Search for a Way Out

The rhetoric intensifies as Carter tries to defuse the Cuban crisis

Not since the Mayaguez incident of 1975 had the National Security Council been called to a nighttime meeting so hastily convoked at the White House. By 8 p.m. last Thursday, the first of the dark limousines and Government sedans of Jimmy Carter's top security aides began rolling through the gates to let off their passengers at the West Wing entrance. When the summons had gone out from Carter, the officials were scattered across the capital. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had just delivered a pep talk for the SALT II accords at the posh Cosmos Club. He dashed off before he had a chance to eat, then ordered his driver to stop at a McDonald's, where he picked up a hamburger and a root beer. He arrived at the White House clutching the paper bag and wolfed down the fast-food fare in his elegant corner office before heading for the Cabinet Room.

The emergency meeting began at 8:20. With Brzezinski around the long oval table were, among others: Vice President Walter Mondale, Pentagon Chief Harold Brown, CIA Director Stansfield Turner, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman David Jones and Presidential Senior Adviser Hedley Donovan. They were joined, some 70 min. later, by Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had been conferring in the President's family quarters. At 10:30 the meeting broke up. But less than nine hours later the limousines were back at the White House, and a second round was under way by 7:30 Friday morning. This time Hamilton Jordan, the President's Chief of Staff, sat in with the group. For 1 hr. 45 min. they continued their brainstorming.

Later that morning, yet another traditional portent of stormy political weather in Washington appeared at the White House. Gaunt and dignified, former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, 72, the all-purpose confidant of every Democratic President since Harry Truman, was coming to give what aid he could. Carrying his hat in one hand and his attache case in the other, Clifford strode slowly but purposefully across the North Lawn to the West Wing and Brzezinski's office.

It was crisis time in Washington. The issue was the most baffling, potentially the most explosive and in its way one of the most absurd that Jimmy Carter had faced. Despite almost four weeks of diplomatic efforts, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were stalemated over a smoldering dispute that threatened to flare out of control. The confrontation had even reached the point last week that TASS, the official Soviet news agency, took the unusual step of denouncing Carter personally for "absolutely unfounded and crude attacks" on the U.S.S.R.

The problem was simple enough, though its solution was infuriatingly elusive: The Administration insisted that between 2,000 and 3,000 Soviet troops in Cuba have been equipped for combat and organized as a combat brigade. The Kremlin consistently denied this, claiming that the forces in question have been there for 17 years, and that their purpose is to train Cubans.

The hastily scheduled NSC sessions were called to help the President decide on what action he might take if Moscow refused to bow to U.S. demands for a change in the status quo in Cuba. Such a refusal appeared increasingly likely, as Vance had made absolutely no progress during talks earlier in the week in Manhattan with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Only two hours after saying goodbye to Gromyko on Thursday, Vance was back in Washington to brief Carter at the White House. Immediately after that, the two men headed for the Cabinet Room and the first of the NSC meetings.

The capital's crisis mood was further fueled by an unexpected development in Havana: Fidel Castro, it was learned, was going to hold a Friday press conference, and he wanted U.S. journalists there. While there was no indication of what the Cuban leader would say, no one in the Administration expected words of conciliation, and Castro did not disappoint them. For 80 min., he met with eight U.S. correspondents, including TIME's Walter Isaacson, in a reception room outside his office.

Waving his hands like an orchestra conductor and puffing on his ever present cigar, Castro echoed Moscow's argument that the controversial Soviet forces were merely training Cubans. Said he: "You call it a brigade, we call it a training center." Of the Administration's "combat" contention, he said: "This charge is a complete comedy." He insisted every U.S. President since 1962 had known about the Soviet unit. In all those 17 years, he said, "there has been no change in the function or the number of the troops." He accused Carter of creating a "minicrisis" to bolster his domestic political fortunes. Railed Castro: "Carter has been dishonest, insincere, immoral, and he has been deceiving the American people ... An artificial problem has been created. The fact that Carter may be in a crisis situation [at home] does not give him the right to place in crisis the world."

Carter's answer to Castro and, more important, an explanation of the next steps the Administration plans for resolving the dispute with Moscow were expected this Monday evening, when the President was scheduled to make a nationally televised address. To prepare for the speech, Carter continued to consult with his top aides throughout the weekend. Vance canceled a scheduled appearance at Yale University and called off a trip to Panama so he would be available for talks. He had been planning to join Vice President Mondale at the ceremonies that will turn over most of the Canal Zone to the Panamanians.

As so often in diplomatic history, the current crisis had an almost innocuous beginning. In mid-August, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded (from yet undisclosed evidence) that Soviet combat forces, as distinct from advisers, were in Cuba. At that point, the matter might have been quietly clarified and even settled by Moscow and Washington with some adroit negotiating. But the Administration lost control of the issue when it conveyed the intelligence findings to Senator Frank Church, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an Idaho Democrat who faces a tough re-election fight next year. Church went public with the matter on Aug. 30, and did so in an unexpectedly bellicose way. As a result of his hawkish stance and the hard-line position taken by a number of other officials, including Vance early on ("I will not be satisfied with maintenance of the status quo") and Carter at times, the dispute became enormously magnified. It acquired, despite its humble origins, a symbolic importance that could not be completely discounted. In the world of superpower relations, where images are important, neither side was willing to appear to be backing down, even though a solution of the dispute, in all reality, required both sides to compromise.

It is now certain that the dispute is going to have a serious impact on U.S. foreign policy, on the Administration, and on the political future of Jimmy Carter. Nothing the President manages to work out short of outright capitulation by the Soviets is likely to mollify the hard-nosed critics of the Soviets who are demanding a firm stand. At immediate risk is the fate of the SALT II treaty; if the Senate turns it down, the defeat could seriously damage Washington-Moscow relations. Carter's handling of this sensitive matter, moreover, will be viewed as yet another severe test of his much criticized leadership ability.

Carter's week of crisis started in a deceptively friendly setting: a town meeting at New York City's Queens College. It was the kind of meet-the-voter outing that he so enjoys and that usually produces nothing more than a picnic of calm discussion about unstormy subjects. But midway through the proceedings, Fred Feingold, a salesman from Hollis Hills, wanted to know whether there would be a danger of another Cuban missile crisis "if nothing works and the [Soviet] troops just stay" in Cuba. The President's reply: "We are now trying through diplomacy to get the Soviets to eliminate the combat nature of this unit. I don't know yet whether we will succeed. If we do not succeed, we will take appropriate action to change the status quo." What did he mean by appropriate action? Replied Carter: "How to deal with this successfully is not an easy task. But we'll do the best we can." Carter also went out of his way to say that the Soviets were lying about the nature of the troops, an accusation he had made earlier--in private--to Congressmen. Declared the President: "The thing that concerns us is that it is a combat unit. The Soviets deny it has combat status. But it is a combat unit."

This argument had already been sharply rejected by Gromyko. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in Manhattan, he bluntly told the U.S., "Our advice on this score is simple: it is high time you admit this whole matter is artificial and proclaim it to be closed."

The Administration has been arguing that although the Soviet brigade does not threaten the U.S. militarily, it does endanger the nation's security interests. But even while his President was talking tough, Vance was cautioning against overdramatizing the issue. Three weeks before, in the first major Administration statement on the brigade, Vance had said: "We regard this as a very serious problem." But last week he emphasized to a Manhattan luncheon of the Foreign Policy Association that "we have significant interests at stake in our total relationship with the Soviet Union." Thus the matter of the Soviet troops must be kept "in proper perspective." Although that message seemed to be aimed at Senate hawks, Vance also spoke more softly to the Soviets than his President had. In an address to the U.N., he merely observed that "the East-West relationship can deteriorate dangerously whenever one side fails to respect the security interests of the other."

All the while, U.S.-U.S.S.R. talks on the controversy continued. On Monday, Vance and Gromyko had met at the Soviet Mission to the U.N. Aides to the Secretary described the 70-min. session as dispiriting; Gromyko did not budge from the Kremlin's public position. Nor did he at a second meeting, which took place Thursday at Vance's New York hotel suite and lasted more than three hours.

In what seemed to be a tacit admission that the Administration has not handled the Soviet troops affair with sufficient skill, Carter enlisted about a dozen veteran foreign policy experts to study the impasse and suggest possible ways of ending it. Seven of these "wise men," as they were called by Carter aides, got to work almost immediately. Headed by Clark Clifford, the group also included John McCone, McGeorge Bundy and John McCloy, all of whom served as advisers to Kennedy and Johnson; David Packard of the Nixon Administration; Brent Scowcroft of the Ford Administration; and Sol Linowitz, a longtime presidential consultant who most recently was chief negotiator of the Panama Canal treaties.

For 8 1/2 hr. the seven were closeted at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., scrutinizing the data on the Soviet troops in Cuba and cross-examining U.S. intelligence chiefs. Over the weekend the seven and the other members (including former Secretaries of State Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger) were to receive a thorough briefing on Vance's talks with the Soviets. Then they planned to huddle with Carter and top White House aides. Although the process seems time consuming, the outside experts would not be asked to reach a consensus, but would be used as a sounding board for Administration officials.

Meanwhile, to the great dismay of the Administration--and not a few Senators--the SALT II accord had become a hostage to the Soviet troops controversy. Complained a top White House official: "It's this horrible hulk that threatens SALT II. It's demoralizing." Not only has the dispute given SALT's opponents a chance to depict the Kremlin as an untrustworthy treaty partner, but the controversy has seriously damaged the effectiveness of one of SALT's most important backers, Senator Frank Church.

Faced with the growing opposition of conservatives in his home state, the normally dovish Church has taken a tough line on the Kremlin since he revealed the presence of the troops. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Church had been counted on by the Administration to direct the drive for the two-thirds vote SALT II needs for Senate approval. But Church now threatens to hold up the treaty until the issue of the Soviet troops has been settled. Protested one pro-SALT Senator: "The s.o.b. has sold us out for his own private purpose." Said another: "Whatever credibility Church had as chairman is gone." Back in Idaho, Church has been ridiculed by one of his traditional backers. Bill Hall, the Lewiston, Idaho, Tribune's editorial page editor, wrote, "It's not a proud moment to have the Senate Foreign Relations chairman from Idaho trying to outdo every right-wing wacko in the Senate."

As the tension mounted last week, Church showed no flexibility at all. Said he: "The Russians have no business having combat troops in Cuba, and I believe these forces should be withdrawn. If we are unable to draw the line with the Russians in Cuba, where do we draw it?"

Though Church could impede SALT's progress, he cannot prevent a majority of his committee's members from sending the treaty to the Senate floor for a vote. This could turn out to be the Administration's strategy. Said Senate Democratic Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia: "My timetable for SALT is not in the slightest changed by all this shaking and trembling" about Cuba. He insists that the Senate will consider and vote on the treaty by Thanksgiving. Byrd also has met separately with at least two dozen fellow Senators, pleading with them to consider SALT II on its merits and not link it with the issue of Soviet troops. But despite these efforts, the Senate's Democratic leadership concedes that it does not yet have enough votes to assure SALT's approval. Indeed, veteran Capitol Hill watchers feel that SALT's chances for Senate O.K. are now poor and getting worse.

Opponents of SALT II got some strong support from former President Gerald Ford. In Vladivostok in 1974 he had begun the negotiating process that led to the proposal now before the Senate. Ford said he could not back the treaty without the assurance that the U.S. would increase its military spending. Said he: "To use SALT as an answer to our defense needs is the most dangerous kind of wishful thinking."

As they struggle to keep SALT II on schedule, Byrd and Alan Cranston, the Democratic whip in the Senate, are infuriated with Carter for his handling of the problem. Immediately after Church dramatically announced the presence of the force in Cuba, Byrd had urged the President to try to play down the whole question, warning that to do otherwise would strengthen the arguments of the opponents of the arms pact. But Carter disregarded the Senate leader's advice. Said Byrd last week: "The whole thing has been mishandled." Referring to the Administration's rhetoric, he said, "Talk is cheap. That's one thing that inflation hasn't hit."

But cheap or not, some heated talk by the Americans and the Soviets, plus the angry contributions by Castro, had turned a dispute over a comparative handful of troops into a full-scale international incident. As this week began, Carter faced the challenge of finding a way to deflate the problem to its proper size.

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