What would President Nixon have done during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

[Apollo 20]

I don't know why almost everyone on here is assuming that Nixon would blindly and pigheaded-ly charge into WWIII. A mix of Kennedy glorification and Nixon demonification if I had to guess. Lets remember that in Nixon's first term in office, he showed what could amount to a masterful control of foreign policy, and did more than any other President of the era to limit nuclear arms and tensions. I'm not convinced that Nixon in '60 would be any different, and its possible that either a successful Bay of Pigs goes through, nipping the issue in the bud, or if Castro does hold power, the situation is cleared without any stand-off. Personality issues aside, Nixon in any year was a competent man.

What we can't answer about this, though, is the degree to which Nixon's 8 years in exile tempered and changed his views, nor how he was effected by events that took place during the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. It seems a plausible thesis to me that the Cuban Missile Crisis itself, and the close call it genuinely was, may have affected his views on nuclear war. Also, during the 1960s, the vast Soviet deficit in nuclear arms that existed at the time of the Crisis was replaced by, if not parity, an ability to inflict catastrophic damage on the US, a fact which forced a different approach to the Soviets and to arms control. In other words, it cannot be definitively stated that Richard Nixon as President in 1962 would have been the same man who took office in 1969.

What I do think is that Nixon would have been more likely to follow some of the military advice that Kennedy wisely rejected. That alone could result in a dramatically different outcome.

 

[Zorqal]

What we can't answer about this, though, is the degree to which Nixon's 8 years in exile tempered and changed his views, nor how he was effected by events that took place during the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. It seems a plausible thesis to me that the Cuban Missile Crisis itself, and the close call it genuinely was, may have affected his views on nuclear war. Also, during the 1960s, the vast Soviet deficit in nuclear arms that existed at the time of the Crisis was replaced by, if not parity, an ability to inflict catastrophic damage on the US, a fact which forced a different approach to the Soviets and to arms control. In other words, it cannot be definitively stated that Richard Nixon as President in 1962 would have been the same man who took office in 1969.

What I do think is that Nixon would have been more likely to follow some of the military advice that Kennedy wisely rejected. That alone could result in a dramatically different outcome.

We forget that Nixon, unlike Kennedy, was active duty in WWII and had just come off of being Eisenhower's VP. I doubt that he would want to charge head on into a war with Russia. As previously stated, either the Bay of Pigs goes all the way and gets Castro out or it doesn't happen at all. And we can sort of see how much he was changed, all you need to do is look at how he acted in the 50s and how he campaigned in 60 vs how he acted as President and how he campaigned in '68.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Nixon would have done what Eisenhower suggested Kennedy do, which was to invade Cuba as the absolute only option, and the Soviets will back down and will not cross into West Berlin. And we know now, that would have gone terribly. US troops would have been met with tactical nuclear weapons, the Soviets would have crossed into West Berlin, and the clock would have reached midnight. And US nuclear policy would not be the Kennedy era of build up of nuclear weapons use based on the situation prior to full blown exchange. It would have been the Eisenhower policy of massive nuclear exchange, and the Eisenhower era Joint Chiefs plan of the complete nuclear annihilation of everything in the Soviet Union.

 

[SargentHawk]

Nixon would have done what Eisenhower suggested Kennedy do, which was to invade Cuba as the absolute only option, and the Soviets will back down and will not cross into West Berlin. And we know now, that would have gone terribly. US troops would have been met with tactical nuclear weapons, the Soviets would have crossed into West Berlin, and the clock would have reached midnight. And US nuclear policy would not be the Kennedy era of build up of nuclear weapons use based on the situation prior to full blown exchange. It would have been the Eisenhower policy of massive nuclear exchange, and the Eisenhower era Joint Chiefs plan of the complete nuclear annihilation of everything in the Soviet Union.

I fairly sure Cuba did not have tactical nuclear weapons until after the Bay of Pigs invasion when the Soviet Union tightened their ties with Cuba as a result of the Bay of Pigs.

 

[joho6411]

We forget that Nixon, unlike Kennedy, was active duty in WWII

Umm...ever hear of PT-109?

Who was the skipper of that patrol boat?

Joho

 

[Lost Freeway]

We forget that Nixon, unlike Kennedy, was active duty in WWII and had just come off of being Eisenhower's VP.

So there was no PT-109?

 

[marathag]

I fairly sure Cuba did not have tactical nuclear weapons until after the Bay of Pigs invasion when the Soviet Union tightened their ties with Cuba as a result of the Bay of Pigs.

They had some cruise missiles/anti-ship that the US didn't know about, about 90 bombs and short range missiles like FROGs, Salish and Kennels

 

[Simon]

Thirteen Days The Movie Adaptation of this book.

How reliable is Thirteen Days? It's been, Christ, nearly 20 years since it came out and from what I can recall some people weren't all positive about it over its historical accuracy.

 

[Michel Van]

How reliable is Thirteen Days? It's been, Christ, nearly 20 years since it came out and from what I can recall some people weren't all positive about it over its historical accuracy.

it's far more better as most other "docudramas" Movies and TV production about Cuba Missile Crisis...
if you don't like the movie stick to original book of Robert F. Kennedy, he was eyewitness of the Crisis !

 

[Bill the Hyena]

Umm...ever hear of PT-109?

Who was the skipper of that patrol boat?

Joho

Well, maybe this our Point of Departure. In this history, Kennedy did not serve, and the lack of service cost him enough votes for Nixon to win.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Well, maybe this our Point of Departure. In this history, Kennedy did not serve, and the lack of service cost him enough votes for Nixon to win.

That would have a lot of butterflies. That would make him a different person, would remove Joe Kennedy Jr.'s need to get his own medal and thus he could survive the War, would create a different post war congressional environment and history because Kennedy was friends with and knew so many people (Smathers, Goldwater, Nixon), would alter the Democratic race in 1956, and so on, and all the reverberating butterflies from each thing changed. That's a Pandora's Box of butterflies long before 1960, leading to a far different 1960 than just Nixon winning.

 

[Bill the Hyena]

It does create a lot of possibilities, but perhaps that was the poster's motivation in keeping JFK out of the war (not too difficult - with his bad health and political connections he could have easily kept out of it).

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

We forget that Nixon, unlike Kennedy, was active duty in WWII ...

Er, um, PT-109...

Nixon was also in the Navy, but he served in rear area logistics. He himself said (IIRC) that the nearest he came to combat was one night at a forward base when a Japanese intruder plane flew over and dropped one bomb.