The Day it All Got Better for the Brits

London about 1960--catching the mood of a nation.

Looking back on it more than 50 years later, October 5, 1962 was an exceptionally good day for our cousins across the Pond.  And they really needed it.  Things had been going downhill there for a long time.  Two World Wars had killed off huge swaths of two generations.  London, and to a lesser extent, other cities were still trying to rise from the rubble of bombs dropped more than two decades before. 

British industrial infrastructure was largely ageing and obsolete.  The supremacy it once enjoyed was being challenged, largely by modern facilities and high levels of engineering from a Europe rebuilt on the American Marshall Plan dime—aid the prideful Brits had turned down.  Unemployment was high and seemingly permanent.  Intellectuals fretted over the effects of generational dependency on the dole.

Class resentments ran high in both directions.  British theater and cinema, once symbolized by the sophisticated drawing room comedies by the likes of Noel Coward, were now the province of the Angry Young Men and their, bitter, hopeless working class perspectives.

The Empire upon which once “the sun never set” was crumbling, its jewels—India and Pakistan—long gone and possessions in Africa, Asia and around the Caribbean either in open rebellion or restive.

But two events that by delightful happenstance occurred on the same day, changed a lot of that.  Or at least they energized British culture and opened the way for a decade of cultural flowering when swinging, Mod London once again seemed the center of the universe and the world was spending money on British music, fashion, design, and cinema.

Both events, somewhat ironically, owed a lot to the very Americans who had replaced them as the undisputed power of the world.  Now, if they could not regain past glory entirely, they could, in a phrase much used later in the decade, at least be the new Greeks in to the new Roman Empire.

Dr. No, the first of what would go on to be a fabulously successful film franchise, opened in London on October 5, 1962 at the Pavilion Theater.  The film was based on a spy novel by Ian Fleming, himself a former World War II secret agent.  James Bond was a popular paperback hero in the UK and in Europe but was relatively unknown in the U.S.

While nominally a British production of Eon Productions, it was essentially brought to the screen by a partnership of Canadian Harry Saltzman and hustling American entrepreneur Albert R. Broccoli, better known as Cubby.  Saltzman had obtained the rights to Dr. No, the second book in the Bond series, while Broccoli had obtained rights to the series from Fleming.  When Saltzman refused to sell out to Broccoli, a production partnership was formed that included Eon Productions and a holding company, Danjaq, LLC, which owned the copyrights, trademarks, and marketing licensing for the series. The partnership endured through several films and ended amid acrimony and complicated law suits when a bitter Saltzman was forced to sell his half of Dajaq to United Artists, the film’s distributor.  That left Broccoli, and later his family heirs, in complete control of the franchise.

Dr. No was shot on a relatively low $1 million budget mostly at England’s Pinewood Studios with extensive location shooting in the Bahamas and elsewhere.  The script largely by Richard Maibaum took extensive liberties with Fleming’s novel and injected considerably wry humor, mostly as a way of softening the violence and hyper-sexuality that the producers feared would make it a target of the still active American film censors.

Casting the critical lead was a problem.  Everyone thought that the obvious choice for Bond was the suave Cary Grant.  And Grant was interested in doing the part.  But he would only commit to one film and Broccoli already envisioned a long running series.  David Niven was considered but thought to be too old.  Niven ended up playing one of several Bonds in the spoof film Casino Royal—Fleming had earlier sold the rights to his first Bond book separately.  Fleming was said to be pushing Richard Todd and Patrick McGoohan, who had already had success as a spy in the British television series Danger Man, was also selected.

In the end Broccoli  settled on Sean Connery, a scruffy, working class Scott personally totally unfamiliar with the high rolling, tuxedo clad world of the Bond novels but who exuded masculine energy and charismatic charm.  Connery’s only major film role had been as a cheerful Irish peasant in Disney’s fantasy, Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Director Terrance Young put Connery through a quick introduction to Bond’s world and made sure he was well tailored and coiffed.

The film introduced all of the elements that would become the hallmark of the film franchise—the stylized opening sequence to pop power ballad, Bond as the suave ruler of the casino and irresistible seducer of women, the technical gadgets, and maybe above all the Bond Girls. Ursula Andress was the first, emerging from the sea in a Bikini with a knife at her belt.

Dr. No and subsequent Bond films made England sexy and chic all over again.

Meanwhile four other scruffy young men made their recording debut the same day.

Love Me Do, the first single from a quartet that had been setting the dingy clubs of Liverpool afire, was released by EMI on October 5, 1962.  The B side was P.S. I Love You.

As auspicious as it seems now, the first release by the Beatles did not attract quite so much attention as the premier of Dr. No.  But it was successful, reaching #17 on the British charts and launching the recording career of the band with a solid it.  The same recording was re-released in England two years later when the Lads were top stars and went to #4.  Its 1964 release in the United States became one of the bands many #1 hits.

The A side was written mostly by Paul McCartney when he was about 16 years old.  By that time he already had an agreement with John Lennon to share credit on all songs.  Typically one or another of them would work something up and they would try it out.  The other one would often add elements, work on lyrics, or arrange it for the band.  Only occasionally would they, at this point sit down together to write.  But the process worked well and sometimes if the original pages scrawled in school notebooks were lost, even the boys had a hard time remembering who contributed what.

In this case John contributed the middle eight bars when the key and tempo shift.  He also worked out a bluesy mouth harp part.  American rock and roll was their inspiration.  In this case the they drew on the Everly Brothers for the tight two part harmonies that were becoming a hallmark of the developing band.  John frankly credited the harmonica riffs to folk bluesmen Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee—the same performers who were influencing you Bobby Zimmermann about the same time.

On the flip side, P.S. I Love You was penned exclusively by Paul a few years later while the band was playing in Hamburg.  Neither Lennon nor McCartney could recall any contribution by John.  And Paul later denied rumors that it was written for a German girl friend.  Instead, he wanted to use a letter as a hook and do a song about separated love similar to The Shirelles’ big hit earlier in 1962 Solider Boy.

Paul wanted P.S. I Love You to be saved for later release as an A side, but was told that there were other songs that had used the same title and that the label would only consider it for a B side and later inclusion in an album.

Both sides were cut at EMI London Abby Road studios in September sessions with George Martin producing.

The sessions came as the band was in turmoil.  Martin did not think long time Beatles drummer Pete Best was good enough for recording.  He suggested bringing in a studio drummer as replacement.  But Lennon and McCartney had already fired Best and were bringing on journeyman band drummer Ringo Starr.  Love Me Do was actually recorded three times.  The first with Best in his last session with the band in a demo made in June, then with Ringo behind the drum kit, and finally with studio musician Andy White.   Martin was also unimpressed with Ringo’s performance.  In the final session Ringo was reduced to playing tambourine to White’s sticks.

In the end Martin must have decided that Ringo was good enough after all because that was the take put on the final release.  White’s version turned up later in albums released in both Britain and the US.

That final recording session with White was used for P.S. I Love You, this time with Ringo playing the maracas.

Over the next year, however, the Beatles appeared on several BBC program both live and taped at BBC studios.  In each case Ring did the drumming on both numbers, as he did at the band’s live shows.  He was quickly working his way into the heart of the band with unflashy, but rock solid drumming.

Within a year the Beatles scored multiple hits on the British charts, seemingly climbing higher with each new 45 issued.  They were playing to sell out crowds of screaming female fans.  The records did just as well in Europe.  The band was well on its way to international stardom.  The lads bowl cut hairdos, collarless suit coats, and pointed ankle boots set fashion trends. Beatlmania well on its way by the time the boys arrived in New York to introduce themselves to American audiences in late 1963.

By the middle of the decade tax revenue from Beatles recordings, films and associated merchandise and memorabilia was pouring into the Exchequer.  And the Beatles were just the tip of the spear.  It turned out that there were more young bands inspired by American blues and rock and roll ready to break out as well.  In the States the British Invasion nearly blew America rockers out of the water. 

The youth culture represented by the Beatles would inspire the Mods, as the Rolling Stones would their motorcycle riding rivals the Rockers.  Both would contribute a new British sense of style.  Britain, famous for tweeds and shapeless woolens, and long the mocked symbol of frumpiness was soon the center of the fashion world was well as the Carnaby Street look swept the world.

And the big come back owes a lot to what happened on October 5, 1962.

Avoiding Armageddon By the Skin of the Teeth

A Navy P-2H  reconnaissance plane, the jet/prop hybrid capable of dual use as a bomber, monitors a Soviet freighter with IL-28 bombers on deck during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On October 22, 1962 President John F. Kennedy took the airways to make a stunning announcement—The Soviet Union (USSR) was installing nuclear armed missiles in Cuba which would be capable of striking targets virtually anywhere in the United States.  Those of us alive and aware at the moment knew that this was the most dangerous moment of our lives.  The Cuban Missile Crisis passed after a few days of breathless terror around the world.  Years later it was discovered that an accidental trigger of nuclear war came even closer than we had imagined.

Tensions between East and West had been building for sometime, particularly over the thorny issue of Cuba.  Early in his administration, Kennedy gave the go-ahead to a CIA scheme hatched under his predecessor to invade Fidel Castro’s island with an army of Cuban exiles.  Nervous about appearing to violate international law with unprovoked military action, Kennedy had scrapped plans to support the invasion with substantial U.S. air power.  Predictably, the small invading force did not excite the predicted public uprising on the island and was quickly defeated.  The U.S. was easily publicly identified as the sponsor of the escapade and was publicly humiliated.

Sitting in Moscow Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev concluded that Kennedy was weak, inexperienced, and indecisive.  He concluded the time was right to be much more aggressive either in Cuba or in Europe.  The Russian high command was also aware that despite Kennedy’s assertion of a Missile Gap in the 1960 election, the Soviets were far behind the U.S.  The Russian strategic offense still relied heavily on long range bombers.  Only a relative handful of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) were operational and capable of striking the U.S. while America had hundreds.  In addition American Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) had been based in Britain since 1958.  Then in 1961 Kennedy authorized the placement of Jupiter Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBM) in Italy and on the very border of the USSR in Turkey.  The Soviets were clearly more threatened by the US nuclear arsenal than the other way around and were looking for a way to rectify the imbalance.

Meanwhile Castro was convinced that the U.S. was preparing to invade his island—with good reason.  There was significant pressure in Congress, particularly the Senate, to take military action against “the Communist toe-hold” in the Western Hemisphere.  Kennedy kept up various CIA plots against Castro, including a number of botched assassination ploys and the insertion of a number of agents to prepare for an eventual invasion.  He declared an economic boycott of the island in February 1962.  Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were actively preparing invasion plans with the bellicose Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay advocating an all-out air strike.

In May, Khrushchev decided that he could defend Cuba, humiliate the U.S. and perhaps even win the withdrawal of the missiles in Italy and Turkey by inserting Russian IRBMs, MRBMs, and Il-28 light bombers with nuclear arms onto the island with the support and approval of the Cuban government.  Final plans were approved in early July while Soviet missile experts were already on the ground making preparations.  Shipments of missiles and bomber began almost immediately under great secrecy with a strong diplomatic cover of denying any intent of providing offensive weapons to the Cubans.

In September, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Cuba in the event U.S. was threatened in any way.  The Soviets countered that any action against Cuba would be an act of war.

The first consignment of Soviet R-12 IRBMs arrived on September 8.  More soon followed.  In addition R-14 MRBMs were on their way.  By the end of the month the CIA was being flooded with reports of missile activity in Cuba by its vast network of agents and spies.  These reports were not confirmed because U-2 recognizance flights over Cuba had been suspended since a Nationalist Chinese U-2 had been shot down with a Surface to Air (SAM) over the mainland in August.  It was known that the Russians had already deployed SAMs to Cuba.  At the end of September, Navy reconnaissance aircraft photographed a Soviet ship with large crates on its deck the size and shape of Il-28 bombers. On October 12 the CIA transferred it U-2s to the Air Force.  After the planes were re-painted, the first surveillance flight over the Island in weeks took of on October 14.  Among the more than 900 photos shot were a series that clearly showed an SS-4 construction site at San Cristóbal, Pinar del Río Province, in western Cuba.

At 8:30 in the morning of October 17 National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy briefed the President on the finding.  That afternoon Kennedy convened the first meeting of what would be designated Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ECNSC) with which he would confer throughout the crisis.  It included not only the Joint Chiefs, Secretaries of Defense and State, head of the CIA, and Bundy but also the President’s brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Kennedy’s closest White House aids.  Reviewing a range of options, the Joint Chiefs unanimously urged a full scale invasion of Cuba.  Kennedy did not agree with their assertion that the Russians would not act because it was within the U.S. sphere of influence.  He did not believe that the Soviets would let such a direct challenge go unanswered and that if they did not act in Cuba, would surely do so in vulnerable Berlin.  While no decision was reached at the meeting, it was agreed to go ahead and make plans for several options.

On October 18, Kennedy met with the Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister Andrei Gromyko who denied shipping any offensive weapons.  Not wanting to tip his hand that he knew differently, Kennedy only asked Gromyko to relay a stern warning to Moscow.

New information from additional U-2 flyovers revealed at least four bases under construction.  The military was placed on high alert, the 1st Armored Division was sent to Georgia, and five Army divisions were alerted for a possible invasion.  The Navy was concentrating forces for a full scale blockade of the island and LeMay’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) dispatched nuclear armed intermediate B-47 bombers to Florida and put the fleet of heavy B-52’s into the air. 

Options were pared to two operational plans dubbed  OPLAN 316 and OPLAN 312.  The first was for a heavy air assault and naval bombardment followed a full scale invasion by the Army and Marine Corps.  There were significant logistical problems to moving quickly to an invasion, including a critical shortage of amphibious assault capacity and an inability to effectively move enough heavy armor to counter the numerous—and superior—tanks provided by the Soviets to the Cubans.  The second plan envisioned an air campaign starting with strikes at the missile facilities and flexible enough to escalate up to and including the use of tactical nuclear weapons or support of an invasion.  Just about everyone was convinced that some kind of solution by arms was inevitable.

ECNSC began to consider a full naval blockade as yet another option short of initiating a shooting war.  But the State Department pointed out that under international law, a blockade itself was an act of war.  Kennedy doubted that the Soviets would press against a blockade, however.  While hawks on the council still pressed for military action, Kennedy withheld a final decision.  Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson presented an opinion that quarantine of offensive weapons only instead of a blanket blockade would fall within acceptable international law, particularly if it were undertaken as part of an international response.  The Organization of American States (OAS) had already announced support of some kind of action against Cuba and Argentina and other nations had pledged Naval forces for action at sea.  By the afternoon most members of the ECNSC, LeMay notably in dissent, were leaning to the blockade/quarantine action.

The afternoon of October 22 Kennedy met with top Congressional leaders and outlined the blockade action.  To his chagrin, he was met with demands for more direct military action and warned that the administration could loose support of Congress if the country looked weak.  At the same time the American ambassador to the USSR Foy Kohler, informed the Soviets of intentions to announce and enforce a quarantine. U.S. Allies around the world were also notified before the President took to the American air ways at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Kennedy told the American people that, “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”  Then he outlined his plan:

To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.”

During the speech American armed forces around the globe were placed on Defense Readiness Condition (DEFCON) 3 status, an elevated state of readiness.

It took the Soviets two days to formally respond with a bellicose telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy calling the naval embargo a pirate action that would lead to war.  The cable was publicly released by the TASS news agency. 

On October 25 U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin in an emergency meeting of the Security Council and Zorin refused to admit that his country was indeed sending missiles and bombers to Cuba. 

Readiness levels were raised to DEFCON 2 that afternoon for the first time in history, meaning that one eighth of SAC’s heavy bombers were in the air all times for an immediate strike and the rest were to be ready for take off within 15 minutes.  After learning from intelligence reports that work was still being done on the missile instillations, Kennedy ordered that bombers designated for use against the Soviet Union itself be loaded with nuclear weapons.  Kennedy was becoming convinced that a shooting war was inevitable.

But that same day, as yet unknown to the Americas, the Soviets turned around 24 ships headed for Cuba well ahead of the embargo line.  They also initiated back channel negotiations through ABC News reporter John Scali who met Aleksandr Fomin, the KGB (Soviet security and spy service) chief in the U.S.  Fromin asked Scali to transmit an informal feeler on whether the U.S. would be willing to reach a diplomatic solution that would trade a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba for a Soviet withdrawal of offensive weapons.  The U.S. allowed the Brazilian government to pass word to the Soviets that an invasion would be “unlikely” if the weapons were removed.

Later that day a long, emotional letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy began to come over the wire to the State Department from Moscow.  After a delay in translation it was presented to the president.  The letter re-confirmed the general offer relayed by Scali, “I propose: we, for our part, will declare that our ships bound for Cuba are not carrying any armaments. You will declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces which might intend to invade Cuba. Then the necessity of the presence of our military specialists in Cuba will disappear.”

Castro, on the other hand, was frantic that he was being abandoned by his ally and wrote Khrushchev to launch an immediate attack on the U.S, instead.  Revelations years later indicated that this had the effect of convincing the Soviets that Castro was crazy and re-enforced their intention to find a negotiated settlement.

On the morning of October 27 Radio Moscow began broadcasting another proposal from Khrushchev that differed from the one the day before in a significant way.  It added the dismantlement of the American missiles in Italy and Turkey to the list of conditions need for the Soviets to withdraw their weapons.  The U.S. had already consulted with the Italians and Turks secretly about the possibility of such a deal.  The Turks were adamant about keeping the missiles on their soil.  The Italians indicated that they were willing to go along.  The U.S. had already concluded that the Jupiter missiles had been made obsolete by the growing fleet of U.S. nuclear submarines armed with Polaris missiles. The President felt, however, that the U.S. could not be publicly seen as acceding to Soviet demands.  Still, it was determined to continue back channel communication.

Just as a ray of hope for a bloodless conclusion was being seen, a U-2 was shot down by a SAM over Cuba.  Kennedy had earlier declared his intention to strike at the SAM sites, which were manned by Soviet troops, should an American plane be shot down.  Now he wasn’t sure if it was a mistake.  He decided not to take action unless another plane was shot down.  Unbeknown the U.S. the Soviet commander of a SAM battery had acted on his own authority and without orders.  The Russian command was afraid that further action against the reconnaissance planes would be taken by the Americans as proof that they meant to continue construction.  They issued direct orders not to fire on more high altitude over flights.   Low level flights, now being done a two hour intervals, however were still subject to anti-aircraft fire from Cuban instillations. 

That evening a new response to the Soviet overtures was devised.  The U.S. would simply ignore the proposal from the radio broadcast and reply instead to Khrushchev’s first letter.  White House Special Counsel and Adviser Ted Sorensen and Robert Kennedy drafted the response generally accepting the October 26 letter.  Although it was nowhere to be written, general assurances would be made that the U.S. would voluntarily withdraw the Turkish and Italian missiles after a withdrawal of all Russian hardware was confirmed.

Some felt that ignoring the second proposal put Khrushchev in an impossible situation with his own security forces and believed that he would reject the offer.  Preparations for war continued.  Air Force personnel were confined to their bases and told to be ready for action.  Target lists were being developed and a hasty replacement government of Cuban exiles was being put together.  Messages were sent to NATO and other allies that war seemed imminent.

On October 27 the Navy dropped small practice depth charges on a Soviet submarine operating near the  embargo line in an attempt to force it to surface. In an unrelated incident, MiG fighters in the Soviet Far East were scrambled because of a U-2 intrusion into Russian air space and American F-102 fighters were sent up over the Bering Sea.  With tensions running so high, any incidents any where in the world could trigger a war.

Finally the two sides agreed on a settlement with the U.S. withdrawal of the Italian and Turkish missiles a secret component.  On Monday, October 29 Radio Moscow broadcast Khrushchev’s official statement, “the Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as ‘offensive’ and their crating and return to the Soviet Union.”  President Kennedy made a public statement welcoming the step toward peace and drafted a private letter re-enforcing the agreement.

Quarantine operations continued until the Soviets demonstrated their commitment to follow through.  42 missiles and their support equipment were loaded onto eight Soviet ships which sailed from Cuba from November 5 through 9.  The IL-28 bombers followed in December.  The United States honored its commitment not to invade Cuba.  It quietly removed its missiles from Turkey and Italy by the following summer.  The moment of danger had passed.  The world did not blow up—barely.

In 2002 a special meeting of participants from all sides was held in Havana.  It was there that the Americans learned for the first time how close things had really been.  They learned that for the only time in Soviet history, commanders on the ground had authority to use battlefield nuclear weapons against U.S, Forces on their own without waiting for clearances from Moscow in the event of an invasion—or what looked like might be an invasion.  Even worse, the Soviet sub that was attacked with practice depth charges was armed with nuclear torpedoes and under instructions to use them if its hull was breached.  The skipper had ordered a torpedo armed and for several desperate minutes thought about using it against one of the Navy ships hounding it.  If it had, that would have started the war.