The Day the Earth stood still

 

It was a normal day in a restaurant in Washington D.C., as men and women of all ages were seated in private booths and enjoying either a sumptuous dinner or the long overdue drink after a day of backbreaking work. It was October 1961, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis as the spectre of a direct nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union hung around America, the restaurant seemed to one of the few places where happiness still seemed to exist as the voices of revelry could be heard from inside the booths. In fact, it could be said that on that day, maybe all the old friends and loving couples had decided to meet at the same place.

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In fact on the very same day, a completely different atmosphere hung over one of the booths in the restaurant. In that booth an American was talking softly but firmly with a Russian gentleman. Their conversation was not about their childhood or their time in high school or their experiences in college but centred around the Missile Crisis. In fact the two men were John A. Scali a journalist for ABC News with contacts in the White House and Alexander Feklisov, the Station Chief of the K.G.B. in Washington D.C. and were appointed by their respective Governments to secretly negotiate the Crisis and therefore only these two men apart from their respective bosses knew that neither country actually wanted a nuclear war and entrusted in their hands the unenviable job of preventing one.

Therefore both the men knew the precariousness of the situation as well the limited room for error available as one misunderstanding could turn fatal. As they sipped their wine they eyed each other cautiously looking for the slight twitch in the muscles or the slight gesture which signified any progress in the negotiations as both of them also knew that both of their leaders valued their own prestige as much as they valued the need to avoid a nuclear war and therefore any settlement which makes either of the leaders look bad would not only be unacceptable but would also be perhaps one of the main reasons for the dissatisfied superpower to start a nuclear war and as both of these men knew that it was impossible to win a nuclear war as nuclear weapons would obliterate most of humanity before any side could actually, begin to claim victory and therefore both the men had the feeling that the Earth seemed to be standing still to watch their meeting with bated breath without even the knowledge that such a meeting was taking place and even if one day the world managed to actually find out that such a meeting took place, they would hear about the final result and never find out how actually the result was reached, such was the law of the State regarding dissemination of information to the public which is considered as sensitive to its national security, which as far either of the States were concerned, only meant injuring the interests of the other State.

Feklisov was also aware that the U.S.S.R. Government would not endorse any resolution on the Missile Crisis or remove the missiles from Cuba until not only the U.S. agreed to renegotiate its stance on a future amphibious invasion of Cuba but also agreed to negotiate its stance of stationing nuclear-tipped missiles in Italy and Turkey which were in close proximity to the U.S.S.R. and posed a major security threat and as far as the U.S.S.R. was concerned, the missiles in Cuba were not meant only to protect the Government of Fidel Castro but also to serve the larger interest of balancing the U.S. missiles in Europe. However as Feklisov was well aware, it would be difficult to convince his American counterpart to endorse any resolution on the missiles in Europe which would project the U.S. as weak or would undermine its continued pledge to protect either Bonn or London with as much sincerity as New York or Houston. In fact, even Scali knew that his superiors in the White House did not consider the missiles in Cuba as anything other than an effort to balance the missiles placed in Europe in military terms but were actually concerned about the impact of the idea of living in close proximity to Soviet missiles in the minds of the American public and the political repercussions of any settlement which even gave a hint of accepting defeat regarding Cuba. In fact even the Soviets were worried about the prospect that any concession to the U.S. regarding Cuba which even appeared to bow down to U.S. imperialism would have in its standing in the International Communist movement because as the Soviets were well aware that the Chinese leader, Mao was already projecting nuclear war as a necessary step to continue the revolutionary ideal of overthrowing world capitalism. Therefore both Scali and Feklisov understood that the eventual settlement would result in the mutual exchange of concessions without any loss of prestige and therefore their actual job was not to minimize the concessions but to maximize the prestige that each State would get from the agreement.

Then finally Feklisov spoke, he seemed to have resolved the dispute. He stated that the dispute could be settled if the U.S. removed its missiles from Turkey and informally agreed not to invade Cuba in exchange of the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, he also pointed out that the missiles in Turkey were outdated and were slated to be removed later in the same year and therefore their existence would not affect the nuclear balance and therefore as Scali realized the pointlessness of the Turkish missiles, he agreed. The crisis was resolved! Although the settlement had to be approved by the top brass of both the States, the men left the restaurant satisfied as they had perhaps saved the world from total destruction by a mere whisker.