As part of the deal, Cuban President Fidel Castro, furious at not being consulted on the deal, ordered all Americans to depart from the U.S. base at Guantanamo, which has been used by the U.S. military for 60 years. On October 27, at 9:00 a.m.m EDT, Radio Moscow began broadcasting a message from Khrushchev. Contrary to the letter from the previous evening, the embassy proposed a new trade: the missiles in Cuba were to be withdrawn in exchange for the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. At 10:00 a.m EDT, the Executive Committee met again to discuss the situation and concluded that the change in message was due to internal debates between Khrushchev and other party officials in the Kremlin. [98]:300 Kennedy realized that he would be in an “intolerable position if this became Khrushchev`s proposal” because the missiles in Turkey were not militarily useful and were withdrawn anyway, and “to any man at the United Nations or any other rational man, it will look like very fair trade.” Bundy explained why Khrushchev`s public toning could not be taken into account: “The current threat to peace does not lie in Turkey, but in Cuba.” [99] Emissaries sent by Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to meet on Saturday, October 27 at the Yenching Palace Chinese restaurant in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, DC. [108] Kennedy offered to accept Khrushchev`s offer to exchange the missiles. Unknown to most EXCOMM members, but with the support of his brother, the president, Robert Kennedy had met with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington to find out if the intentions were real.
[109] EXCOMM generally opposed the proposal because it undermined NATO`s authority and the Turkish government had repeatedly stated that it opposed such trade. At that time, the crisis was supposedly at an impasse. The Soviets had shown no sign that they would give in and had made private public and intergovernmental statements to that effect. The United States had no reason to believe otherwise and was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, as well as a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union if it reacted militarily, which was supposed. [89] Kennedy did not intend to keep these plans secret; With a number of Cuban and Soviet spies present forever, Khrushchev was quickly made aware of this imminent danger. Growing up in Berkshire, England, through the nuclear paranoia of the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan`s Cruise and Pershing missiles stationed just 30 miles from the family home, I was taught an acute awareness of the Cold War tightrope. When this was reported to President John F. Kennedy, he then called a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers from a group that became known as the National Security Council Executive Committee (EXCOMM). .