It did not take long: NYT, October 29, 1962.
a "Communist sabotage ring": NYT, October 30, 1962.
Operation Bugle Call: Memos on CINCLANT psychological leaflet program, OSD. After initially supporting the operation, the Joint Chiefs described it as "militarily unsound" in an October 27 memorandum (OSD). The chiefs feared that the delivery aircraft might be shot down, providing the Cubans with a propaganda victory.
The six Navy Crusaders: OPNAV 24-hour resume, 270000 to 280000, CNO Cuba, USNHC; flight record sheet supplied to the author by Lt. Cdr. James A. Kauflin.
"Move it out!": Author's interview with Capt. Edgar Love, October 2005; flight track in NPIC report on Blue Moon missions, October 27, 1962, CREST; Raw intelligence film, NARA.
The president turned his attention: The State Department draft was prepared by George Ball and his deputy, Alexis Johnson--Johnson OH, JFKL. A copy of the preliminary draft is in Maxwell Taylor Papers, NDU.
McNamara erroneously reported: According to pilot debriefs, no planes were hit. It is unclear how many planes took part in the afternoon mission. Gen. Taylor told the ExComm that two planes turned back with engine trouble and six others overflew Cuba. According to other reports, only six flights were scheduled for the afternoon of October 27--see, e.g., Pentagon war room journal for October 27, NSAW.
"This is a stinking double-cross": Scali's memos to Rusk were published in Salinger, With Kennedy, 274-80. See also ABC News program on John Scali, August 13, 1964, transcript available through NSAW.
The deputy chief of intelligence: Author's interview with Thomas Hughes, March 2006. Scali and Hughes entered the White House together at 5:40 p.m.--WH gate logs, JFKL.
"twelve pages of fluff": JFK3, 462.
He proposed new, more conciliatory language: Rusk read the text of the Stevenson draft to the ExComm. I found the original State Department draft among Maxwell Taylor's Papers at NDU. See also Alexis Johnson OH, JFKL.
He suggested his brother tell Khrushchev: This later became known as the "Trollope ploy," discussed in the Afterword (pp. 344-5). Numerous writers, e.g., Graham Allison in Essence of Decision, claim that, on Bobby's advice, JFK decided to respond to the first Khrushchev letter and ignore the second. This is a gross oversimplification of what took place. JFK did not ignore the second letter. The following chapter gives the details of how he addressed the Turkey-Cuba issue.
"the noose was tightening": RFK, 97.
and went looking for Marlene Powell: Author's interview with Marlene Powell, September 2003. See WP Magazine, October 26, 2003. According to the History of the 4080th Strategic Wing, Jane Anderson was notified that her husband was missing at 5:50 p.m. on October 27.
Around 1:00 a.m., Khrushchev got: Troyanovsky, 250; Sergei Khrushchev, 363.
a "signal of extreme alarm": Khrushchev letter to Castro, October 30, 1962, NSAW Cuba.
"a young horse that hasn't": Shevchenko, 106.
"We are not struggling": Khrushchev letter to Castro, October 30, 1962, NSAW Cuba; Sergei Khrushchev, 364.
to "stomach the humiliation": NK1, 499.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CAT AND MOUSE
By the afternoon: The U.S. Navy labeled the Soviet submarines in chronological order, based on time of sighting. The first to be positively identified was C-18 (Soviet designation B-130, commanded by Nikolai Shumkov) at 241504Z. The others were C-19 (B-59, Valentin Savitsky) at 252211Z; C-20, later identified as C-26 (B-36, Aleksei Dubivko), at 261219Z; and C-23 (B-4, Ryurik Ketov) at 271910Z.
"Submarine to starboard": Carrier Division Sixteen, Cuban missile crisis documentation, NSAW.
"Dropped five hand grenades": Logbooks of Beale and Cony, NARA, also available through NSAW.
"Submerged submarines": Secretary of Defense message to Secretary of State 240054Z, NSAW Cuba.
"The president has been seized": JCS Poole notes.
"he would want to know": Time magazine profile, July 28, 1961.
danger of getting "bogged down": JCS message 051956Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.
Electronic eavesdroppers on board: Intercepted message reported in ExComm meeting, interview with Keith Taylor, USS Oxford, November 2005; tracking intercept described in Harold L. Parish OH, October 12, 1982, NSA.
FIRE HOSE: CINCAFLANT messages 27022Z and 280808Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC. Some writers have claimed that the White House had to talk LeMay out of ordering the immediate destruction of a SAM site--see Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 463-4. Notes taken by JCS historian Walter Poole suggest this was not the case. The JCS favored continuing reconnaissance flights until another loss occurred and then attacking all SAM sites "as a minimum"--see Chronology of JCS Decisions, October 23, 1962, NSAW. For JCS opposition to piecemeal measures, see October 27 memorandum on "Proposed Military Actions in Operation Raincoat," OSD.
The men were falling "like dominoes": Mozgovoi, 92, Havana 2002, vol. 2.
According to regulations: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 84; Mozgovoi, 71. The flotilla commander was Capt. 1st class Vitaly Agafonov. He was traveling on submarine B-4.
Arkhipov and Savitsky were equal in rank: Both men had the rank of captain 2nd class, the Soviet equivalent of a commander. The officer in charge of the torpedo was a captain 3rd class, equivalent to a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.
"The Americans hit us": Mozgovoi, 93; Orlov interview with the author, July 2004. Other submarine commanders have questioned Orlov's version of events. Arkhipov and Savitsky are both dead. While it is impossible to know the precise words used by Savitsky, Orlov's account is consistent with other descriptions of the conditions on board the Soviet Foxtrots and the known movements of B-59.
"There were sharp disagreements": RFK, 102.
his "terrific executive energy": Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 625.
"almost telepathic": Schlesinger, "On JFK: An Interview with Isaiah Berlin," New York Review of Books, October 22, 1998.
The final version bore the marks: See State Department and Stevenson drafts, and ExComm discussion.
The inner ExComm agreed that: Accounts differ as to who attended this meeting. According to Rusk, it was attended by JFK, RFK, McNamara, Bundy, and "perhaps one other," in addition to himself--Letter to James Blight, February 25, 1987, NSAW. According to Bundy, the meeting was also attended by Ball, Gilpatric, Thompson, and Sorensen--see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival (New York: Random House, 1988), 432-3.
Drawing on a cable: The formula proposed by Rusk was first suggested by the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Raymond Hare, in Ankara cable 587, which arrived at the State Department on Saturday morning--NSAW.
"No one not in the room": Bundy, 433. For another account, see Rusk, 240-1.
a "complex and difficult person": Dobrynin, 61. In an October 30, 1962, memo to Rusk, RFK said he asked Dobrynin to meet him at the Justice Department at 7:45 p.m. (FRUS, Vol. XI, 270). But RFK was running late. The ExComm session did not end until around 7:35. RFK then attended the meeting in the Oval Office, which lasted around twenty minutes. He likely met Dobrynin around 8:05 p.m., at the same time the State Department transmitted the president's message to Moscow--ibid., 268.
"tapping telephone conversations": KGB profile of RFK, February 1962, SVR.
as "very upset": Dobrynin cable to Soviet Foreign Ministry, October 27, 1962. I have reconstructed this account from the Dobrynin cable, the RFK memo to Rusk, and RFK, Thirteen Days, 107-8. The RFK and Dobrynin accounts match each other closely, although Dobrynin is more explicit, particularly on the withdrawal of the Jupiters. On the Jupiter discussion, the contemporaneous Dobrynin cable seems more credible than the various RFK accounts. The official U.S. story on the Jupiters has changed over the years. Former Kennedy aides, such as Ted Sorensen, have acknowledged playing down or even omitting potentially embarrassing details. See articles and documents published by Jim Hershberg, CWIHP, 5 (Spring 1995), 75-80, and 8-9 (Winter 1996-97), 274, 344-7, including English translations of the Dobrynin cables.
"the children everywhere in
the world": O'Donnell and Powers, 325; WH gate logs and president's phone log, October 27, 1962.
"an extra chicken leg": O'Donnell and Powers, 340-1.
The evacuation instructions were part: Ted Gup, "The Doomsday Blueprints," Time, August 10, 1992; George, 46-53.
"What happens to our wives": O'Donnell and Powers, 324.
"succumbed to the general mood of apocalypse": Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 482; "An Interview with Richard Lehman," Studies in Intelligence (Summer 2000).
"never live to see another": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 378. McNamara says that he was "leaving the president's office at dusk" to return to the Pentagon, but Sheldon Stern points out that it was already dark by the time the ExComm broke up: sunset came at 6:15 p.m. on October 27.
With Kennedy's consent, Rusk telephoned: FRUS, Vol. XI, 275; Rusk, 240-1. Some scholars have questioned the reliability of Rusk's 1987 account of the approach to Cordier, but it seems fully consistent with the thrust of the previous ExComm debate and JFK's views on the Jupiters.
"Junta for an Independent": State Department Coordinator for Cuban Affairs memo, October 27, 1962, JFKARC.
"I cannot run my office": Miro profile, Time, April 28, 1961.
"I know something": Reeves, 97.
kept at "maximum readiness": Nestor T. Carbonell, And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba (New York: William Morrow, 1989), 222-3.
a "volatile, emotional": CIA memo for Lansdale on Operation Mongoose--Infiltration Teams, October 29, 1962, JFKARC; see also Lansdale memo on covert operations, October 31, 1962, JFKARC.
"Friends simply do not behave": Allyn et al., Back to the Brink, 149.
"He began to assess the situation": Alekseev cable to Moscow, October 27, 1962, trans. in CWIHP, 8-9 (Winter 1996-97), 291.
His subsequent report to Moscow: Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 117. Alekseev said that he did not find out the truth about who shot down the plane until 1978.
"almost fell into the water": Orlov interview.
"This ship belongs": Ibid.
Lookouts reported that the Americans: Mozgovoi, 93; Carrier Division Sixteen, Cuban missile crisis documentation, NSAW.
"to throw off your pursuers": Orlov interview.
Kennedy dismissed most: Salinger, John F. Kennedy, 125.
a "piece of ass": Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Little, Brown, 1997), 389. The need for sex was a recurring theme for JFK. He told Clare Boothe Luce that he could not "go to sleep without a lay."
Mary telephoned Jack: White House phone records, October 27, 1962; WH social files, October 24, 1962, JFKL. Meyer's many visits to the White House were usually noted by the Secret Service. There is no evidence that she met JFK on October 27. It is unclear whether he returned her phone call, as he was able to make local calls without going through the White House switchboard. For a discussion of their relationship, see Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), 181-227.
"We'll be going": O'Donnell and Powers, 341.
George Anderson retired to bed: CNO Office log, October 27, 1962; OPNAV resume of events, CNO Cuba, USNHC.
to be "hostile": Gilpatric handwritten notes from 9:00 p.m. ExComm meeting, October 27, 1962, OSD.
"Now anything can happen": October 28 Prensa Latina report, FBIS, October 30, 1962.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: "CRATE AND RETURN"
"You dragged us into this mess": Troyanovsky, 250. For the time of meeting, see Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev, 351.
"the danger of war and nuclear": September 1993 interview with CC secretary Boris Ponomaryev cited in Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 284; see Fursenko, Prezidium Ts. K. KPSS, 624, for Malin notes on Presidium meeting, October 28, 1962.
The possibility that Soviet commanders on Cuba: Sergei Khrushchev, 335. Sergei reports that his father angrily asked Malinovsky whether Soviet generals on Cuba were serving in the Soviet or Cuban army. "If they are serving in the Soviet army, why do they place themselves under a foreign commander?" Since Sergei was not present at this conversation, I have not used the quote. However, the sentiment appears to be an accurate reflection of his father's views at the time.
the "hour of decision": Troyanovsky, 251; Dobrynin, 88. Several writers have argued that Dobrynin's report on his meeting with RFK arrived too late to influence Khrushchev's reply to JFK. See, e.g., Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War, 490, which claims that Khrushchev "dictated his concession speech...before he knew of Kennedy's own concession." This is a misreading of the October 28 Presidium record. The minutes do suggest that a smaller group of Presidium members convened later in the day to consider the Dobrynin report, and reply to it. However, they list the Dobrynin report as number three on an agenda of at least nine items that day, ahead of a letter to Fidel Castro and a telegram to Pliyev (number five on the agenda), which were both part of the original discussion. Other Presidium records show that several agenda items were debated "out of order."
It seems probable, therefore, that the Dobrynin message arrived during the first part of the meeting, before Khrushchev dictated his letters to JFK and Castro, but became the subject of detailed discussion at the second session. This is consistent with Khrushchev's own memoirs and the memories of Oleg Troyanovsky, who was present at the first session. Together with the fragmentary Presidium record, Troyanovsky's account is the most authoritative version of what took place, and I have followed it closely.
if he led them into a "war of annihilation": Khrushchev letter to Castro, October 30, 1962, NSAW.
"Let none of you": Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 167.
had come to "deeply respect": NK1, 500.
The Soviet people wanted "nothing but peace": FRUS, Vol. XI, 279.
advised Castro to "show patience": Khrushchev letter to Castro, October 28, 1962, NSAW, trans. by the author.
"We consider that you acted": Malinovsky telegram to Pliyev (pseudonym Pavlov), October 28, 1962, 4:00 p.m. Moscow time. NSAW Cuba, trans. by the author. Malinovsky sent a further message at 6:30 p.m. Moscow time, ordering Pliyev not to use S-75 SAM missiles and to ground fighter aircraft "in order to avoid collisions with U.S. reconnaissance planes." Translations of both documents are in CWIHP, 14-15 (Winter 2003), 389.
"a long wire" or rope: CINCLANFLT message 272318Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.
"Korabl X": Log books of USS Beale, Cony, and Murray. See Submarine chronology prepared by NSAW.
"Attention, attention please": Carrier Division Sixteen, Cuban missile crisis documentation, NSAW.
to "behave with dignity": Mozgovoi, 94; Orlov interview.
"The only thing he understood": Dubivko memoir, "In the Depths of the Sargasso Sea," trans. Savranskaya.
"It's a disgrace": Mozgovoi, 109-10.
"enjoyed ridiculing people": Gen. Horace M. Wade OH, AFHRA.
"Shit, oh dear!": Unpublished Maultsby memoir.
"demonstrated the seriousness": Sagan, 76.
"You are a lucky little devil": Exactly how Maultsby came to overfly the Soviet Union, and the precise route he took on his way to and from the North Pole, would remain mysterious for many decades. Although the U.S. government admitted to a "serious navigational error" by the pilot that took him over Soviet territory, it did its best to hush up the embarrassing incident. McNamara demanded "a complete and detailed report" on what went wrong, but the results of the Air Force investigation have not been released. (McNamara memo to Air Force secretary, Cuban missile crisis files, Box 1, OSD.) Among the few official documents that this author was able to find relating to the incident were two charts showing Maultsby's route over the Soviet Union. The charts turned up in unexpected places in the records of the State Department and the JFK Library, suggesting that they may have been declassified inadvertently.
Read in conjunction with astronomical maps, the charts confirm the personal recollections of Maultsby and the navigator who helped him return to Alaska. But they also undermine the widely accepted official a
ssumption that he ended up over the Soviet Union because he took a wrong turn over the North Pole. In fact, they suggest that he never reached the Pole, and instead ended up somewhere in the vicinity of northern Greenland or the Queen Elizabeth Islands of northern Canada.
The principal problem with the official version is an unexplained hour and a quarter of extra flying time. At 75,000 thousand feet, a U-2 was obliged to fly at constant speed of around 420 knots. Had Maultsby maintained this speed and made a wrong turn at the North Pole, he would have crossed over Soviet territory around 10:45 a.m. Washington time, rather than 11:59 a.m. The extra flying time equates to a detour of around six hundred miles.
The most likely explanation for the aberration is that his compass interfered with his navigational computations. In the vicinity of the North Pole, a compass is useless. Pilots had to rely on the stars, a gyro to keep them on a fixed heading, and accurate calculations of time and distance flown. According to another U-2 pilot, Roger Herman, Maultsby told friends that he forgot to unchain his gyro from his compass, an error that would have had the effect of pulling him in the direction of the magnetic North Pole, then located in northern Canada.
According to the State Department chart, Maultsby entered Soviet territory not from the north, but from the northeast. This is consistent with his recollection that he observed the Belt of Orion off the left nose of his plane. Had he been flying southward from the North Pole, he would have seen Orion off the right nose of the plane.
Gradually, the truth sank in: Vera interview.
The CIA later said: Richard Helms memo, November 13, 1962, JFKARC.
"operationally infeasible": Chronology of the Mathambre Mine Sabotage Operation, November 14, 1962, JFKARC. See also Harvey memo to Director of Central Intelligence, November 21, 1962, JFKARC. In his memos, Harvey said that the plan called for "only two immediate alternate rendezvous, on 22 and 23 October," i.e., four or five days after the saboteurs were dropped off. A "final pickup operation," in the event that these rendezvous were missed, was set for November 19. This chronology makes little sense. Everybody understood that it was likely to take longer than four days to carry out the sabotage operation. During the previous, unsuccessful attempt to target the copper mine, in early October, a sabotage team led by Orozco was retrieved after five days in Cuba. The October 22-23 pickup may have been designed for a separate arms-caching operation, and as a fallback in case Orozco and Vera failed to make it as far as Matahambre. There is no reason to doubt Vera's insistence that the main rendezvous date was between October 28 and 30, with a final fallback date of November 19.
One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war Page 53
