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

'every officer in the Army': Reeves, 306.

'How did it all': Sorensen, Kennedy, 513. 227 'The book says': Reeves, 306.

'the red button': JCS Emergency Actions File, Scott Sagan records, NSAW.

These were hardly abstract questions: See, e.g., Fred Kaplan, 'JFK's First Strike Plan,' Atlantic Monthly (October 2001).

'orgiastic, Wagnerian': Reeves, 229-30, 696; target data from Kaplan, 'JFK's First Strike Plan.' When Power briefed McNamara on SIOP-62, he told him with a smirk, 'Well, Mr. Secretary, I hope you don't have any friends or relations in Albania, because we're just going to have to wipe it out.'

'a substantial deterrent to me': White House transcript, December 5, 1962, quoted by David Coleman in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (May-June 2006). See Reeves, 175, for Civil War comparison.

'insane that two men': Goodwin, 218.

CHAPTER TEN: SHOOTDOWN

As Anderson entered Cuban airspace: Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 124.

The ground floor of the command post: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 273; memoirs of former PVO officer Col. Pavel Korolev in Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 246-53; author's interview with PVO political officer Col. Grigory Danilevich, July 2004.

'Target Number 33': Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 124.

'a pile of junk': Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 1–3.

Kennedy was so concerned about: October 22, 1962, memo, McNamara Papers, OSD.

'Our guest has been up': Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 199–200. The Soviet defense minister later reported that the U-2 was 'shot down with the aim of not permitting the photographs to fall into U.S. hands' ? Malinovsky memo, October 28, 1962, CWIHP, 11 (Winter 1998), 262. According to Derkachev, 56, Pliyev was furious when he learned about the shootdown. 'You shouldn't have done this,' he reportedly told his subordinates. 'We can seriously complicate the [diplomatic] negotiations.'

'establish a pattern of operation': JFK3, 240; flight tracks for October 27 reported in NPIC Photo Interpretation Report on Missions 5017–5030, CREST.

The canvas covers had been taken off: JCS meeting notes for October 27, 1962, Havana 2002, vol. 2. The notes were made in 1976 by a JCS historian, Walter Poole, on the basis of original transcripts. According to the JCS, the original transcripts were subsequently destroyed. Photographs taken by these missions are contained in SAC Historical Study No. 90, Vol. 2, FOIA.

'First of all': Malakhov notes, MAVI.

'The people at large': British Archives on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 242.

'a city of children': Saverio Tutino, L'Occhio del Barracuda (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1995), 134.

'Of course we were frightened': Desnoes interview.

'We are expecting': Adolfo Gilly, 'A la luz del relampago: Cuba en octubre,' Perfil de la Jornada, November 29, 2002.

'Keep two or three buckets': FBIS trans. of Radio Rebelde, October 28, 1962.

'Love Thy Neighbor': October 27 UPI report from Havana; see NYT, October 28, 1962.

On a hill above: Author's interview with Alfredo Duran, former inmate, December 2005.

'Destroy Target Number 33': Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 124; Putilin, 111-12. There are slight variations in the time of the shootdown. I have relied on the time given by Col. Korolev, who was on duty at the Camaguey command post (see Gribkov et al., 250). For the location of the wreckage, see October 28, 1962, report from Unidad Military 1065, NSAW Cuba.

'Que vivan los Sovieticos': Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 235.

a 'munitions storage site': See NPIC reports, October 26 and October 27, 1962, CREST.

The commander of the missile troops: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 67.

On the other hand: Statsenko report; Yesin interview.

'You are irritating': Malinovsky (Trostnik) order to Pliyev, October 27, 1962, NSAW Cuba, author's trans. See a different trans. in CWIHP, 14–15 (Winter 2003), 388.

'bearded, energetic man': Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, 69.

'the definitive victory': Verde Olivo, October 10, 1968, quoted in Carla Anne Robbins, The Cuban Threat (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 47.

'established a military command post': CIA memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 26, 1962, CREST; author's visit to Cueva de los Portales; Blue Moon missions 5019–5020, October 27, 1962, NPIC report, CREST.

the 'final stage': Blue Moon missions 5023–5024, NPIC report, CREST.

The Soviets had even dropped a live: See, e.g., David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 326-8.

Nuclear-capable IL-28s: CIA memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, November 6, 1962, CREST. The CIA reported that the Air Force IL-28s 'almost certainly' arrived on the Leninsky Komsomol, which docked near Holguin on October 20. According to Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 173, NPIC already had its eye on Holguin because of construction activity similar to that seen in the Soviet Union prior to the deployment of IL-28s. Unlike the IL-28s at San Julian, the planes at Holguin were never taken from their crates, and were removed around November 26 ? Brugioni, 536.

'those things that nobody': Anastasiev interview.

According to the original Defense Ministry: Malinovsky memoranda, September 6 and 8, 1962, trans. in CWIHP, 11 (Winter 1998), 258-60. See also Raymond Garthoff, 'New Evidence on the Cuban Missile Crisis,' ibid., 251-4.

'In the event': CINCONAD message 262345Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC; for JCS reply, see Chronology of JCS Decisions Concerning the Cuban Crisis, October 27, 1962, NSAW Cuba, and OPNAV 24-hour resume of events, 270000 to 280000, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

'an atomic delivery': Chronology of JCS Decisions, October 28, 1962, NSAW Cuba.

'any movement of FROG': CINCLANT history, 95.

After earlier discounting: Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 255, 261; amendment to CINCLANT history, JCS request for casualty estimates, November 1, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

The nuclear cores for the bombs: Polmar and Gresham, 230; USCONARC message to CINCLANT 291227Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

a 'surprise first strike': Taylor memos to McNamara and the President, May 25, 1962, JCS records, NARA.

'I know the Soviet Union': Sorensen OH, JFKL.

At the same time that U.S. generals: JCS memo to McNamara, October 23, 1962; Gilpatric memos to President and Bundy, October 24, 1962; Sagan Collection, NSAW; Sagan, 106-11. On October 22, Gilpatric had told aides that he saw no reason for a change in rules governing the two-stage weapons ? Gilpatric desk diary, OSD.

'so loose, it jars': Lt. Col. Robert Melgard quoted in Sagan, 110.

As the B-52 began a series: Author's interview with 1st Lt. George R. McCrillis, pilot on CALAMITY, February 2006.