Book Reviews
Philip Nash gives an excellent political history of the little-known Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) system and its role in foreign policy, decision making, and the solution of the Cuban missile crisis. The Jupiters, with a range of 1,700 miles, were offered by Eisenhower to NATO in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite. The missiles were deployed in Great Britain, Italy, and most importantly in Turkey as a cold war version of the Maginot Line: staid, immobile, and easily circumvented. The Other Missiles of October illustrates the pitfalls that arise when a flawed policy is poorly thought through, yet implemented because of political considerations. The current administration could glean some practical knowledge of history repeating itself by reading the book.
The first portion of the book describes an offer by the Eisenhower administration to base squadrons of IRBMs inside NATO countries to be in range of key targets within the Soviet Union. Alliance members were clearly disturbed by the launch of Sputnik, and turned to the United States for technical leadership. Not having an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system yet in place, Eisenhower felt compelled to propose building launch sites for the shorter-range Jupiters, despite the technical and military flaws and the inevitable political risks. It gives credence to the mantra that “politics always wins.” A point that the author fails to address is why the Jupiters were such technical “flops,” as President Kennedy described them (71). A brief outline of the specifications and shortcomings of the missile would have been a sufficient background for the rest of the text. Interestingly, declassified documents describing the history of the Jupiter program explain that the missile tests were successful.
The author then elucidates the difficulties of finding host countries willing to place Jupiter launch bases and squadrons on their soil. This chapter is an excellent narrative and provides glimpses into the political and internal maneuverings of countries at different membership levels within NATO. The most willing country, Turkey, was also the one that caused the most problems within the Kremlin.
When Kennedy was elected, he evaluated the pros and cons of the Jupiter plans, and came to conclusions similar to Eisenhower, that the missiles must be deployed. Here is where the book is most useful historically, as it elaborates on the link between the Jupiter deployment in Turkey and the decision by the Kremlin to build SS-4 missile bases in Cuba, and their subsequent removal to diffuse the crisis. Nash is wonderfully and refreshingly fair as he describes the thinking and feelings within the Kremlin as the bases were built in Turkey, practically on the doorstep of Moscow. The Soviet perspective on the Jupiter deployment is persuasively articulated.
Finally, Nash presents evidence linking the end of the Cuban missile crisis and subsequent removal of the Jupiters from Turkey. Although the principles and reasoning behind the deployment in Turkey were poorly founded, Kennedy was able to use the obsolete missiles as a key pawn in preventing the escalation of hostilities. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
