One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

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 disinformation 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