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

a 'weapon,' to be used: U.S. News & World Report, November 12, 1962; Newsweek, November 12, 1962. See also Arthur Sylvester OH, JFKL.

'Please identify yourself': Ship's log, as reported by Ahlander, Krig och fred i Atomaldern, 24-5; author's interview with Nils Carlson, September 2005.

'temperamental and headstrong': Cable from U.S. Embassy, Stockholm, October 27, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

'STAY WITH SWEDISH SHIP': Coolangatta file, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

He wanted to share: Alekseev telegram to Moscow 49201, October 26, 1962, NSAW.

'You are going to hear': Yevtushenko article, Novaya Gazeta, July 11, 2005.

Castro's 'personal courage': JFK1, 492.

In April 1962, Pravda began: Halperin, 155.

'unlimited confidence': Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 83, 254.

'Well, it looks like war': Ibid., 213.

is 'inevitable': Reports from Brazilian and Yugoslav embassies, quoted in James Hershberg, 'The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis,' Journal of Cold War Studies (Summer 2004).

'So you are': David Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 127

'that fucker': Martin, 136. See also David Corn, Blond Ghost (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 82.

'We don't mind going': Martin, 144; see also Thomas, Robert Kennedy, 234. RFK's diary lists a telephone call from San Roman in Miami on October 27 and a meeting scheduled for October 26, but it is unclear whether the meeting actually took place.

'using such valuable Cuban': McCone memo on meeting, October 29, 1962, JFKARC; see also Parrott minutes, FRUS, Vol. XI, 229-31.

'Sink in Cuban': Lansdale memo, October 26, 1962, JFKARC. The shipping sabotage plan was approved on October 27, but suspended on October 30, after Khrushchev agreed to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba ? Lansdale memo, October 30, 1962, JFKARC.

'presumed lost': Chronology of the Matahambre Sabotage Operation, November 21, 1962, JFKARC.

'obviously plastered': Parrott interview.

'Harvey has destroyed': Martin, 144.

The FBI had been searching: Report from SAC, Los Angeles, to FBI director, October 26, 1962, JFKARC.

'would work anywhere': Senate Church Committee Report, Alleged Assassination Plots, 84.

'every single team': Harvey testimony to Church Committee, July 11, 1975, JFKARC.

'gathering intelligence': Roselli testimony to Church Committee, June 24, 1975, JFKARC.

While there is no smoking gun: Thomas, 157-9; Lansdale memo to RFK, December 4, 1961, JFKARC; CIA memo to Church Committee, September 4, 1975, JFKARC.

'getting rid': Samuel Halpern interview with CIA history staff, January 15, 1988, JFKARC.

'liquidation of leaders': Thomas, 159.

'no holds barred': Halpern interview with CIA history staff; Harvey testimony to Church Committee.

'If you fuckers': Stockton, Flawed Patriot, 141.

'idiocy': Harvey testimony to Church Committee.

During the course of 1962: Branch and Crile III, 'The Kennedy Vendetta' comments by CIA review staff, August 14, 1975, JFKARC; Corn, Blond Ghost, 74–99.

'I don't have time': Author's interview with Warren Frank, former JM/WAVE officer, April 2006.

A 'counter-revolutionary handbook': RFK confidential file, Box 10, JFKARC.

'The trouble with us Cubans': WP, October 28, 1962, E5.

at the 'highest possible pitch': CIA memo to Lansdale, 'Operation Mongoose ? Infiltration Teams,' October 29, 1962.

Typical of the fighters: Unpublished 1996 memoir by Carlos Obregon; author's interview with Obregon in February 2004.

CHAPTER SEVEN: NUKES

'forget his role as host': Mikoyan conversation with U.S. officials, November 30, 1962, SDX.

'Cuba does not accept': Acosta, 170.

'emergency operational capability': CIA memo, October 21, 1962, CREST/JFKL.

'Missile units ready': Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 111; Statsenko report.

'Turn on the radars': Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 113.

And he wanted the forty-three thousand troops: Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, 65.

'freedom-loving Cuba': TASS report, October 27, 1962; Revolucion, October 27, 1962, 8; NYT, October 27, 1962, 6.

'Somos socialistas': Cuba Under Castro, 1962, 107.

'stronger discipline': Alekseev cable to Soviet Foreign Ministry, October 23, 1962, NSAW.

'primitiveness': Desnoes interview, April 2006.

'They were years': Franqui, 187. For a contemporaneous report on Franqui's views, see CIA telegram, June 5, 1963, JFKL.

'a crazy wonderland': Cuba Under Castro, 1962, 147.

'a large number': Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 161-2.

'not all that important': Halperin, 190.

'Their Spanish blood': Cuba Under Castro, 1962, 619-20.

'This is a joke': Air Force message on JCS authentication system 57834, October 25, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

The problem was even worse: Kornienko interview.

'under considerable strain': Beschloss, 521; Abel, 162.

'a lot of bullshit': Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 288.

As relayed by Scali: Scali memo to Hilsman, October 26, 1962, FRUS, Vol. XI, 227.

'I have reason': Ibid., 241.

'Does this come': Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 274-6.

no 'official information': KGB foreign intelligence refused to distribute many of Feklisov's reports because they lacked secret information ? SVR.

'an exuberant type': Feklisov, 371.

After pondering the rezident's report: Ibid., 382; Dobrynin, 95. Dobrynin refers to Feklisov as 'Fomin,' his cover name in Washington.

The most Feklisov could do: Feklisov report to Andrei Sakharovsky, October 27, 1962, SVR. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, 'Using KGB Documents: The Scali-Feklisov Channel in the Cuban Missile Crisis,' CWIHP, 5 (Spring 1995), 58. See also Semichastny, 282. The KGB chief described Feklisov's dealings with Scali as 'unauthorized.'

'within forty-eight hours': B. G. Putilin, Na Krayu Propasti (Moscow: Institut Voennoi Istorii, 1994), 104.

'suspended within': Hershberg, 'The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis,' 34; Putilin, 108.

'full military readiness': Putilin, 106.

'Don't panic': Derkachev, 45.