September 25 as an 'icebreaker,' but correctly noted that she had left from the Murmansk area. See NSA Cuban missile crisis release, October 1998. For Aleksandrovsk shipment, see Malinovsky report for Special Ammunition for Operation Anadyr, October 5, 1962, Havana 2002, vol. 2. Details on the Indigirka shipment come from Karlov notes and interview. The Soviet officer in charge of the deployment, Col. Nikolai Beloborodov, said in 1994 that six nuclear mines were also sent to Cuba, but this claim has not been confirmed by documents ? James G. Blight and David A. Welch, eds., Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Oxford: Routledge, 1998), 58.
nicknamed 'Tatyanas': The formal name for the bomb was RDS-4. Author's interview with Valentin Anastasiev, May 2006.
The Tatyanas were an afterthought: CWIHP, 11 (Winter 1998), 259. See also draft directive to commander of Soviet forces on Cuba, September 8, 1962, Havana 2002, vol. 2.
The absence of security fences: Based on the details provided by Anastasiev, the storage site for the Tatyana bombs appears to have been 23deg1'13''N, 82deg49'56''W, on the coast about five miles west of Mariel.
Like the Indigirka: A January 1963 reconstruction by the CIA located the Aleksandrovsk at the Guba Okolnaya submarine facility near Severomorsk on October 5. See 'On the Trail of the Aleksandrovsk,' released under CIA historical program, September 18, 1995, CREST.
Three 37mm antiaircraft guns: Malinovsky report, October 5, 1962, Havana 2002, vol. 2.
Demolition engineers had placed: See Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 208, for the story of the Indigirka crossing. Aleksandrovsk procedures were similar.
for 'saving the ship': Report by Maj. Gen. Osipov, MAVI; Karlov interview.
The Aleksandrovsk kept radio silence: For the escort ship, see, e.g., NSA intercepts, October 23, 1962; Cuban missile crisis release, vol. 2, October 1998.
a 'dry cargo' ship: See CIA memorandum on 'Soviet Bloc shipping to Cuba,' October 23, 1962, JFKARC. On October 24, after the Aleksandrovsk had already docked in La Isabela, the CIA gave an incorrect position for the ship, and said she was not expected in Havana until October 25 ? CIA memorandum, October 24, 1962, CREST. The Aleksandrovsk was located through electronic direction- finding techniques rather than visually.
'an underwater demolition attack': Mongoose memo, October 16, 1962, JFKARC.
The raiders later boasted: CIA report on Alpha 66, November 9, 1962, JFKARC; see also FBI report, FOIA release R-759-1-41, posted on Internet by Cuban Information Archives, www.cuban-exile.com. The Alpha 66 raid took place on October 8.
The Aleksandrovsk and the Almetyevsk: Ship's log inspected by Karlov, arrival recorded as 1345 Moscow time. The NSA located the Almetyevsk twenty-five miles from La Isabela at 3:49 a.m., NSA Cuban missile crisis release, vol. 2, October 1998.
'The ship Aleksandrovsk… adjusted': Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 254. The authors incorrectly report that the Aleksandrovsk arrived later in the day.
'So you've brought': Author's interview with Gen. Anatoly Gribkov, July 2004.
The port soon became: Author's interview with Rafael Zakirov, May 2006; Zakirov article in Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, October 5, 2007. See also report by former nuclear weapons chief Beloborodov in Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 204-13. Writing three decades after the crisis, Beloborodov is unreliable on dates and some other details, but his report is the most authoritative account available about the handling of Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba.
The six RF-8 Crusader jets: U.S. Navy records, NPIC Photographic Interpretation Reports, CREST; raw intelligence film for Blue Moon missions 5001, 5003, and 5005, NARA; author's interviews with Comm. William Ecker, Lt. Comm. James Kauflin, and Lt. Gerald Coffee in October 2005. Ecker flew mission 5003.
One thousand feet was the ideal: Author's interview with John I. Hudson, who flew Crusaders over Cuba, October 2005. Other pilots remember taking photographs from lower altitudes, but Arthur Lundahl and Maxwell Taylor told JFK on October 24 that the previous day's photographs were taken from 'around 1,000 feet' ? JFK3, 186-7. The raw film, now at NARA, has numerous markings stating that it was shot at 1,000 feet.
'Chalk up another chicken': Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 374.
'You're a pilot': Ecker interview.
Fernando Davalos: Davalos, 15.
Valentin Polkovnikov: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 189.
'Why can't we retaliate?': Anatoly I. Gribkov and William Y. Smith, Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chicago: Edition Q, 1993), 57.
'Only someone with no': Ibid., 55.
By October 23, 42,822 Soviet: Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 100.
Overnight, the missile sites: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 173; blast information provided by Gen. Viktor Yesin ? interview, May 2006.
'Other people are deciding': Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Edmundo Desnoes, Memories of Underdevelopment (Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review Press, 2004), 171.
'The poster': Adolfo Gilly, Inside the Cuban Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 48.
'It looks like it's going': I have relied on Stern, Averting 'The Final Failure,' 204, for the unexpurgated version of this exchange.
'I fought in three': Abel, 116.
'Here lie the Soviet diplomats': Reeves, 397.
'Why is it': David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972), 269.
'In the Navy, the ethos': Author's interview with Capt. William D. Hauser, Gilpatric naval aide, May 2006.
'Keep a firm grasp': Time magazine profile of Anderson, November 2, 1962.
'From now on': Anderson memo to McNamara, October 23, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.
'locking the barn door': Transcript of Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings, Havana 2002, vol. 2.
The admiral resented McNamara's: George Anderson OH, USNHC.
'We'll hail it': Blight and Welch, On the Brink, 64.
'It's all in there': Abel, 137; Joseph F. Bouchard, Command in Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 115. Abel and other writers misidentified the publication cited by Anderson as the Manual of Naval Regulations. As Bouchard points out, this manual contains no guidance on the conduct of blockades. Law of Naval Warfare is available through USNHC, no. NWIP 10-2.
'This is none of your goddamn': Roswell Gilpatric OH, JFKL. Anderson denied using strong language, but conceded making 'a good-humored remark' about the Navy knowing how to run blockades.
'You heard me': McNamara interview.
The clash between: Following Abel, 135-8, most authors say this scene took place on the evening of Wednesday, October 24, despite McNamara's recollection that it was the evening of October 23, prior to the imposition of the quarantine. The records show that Anderson left the Pentagon at 2035 on October 24; McNamara visited Flag Plot at 2120, where he met with one of Anderson's deputies ? CNO Cuba files, CNO Office logs, USHNC; see also McNamara office diaries, OSD.
'I don't know how': Sources for this scene include Kennedy, Thirteen Days, 65-6; Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York: Random House, 1995), 81-2; and the reports filed by both men immediately afterward. RFK's version is reprinted in FRUS, Vol. XI, 175; an English trans. of Dobrynin's October 24, 1962, cable can be found in CWIHP, 5 (Spring 1995), 71-3.
The mass media had always: Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York:
