Khrushchev’s message arrived in bits. Predictably, the important part was at the end. If the United States would promise not to invade Cuba, Khrushchev said, ‘the necessity for the presence of our military specialists would disappear’.
It was a compromise proposal, and that had to be good news. But what, exactly, did it mean?
Presumably the Soviets would withdraw their nuclear weapons from Cuba. Nothing less would count for anything.
But could the United States promise never to invade Cuba? Would President Kennedy even consider tying his own hands like that? George thought he would be loath to give up all hope of getting rid of Castro.
And how would the world react to such a deal? Would they see it as a foreign-policy coup for Khrushchev? Or would they say Kennedy had forced the Soviets to back down?
Was this good news? George could not decide.
Larry Mawhinney put his buzz-cut head around the door. ‘Cuba has short-range nuclear weapons now,’ he said.
‘We know,’ said George. ‘The CIA found them yesterday.’
‘That means we have to have the same,’ said Larry.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Cuba invasion force must be equipped with battlefield nukes.’
‘Must it?’
‘Of course! The Joint Chiefs are about to demand them. Would you send our men into battle less well armed than the enemy?’
He had a point, George saw; but there was a terrible consequence. ‘So now any war with Cuba must be a nuclear war, from the start.’
‘Damn right,’ said Larry, and he left.
*
Last thing, George dropped by his mother’s house. Jacky made coffee and put a plate of cookies in front of him. He did not take one. ‘I saw Greg yesterday,’ he said.
‘How is he?’
‘Same as ever. Except . . . except that he told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him.’
‘Hm!’ she said in a disparaging tone. ‘What brought that on?’
‘He wanted me to know how proud he is of me.’
‘Well, well. There is still some good in that man.’
‘How long is it since you last saw Lev and Marga?’
Jacky narrowed her eyes in suspicion. ‘What kind of question is that?’
‘You get along well with Grandmother Marga.’
‘That’s because she loves you. When a person loves your child, it’s endearing. You’ll find that out when you have kids.’
‘You haven’t seen her since Harvard Commencement, more than a year ago.’
‘That’s true.’
‘You don’t work on the weekend.’
‘The club is closed Saturdays and Sundays. When you were small, I had to have weekends off, to take care of you when you weren’t in school.’
‘The First Lady has taken Caroline and John Junior to Glen Ora.’
‘Oh, and I suppose you think I ought to go to my country house in Virginia and spend a couple of days riding my horses?’
‘You could go and see Marga and Lev in Buffalo.’
‘Go to Buffalo for the weekend?’ she said incredulously. ‘For pity’s sake, child! I’d spend all Saturday on the train there and all Sunday on the train back.’
‘You could fly.’
‘I can’t afford to.’
‘I’ll buy you a ticket.’
‘Oh, my good Lord,’ she said. ‘You think the Russians are going to bomb us this weekend, don’t you?’
‘It’s never been closer than this. Go to Buffalo.’
She drained her cup, then got up and went to the sink to wash it. After a moment she said: ‘And what about you?’
‘I have to stay here and do what I can to prevent it happening.’
Jacky shook her head decisively. ‘I’m not going to Buffalo.’
‘It would ease my heart mightily, Mom.’
‘If you want to ease your heart, pray to the Lord.’
‘You know what the Arabs say? “Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.” I’ll pray if you’ll go to Buffalo.’
‘How do you know the Russians won’t bomb Buffalo?’
‘I don’t know for sure. But I’d guess it’s a secondary target. And it may be out of range of those missiles in Cuba.’
‘You make a weak case, for a lawyer.’
‘I’m serious, Mom.’
‘So am I,’ she said. ‘And you’re a good son, to worry about your mother. But listen to me, now. From the age of sixteen I’ve given my life to nothing but raising you. If everything I’ve done is going to be wiped out in a nuclear flash, I don’t want to be alive afterwards to know about it. I’m staying where you are.’
‘Either we’ll both survive, or we’ll both die.’
‘The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,’ she quoted. ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord.’
*
The United States had more than two hundred nuclear missiles that could reach the Soviet Union, according to Dimka’s Uncle Volodya in Red Army Intelligence. The Americans believed the Soviet Union had about half that many intercontinental missiles, Volodya said. In truth, the USSR had precisely forty-two.
And some of them were obsolete.
When the United States did not immediately reply to the Soviet Union’s compromise offer, Khrushchev ordered even the oldest and most unreliable missiles to be made launch-ready.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Dimka telephoned the missile-testing range at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The army base there had two five-engined Semyorkas, obsolete R-7 rockets of the type that had taken the sputnik into orbit five years ago. They were being readied for a Mars probe.
Dimka called off the Mars expedition. The Semyorkas were included in the Soviet Union’s forty-two intercontinental missiles. They were needed for World War Three.
He ordered the scientists to fit both rockets with nuclear warheads and fuel them.
Preparation for launch would take twenty hours. The Semyorkas used an unstable liquid propellant, and they could not be kept on alert for more than a day. They would be used this weekend or not at all.
Semyorka rockets often exploded on take-off. However, if they did not, they could reach Chicago.
Each was to be fitted with a 2.8-megaton bomb.
If one managed to hit its target, it would destroy everything within seven miles of the centre of Chicago, from the lake shore to Oak Park, according to Dimka’s atlas.
When he was sure the commanding officer had understood the orders, Dimka went to bed.