur Schlesinger called, rightly, “the most dangerous moment in history,” the Cuban missile crisis. The facts are harrowing. The United States raised military preparedness to DEFCON 2. There’s a series of stages of military preparedness starting with five up and going to one. This is the only time DEFCON 2 has ever been imposed. DEFCON 1 means send off the missiles, we’re all finished. So it was up to DEFCON 2, right before the end.

The Joint Chiefs wanted to invade Cuba. Kennedy contemplated invasion. If there had been an invasion of Cuba, we’d probably all be dead. The US didn’t know it, but the Russians had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba to try to defend against a US invasion. And if there had been an invasion, they would have been used. The US invasion force would have been wiped out, a lot of the southeastern United States would have been wiped out, we would then have bombed Moscow, and it’s all over. So it was that close.

In fact, how close it was is just mind-boggling. There was a point at the peak of the crisis when US destroyers were dropping depth charges on Soviet submarines right outside the so-called quarantine area. These were old submarines, designed for the North Atlantic, not the Caribbean. We now have extensive records about what happened. Inside the submarines the temperature was rising to 140 degrees. CO2 levels were at such a level that crewmen were fainting, falling down, close to death. Depth charges were falling near the submarines. They had no communication with anyone; they didn’t know what was going on.

The US didn’t know it at the time, but the Russian subs had torpedoes that were nuclear tipped. One of the commanders decided that “look we’re at war, a major war is going on. Let’s defend our dignity, and instead of just being murdered down here, let’s fire the torpedoes.” Had he done so, it very likely would have triggered escalation leading to major nuclear war.

Vassily Arkhipov, photographed on 17 February, 1955.

In order to fire the torpedoes, he needed the approval of two subordinate officers. One of them approved, the second, Vassily Arkhipov, did not. He decided that it wouldn’t have been legal to fire the torpedoes. So he refused. They didn’t fire them. That’s how close we were to possible terminal destruction. If Arkhipov had been on one of the other submarines, that would have been the end. It’s one of the worst cases in the record—and there are all too many others.

We have since learned that President Eisenhower had sub-delegated authority to use nuclear weapons to commanders. That continues with subsequent administrations. You can read about this in a very important book that just came out, Daniel Ellsberg’s Doomsday Machine. The book provides detailed information about this from the inside.

We’ve also learned, from memoirs, that American pilots who were in the air, flying the Chrome Dome missions, assumed that they had authority to use nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances. One shudders to think of the consequences.