SCA
Records of State Department Coordinator for Cuban Affairs, NARA
SDX
Records of State Department Executive Secretariat, NARA
SVR
Archives of Soviet Foreign Intelligence, Moscow
USCONARC
U.S. Continental Army Command
USIA
U.S. Intelligence Agency
USNHC
U.S. Navy Historical Center, U.S. Continental Army Command, Washington, DC.
WP
Washington Post
Z
Zulu time or GMT, four hours ahead of Quebec time (Eastern Daylight Time), five hours ahead of Romeo time (Eastern Standard Time). Time group 241504Z is equivalent to October 24, 1504GMT, which is the same as 241104Q, or 1104EDT
CHAPTER ONE: AMERICANS
"the clearing of a field": Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969, hereafter RFK), 24. Photographs of missile sites are available through the John F. Kennedy Library, the National Security Archive, the Naval Historical Research Center, and NARA.
"Daddy, daddy": CNN interview with Sidney Graybeal, January 1998, CNN CW. 3 "Caroline, have you": Dino Brugioni, "The Cuban Missile Crisis--Phase 1," CIA Studies in Intelligence (Fall 1972), 49-50, CREST; Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 371; author's interview with Robert McNamara, October 2005.
Once armed and ready to fire: CIA, Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, October 19, 1962, CREST. The CIA estimated the range of the R-12 (SS-4) missile as 1,020 nautical miles; the true range was 2,080 kilometers, or 1,292 miles. For simplicity, I have converted all nautical mile measurements to the more commonly used statute miles.
"The length, sir": For dialogue from ExComm meetings, I have relied on the transcripts produced by the Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, eds., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises, Vols. 2 and 3 (hereafter JFK2 and JFK3). The transcripts are available at the Miller Center Web site. I have also consulted Sheldon M. Stern, Averting "the Final Failure": John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). For atmosphere, and to check discrepancies, I have listened to the original tapes, available through the Miller Center and the JFK Library.
"a hostile and militant Communist": Michael Beschloss, The Crisis Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 101.
"to hurl rockets": Keating press release, October 10, 1962.
"Ken Keating will probably": Kai Bird, The Color of Truth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 226-7. Kenneth P. O'Donnell and David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 310.
"let it begin now": William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 499.
"It reminded me": Beschloss, 224-7. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 413-15. Reeves, 174.
"I'm inexperienced": Reeves, 172.
"fucking liar": Dallek, 429.
"an immoral gangster": Beschloss, 11.
the president's "dissatisfaction": FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XI: Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Document 19. Sabotage proposals and earlier meeting of Special Group (Augmented) available through JFK Assassination Records Collection, NARA. See also Richard Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder (New York: Random House, 2003), 208-9.
"Demolition of a railroad bridge": Mongoose memorandum, October 16, 1962, JFKARC.
"the Cuban problem carries": CIA memorandum, January 19, 1962, JFKARC. See also Church Committee Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 141.
"Everybody in my family forgives": Richard D. Mahoney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York: Arcade, 1999), 87.
"Oh shit, shit, shit": Dino Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Random House, 1991), 223; RFK, 23.
"the dominant feeling was one": RFK, 27.
"My idea is": Reeves, 264; Dallek, 439.
He even had his own full-time: Samuel Halpern interview with CIA history staff, January 15, 1988, JFKARC record no. 104-10324-1003.
"Robert Kennedy's most conspicuous folly": Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 534.
"sit there, chewing gum": Author's interview with Thomas Parrott, October 2005.
"reflected the president's own": Richard Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 187.
A top secret Lansdale memorandum: "The Cuba Project," February 20, 1962, JFKARC record no. 176-10011-10046.
"Lansdale's projects simply gave": McManus interview with Church Committee, JFKARC.
"Elimination by Illumination": Lansdale memo, October 15, 1962, JFKARC; Parrott interview with Church Committee. In a January 1, 1976, letter to the Church Committee, Lansdale indignantly denied making the illumination proposal, but the record shows that he did.
"will meet our requirements": Robert A. Hurwitch memorandum, September 16, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10046.
"There is only one thing": Eisenhower presidential papers quoted in Reeves, 103.
"I know there is a God": Ibid., 174.
"odds are even": Joseph Alsop, "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy," Saturday Evening Post, November 21, 1964, 17. For the "one-in-five" quote, see Reeves, 179.
"Bullfight critics": Max Frankel, High Noon in the Cold War (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 83.
the approval by "higher authority": Thomas Parrott memorandum, October 17, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10081.
As the winds: State Department history of "The Cuban Crisis 1962," 72, NSA Cuba; CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 141, NSA Cuba.
"military intervention by the United States": JCS memorandum, April 10, 1962, JFKARC.
"We could blow up": L. L. Lemnitzer memorandum, August 8, 1962, JFKARC. 18 "I am so angry": Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), 456.
"an importance in the sum": James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 323-4.
Bobby Kennedy was already: RFK desk diary, JFKARC. See also Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation, William Harvey to DCI, November 14, 1962, JFKARC.
"an initial burst": Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 214.
"My brother is not going": Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1966), 51.
According to Harvey's record: Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation; Harvey memo on sabotage operation, October 19, 1962, JFKARC.
"I don't want that man": Reeves, 182.
America had "the Russian bear": Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 469.
As many as 70 million: Reeves, 175.
"These brass hats": O'Donnell and Powers, 318.
"the military always screws up": Stern, 38; Beschloss, 530.
Every aspect of the operation had: Author's interview with Pedro Vera, January 2006; Harvey memo to Lansdale, August 29, 1962, JFKARC; Cuban army interrogation of Vera and Pedro Ortiz, Documentos de los Archivos Cubanos, November 8, 1962, Havana 2002.
"the Farm": Also known by the code word "ISOLATION" Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation.
"You do it": Warren Hinckle and William Turner, Deadly Secrets (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992), 149.
"If the Americans see us": Malakhov reminiscences, Archives of Mezhregional'naya Assotsiatsia Voinov-Internatsionalistov, Moscow (hereafter MAVI).
the 79th missile regiment: V. I. Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr': Kak Eto Bylo (Moscow: MOOVVIK, 2004), 381. Except where noted, all references to this book are to the 2004 edition. Some of the names of the missile regiments were changed for Operation Anadyr as part of the Soviet disi
nformation campaign. The 79th missile regiment was also referred to as the 514th missile regiment in Cuba. The CIA incorrectly reported that a missile site near San Cristobal was the first to achieve combat-ready status.
given a special "government assignment": Sidorov's account of the deployment is contained in A. I. Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni (Moscow: Gregory-Page, 1998), 213-23.
All this was part of a much larger: Col. Gen. Sergei Ivanov memo, June 20, 1962, Soviet defense minister Rodion Malinovsky memos, September 6 and 8, 1962, trans. in CWIHP, 11 (Winter 1998), 257-60.
"The motherland will not forget": Malakhov, MAVI.
The first ship to depart: For shipping tonnages and descriptions, I have relied on Ambrose Greenway, Soviet Merchant Ships (Emsworth, UK: Kenneth Mason, 1985). I use gross tonnage, a measurement of volume, not weight.
In all, 264 men had to share: Author's interview with Lt. Col. Sergei Karlov, official historian, Peter the Great Military Academy of Strategic Rocket Forces (RSVN), May 2006.
Military statisticians later estimated: Ibid.
"barreled gas oil": NSA Cuban missile crisis release, October 1998.
McNamara estimated Soviet troop: JFK2, 606. The CIA had estimated 3,000 Soviet "technicians" in Cuba on September 4. By November 19, they increased the estimate to 12,000-16,000. In January 1963, they concluded retrospectively that there were 22,000 Soviet troops in Cuba at the peak of the crisis. See Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1989), 35.
"For the sake of the revolution": Author's interview with Capt. Oleg Dobrochinsky, Moscow, July 2004.
citing a "traffic accident": Final report by Maj. Gen. I. D. Statsenko on Operation Anadyr (hereafter Statsenko report);see Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 345-53.
"we may not have confused": Yesin, et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 219. Author's interviews with Viktor Yesin, lieutenant engineer in Sidorov's regiment, July 2004 and May 2006.
Four more missile launchers were stationed: In order to avoid confusion, I have stuck with the CIA designation of Sagua la Grande as the site of Sidorov's regiment. In fact, his regimental headquarters were seventeen miles southeast of there, closer to the village of Calabazar de Sagua, at 22deg39'N, 79deg52'W. One battalion (diviziya in Russian) of four missile launchers was stationed near Calabazar de Sagua; the second was between Sitiecito and Viana, six miles southeast of Sagua la Grande.
"Just remember one thing": Malakhov, MAVI.
"The minute you get back": Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy: Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin Studio, 1997), 116.
A surprise air strike: Minutes of October 20,1962, ExComm meeting, JFK2, 601-14.
"Gentlemen, today": Stern, 133. See also Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 314, and Reeves, 388.
"My fellow Americans": Havana 2002, vol. 2. The author of the air strike speech has not been identified, but circumstantial evidence including the formatting suggests that it was written by Bundy or one of his aides.
"We are very, very close": Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 1-2; Theodore Sorensen OH, 60-66, JFKL.
CHAPTER TWO: RUSSIANS
the "highest national urgency": Salinger, John F. Kennedy, 262.
"They've probably discovered": Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev: Krizisy i Rakety (Moscow: Novosti, 1994), 263, author's translation.
"It's a pre-electoral trick": A. A. Fursenko, Prezidium Ts. K. KPSS, 1954-1964 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2003), Vol. 1, Protocol No. 60, 617, author's trans. English translations of the Presidium protocols are available through the Kremlin Decision-Making Project of the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
"If they were to use": Sergo Mikoyan, Anatomiya Karibskogo Krizisa (Moscow: Academia, 2006), 252. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali attributed this quote to Mikoyan rather than Khrushchev in Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 472. They subsequently said they made a mistake. Sergo Mikoyan is the son of Anastas Mikoyan. His book includes extensive citations from notes made by his father in January 1963, three months after the missile crisis, which are now in his possession.
"He's either all the way": Taubman, xx.
"enough emotion": James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), 329.
It was "only natural": Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974, hereafter NK2), 510.
"The tragic thing is that": Presidium Protocol No. 60.
Khrushchev was proud of his humble roots: Taubman, xvii.
"like the old joke": Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs (New York: Knopf, 1990), 217.
"Not strong enough": Reeves, 166.
"young enough to be": See, e.g., William Knox's account of his visit to Khrushchev, October 24, 1962, JFKL.
"a merciless business": NK2, 499.
"America recognizes only": Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 62.
"How can you say that": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 130.
"Your voice must impress": Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, 416.
"their own medicine": Aleksandr Alekseev, "Karibskii Krizis," Ekho Planety, 33 (November 1988).
"the same shit": Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, 413.
"I see U.S. missiles": John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 264.
"Now we can swat": FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XV: Berlin Crisis, 1962-1963, 309-10.
the "best kept secret": Sorensen OH, JFKL. The thirteen full members of the ExComm were President Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Maxwell Taylor, Under Secretary of State George Ball, Ambassador-at-Large Llewellyn Thompson, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, and Special Counsel Theodore Sorensen. Several other aides were invited to attend ExComm sessions on an ad hoc basis. (National Security Action Memorandum 196, October 22,1962.)
"How long do I have": Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 631.
By Monday afternoon: Cuba Fact Sheet, October 27, 1962, NSAW.
"Call Operator 18": Reeves, 392.
"A great nation": Dean Acheson OH, JFKL.
"by an inadvertent act": Air Defense Command in the Cuban Crisis, ADC Historical Study No. 16, 116, FOIA. See also sections on 25th and 30th Air divisions.
"the dumbest weapons system": June 2002 e-mail to the author from Joseph A. Hart, former F-106 pilot.
"booming off the runway": ADC Historical Study No. 16.
"If they want this job": Beschloss, 481.
"clearly in a nervous": Dobrynin cable, October 22, 1962, CWIHP, 5 (Spring 1995), 69. Dean Rusk, As I Saw It (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 235.
"Is this a crisis?": WP, October 23, 1962, A1; Beschloss, 482.
"This is not a war": Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, 474.
"We've saved Cuba": Oleg Troyanovsky, Cherez Gody y Rastoyaniya (Moscow: Vagrius, 1997), 244-5.
The 11,000-ton Yuri Gagarin: I have reconstructed the positions of Soviet ships on October 23 from CIA daily memorandums for October 24 and 25, NSA intercepts, plus research in Moscow by Karlov. See also Statsenko report.
Her cargo included: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 114.
After a sixteen-day voyage: For the positions of the Aleksandrovsk and Almetyevsk, see NSA Cuban missile crisis release, vol. 2, October 1998.
In addition to the surface ships: Svetlana Savranskaya, "New Sources on the Role of Soviet Submarines in the Cuban Missile Crisis," Journal of Strategic Studies (April 2005).
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The vessels closest to Cuba: The ships that continued to Cuba were the Aleksandrovsk, Almetyevsk, Divnogorsk, Dubno, and Nikolaevsk, according to CIA logs and Karlov research.
"In connection with": Havana 2002, vol. 2, Document 16, author's trans.
"Order the return": Fursenko, Prezidium Ts. K. KPSS, 618-19.
"caught literally with his pants": Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970, hereafter NK1), 497; Troyanovsky, 245.
"He is a genuine revolutionary": Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1958-1964 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 39.
"He made a deep": NK2, 478.
"like a son": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 190.
the code name AVANPOST: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 55.
"He had a weakness": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 203.
"Are you or are you not": Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 29, quoting interview with Alekseev.
"understand that there are limits": Felix Chuev, Molotov Remembers (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), 8.
"it would be foolish": NK1, 494.
When Khrushchev's son-in-law: Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 153.
"One thought kept": NK1, 495.
"What if we were": Dmitri Volkogonov, Sem'Vozdei (Moscow: Novosti, 1998), 420; the English version of Volkogonov's book, Autopsy for an Empire (New York: Free Press, 1998), 236, provides a slightly different translation.
that "something big": Author's interviews with F-102 pilots Dan Barry and Darrell Gydesen, November 2005-February 2006.
The first five planes: USAF incident report, October 22, 1962, AFSC.
By mobilizing the reserves: Alekseev message to Moscow, October 23, 1962, CWIHP, 8-9 (Winter 1996-97), 283.
Even before Castro issued: Tomas Diez Acosta, October 1962: The Missile Crisis as Seen from Cuba (Tucson, AZ: Pathfinder, 2002), 156.
"The Americans": Fernando Davalos, Testigo Nuclear (Havana: Editora Politica, 2004), 22.
"The goofiest idea since": Dallek, 335.
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