People who thought the Cuban crisis was easing ╤ and who sent Stock Exchange prices rising ╤ had better think again. The situation is still full of danger.
Is the United States about to bomb or invade Cuba. This is now the question. Worse, there is even talk of a possible nuclear attack on Cuba. This is reliably reported as under consideration because the authorities in Washington are so troubled by the rapid approach to readiness of the intermediate range bases on the island. It would be madness. There cannot be a shred of justification for the use of nuclear weapons in this situation. It would turn the whole civilised world against the Americans, however much sympathy there may have been for them hitherto in meeting Russian duplicity and provocation. This must surely be apparent to them. We profoundly hope so.
Short of that extreme action, the possibility of an invasion or of ╥pinpoint╙ bombing remains. Both have been under discussion. It seems that preparations for both have been fully made, although no decision to launch either has been taken. A chance survives that U Thant╒s mediation may be allowed to take its course.
But the words coming out of the State and Defence Departments have an ominous ring. They suggest that if the Russians do not at least stop work on the missile sites with their existing equipment or invasion may begin. If this happens the British Government will have to make up its mind afresh about what it should do. It is one thing for Mr Macmillan to say that the allies must not waver or break ranks at a time when the United States has done nothing but impose the ╥quarantine╙ on offensive weapons. Certainly America╒s allies should do their utmost to back her up in this tight corner. But matters will be very different if the United States takes to aggression.
The reason for breaking ranks at that point would not just be that an armed attack on Cuba is unjustified at a time when Cuba is not attacking anybody. The consequences would be great and might be highly dangerous. The Soviet Union has threatened to retaliate with nuclear weapons against an attack on Cuba. Whether it would make good its threat nobody can tell. Possibly the Soviet leaders themselves are not quite sure. It might not come to that. But it is a tremendous risk to run in a cause which, if it comes to bombing or invasion, would seem to most of the world to be as much a piece of aggression as the British and French attack at Suez. If it does come to that the British Government should make it clear that it must vote against the United States in the United Nations just as the Americans voted against us at Suez. That is the only course. There are times when ranks must be broken if the cause that unites them is not to become meaningless.
