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

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).

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.

'Patient too tired': JFK medical file, JFKL.

'ready to quit': Kraus files, JFKL.

'I'm sorry, doctor': Reeves, 396.

It was a short twenty-minute hop: Author's interview with Ruger Winchester, former B-47 pilot, February 2006.

Logan was totally unprepared: History of 509th Bombardment Wing, October 1962, and Special Historical Annex on Cuban Crisis, FOIA, Whiteman AFB.

The 509th would have had difficulty: Author's interview with Ross Schmoll, former B-47 navigator, December 2005.

'We shouldn't worry': Carlos Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel (New York: Random House, 1984), 192.

Soviet commanders had been gathering: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 130.

Pliyev had accepted the Cuba post: M. A. Derkachev, Osoboe Poruchenie (Vladikavkaz: Ir, 1994), 24–28, 48–50; Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 79. For Pliyev's personality, see also Dmitri Yazov, Udary Sudby (Moscow: Paleya-Mishin, 1999), 183-5.

The general explained the situation: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 143; Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 306.

'Cuba si, yanqui no': Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 234.

Orders had already gone out: Karlov interview.

The submarines were still: Mikoyan notes dictated in January 1963; see Mikoyan, 252-4.

'in the interests of the motherland': Vladimir Semichastny, Bespoikonoe Serdtse (Moscow: Vagrius, 2002), 236.

CHAPTER THREE: CUBANS

Radiation detection devices: U.S. Navy message, November 14, 1962, from DNI to CINCUSNAVEUR, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

The photo interpreters had identified: October 22, 1962, transcript, JFK 3, 64. Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 542.

An initial shipment of ninety: The NSA incorrectly identified the Indigirka on