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

USNHC

U.S. Navy Historical Center, U.S. Continental Army Command, Washington, DC.

WP

Washington Post

Z

Zulu time or GMT, four hours ahead of Quebec time (Eastern Daylight Time), five hours ahead of Romeo time (Eastern Standard Time). Time group 241504Z is equivalent to October 24, 1504GMT, which is the same as 241104Q, or 1104EDT

CHAPTER ONE: AMERICANS

'the clearing of a field': Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969, hereafter RFK), 24. Photographs of missile sites are available through the John F. Kennedy Library, the National Security Archive, the Naval Historical Research Center, and NARA.

'Daddy, daddy': CNN interview with Sidney Graybeal, January 1998, CNN CW. 3 'Caroline, have you': Dino Brugioni, 'The Cuban Missile Crisis ? Phase 1,' CIA Studies in Intelligence (Fall 1972), 49–50, CREST; Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 371; author's interview with Robert McNamara, October 2005.

Once armed and ready to fire: CIA, Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, October 19, 1962, CREST. The CIA estimated the range of the R-12 (SS-4) missile as 1,020 nautical miles; the true range was 2,080 kilometers, or 1,292 miles. For simplicity, I have converted all nautical mile measurements to the more commonly used statute miles.

'The length, sir': For dialogue from ExComm meetings, I have relied on the transcripts produced by the Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, eds., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises, Vols. 2 and 3 (hereafter JFK2 and JFK3). The transcripts are available at the Miller Center Web site. I have also consulted Sheldon M. Stern, Averting 'the Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). For atmosphere, and to check discrepancies, I have listened to the original tapes, available through the Miller Center and the JFK Library.

'a hostile and militant Communist': Michael Beschloss, The Crisis Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 101.

'to hurl rockets': Keating press release, October 10, 1962.

'Ken Keating will probably': Kai Bird, The Color of Truth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 226-7. Kenneth P. O'Donnell and David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 310.

'let it begin now': William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 499.

'It reminded me': Beschloss, 224-7. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 413-15. Reeves, 174.

'I'm inexperienced': Reeves, 172.

'fucking liar': Dallek, 429.

'an immoral gangster': Beschloss, 11.

the president's 'dissatisfaction': FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. XI: Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Document 19. Sabotage proposals and earlier meeting of Special Group (Augmented) available through JFK Assassination Records Collection, NARA. See also Richard Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder (New York: Random House, 2003), 208-9.

'Demolition of a railroad bridge': Mongoose memorandum, October 16, 1962, JFKARC.

'the Cuban problem carries': CIA memorandum, January 19, 1962, JFKARC. See also Church Committee Report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 141.

'Everybody in my family forgives': Richard D. Mahoney, Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy (New York: Arcade, 1999), 87.

'Oh shit, shit, shit': Dino Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Random House, 1991), 223; RFK, 23.

'the dominant feeling was one': RFK, 27.

'My idea is': Reeves, 264; Dallek, 439.

He even had his own full-time: Samuel Halpern interview with CIA history staff, January 15, 1988, JFKARC record no. 104-10324-1003.

'Robert Kennedy's most conspicuous folly': Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 534.

'sit there, chewing gum': Author's interview with Thomas Parrott, October 2005.

'reflected the president's own': Richard Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 187.

A top secret Lansdale memorandum: 'The Cuba Project,' February 20, 1962, JFKARC record no. 176-10011 -10046.

'Lansdale's projects simply gave': McManus interview with Church Committee, JFKARC.

'Elimination by Illumination': Lansdale memo, October 15, 1962, JFKARC; Parrott interview with Church Committee. In a January 1, 1976, letter to the Church Committee, Lansdale indignantly denied making the illumination proposal, but the record shows that he did.

'will meet our requirements': Robert A. Hurwitch memorandum, September 16, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10046.

'There is only one thing': Eisenhower presidential papers quoted in Reeves, 103.

'I know there is a God': Ibid., 174.

'odds are even': Joseph Alsop, 'The Legacy of John F. Kennedy,' Saturday Evening Post, November 21, 1964, 17. For the 'one-in-five' quote, see Reeves, 179.

'Bullfight critics': Max Frankel, High Noon in the Cold War (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 83.

the approval by 'higher authority': Thomas Parrott memorandum, October 17, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10081.

As the winds: State Department history of 'The Cuban Crisis 1962,' 72, NSA Cuba; CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 141, NSA Cuba.

'military intervention by the United States': JCS memorandum, April 10, 1962, JFKARC.

'We could blow up': L. L. Lemnitzer memorandum, August 8, 1962, JFKARC. 18 'I am so angry': Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), 456.

'an importance in the sum': James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 323- 4.

Bobby Kennedy was already: RFK desk diary, JFKARC. See also Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation, William Harvey to DCI, November 14, 1962, JFKARC.

'an initial burst': Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 214.

'My brother is not going': Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1966), 51.

According to Harvey's record: Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation; Harvey memo on sabotage operation, October 19, 1962, JFKARC.

'I don't want that man': Reeves, 182.

America had 'the Russian bear': Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 469.