One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
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In October 1962 alone: Photo Interpretation Report, October 1962, CREST.
Cratology scored its greatest triumph: Thaxter L. Goodall, "Cratology Pays Off," Studies in Intelligence (Fall 1964), CREST. The ship was the Kasimov, photographed on September 28.
"The hot morning sun": Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 195-6.
B-36 was sighted: Chronology of Submarine Contacts, C-20, CNO Cuba, USNHC. See also Summary of Soviet Submarine Activity 272016Z, also in Electronic Briefing Book 75, NSAW.
More than eight hundred contacts: SOSUS activity in Atlantic, CTG 81.1 message 261645Z, USNHC; Electronic Briefing Book 75, NSAW.
"a reliable contact": Summary of Soviet Submarine Activity, 272016Z.
Lieutenant Anatoly Andreev: Andreev diary provided by Svetlana Savranskaya, NSAW. Portions of the diary were published in Krasnaya Zvezda, October 11, 2000.
B-36 reached the approaches: Dubivko memoir, "In the Depths of the Sargasso Sea," in Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 314-30, trans. Svetlana Savranskaya, NSAW.
he was instructed: Memoirs of Capt. Vitaly Agafonov, commander of submarine flotilla, in Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 123.
"that lying bastard": Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 287.
"Now this is interesting": The references to the FROG launcher and tactical nuclear weapons have been redacted from the official transcripts of the meeting. However, they are included in JFK Library release notes prepared by Sheldon M. Stern.
to be put out "right now": Bundy conversation with George Ball, FRUS, Vol. XI, 219; 10:00 a.m. ExComm meeting, October 26, 1962.
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, 4
5.
Now even Pliyev: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 113.
"We have nowhere to retreat": Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 167, 226.
Pliyev rejected: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 51; Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 115; Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, 64-5; Putilin, 105.
There had been some initial confusion: See Svetlana Savranskaya, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Cuba: New Evidence" CWIHP, 14–15 (Winter 2003), 385-7; also Mark Kramer, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Soviet Command Authority, and the Cuban Missile Crisis" CWIHP, 3 (Fall 1993), 40.
"To the Director": LCV.
Colonel Sergei Romanov: Romanov was commander of a special military unit responsible for storing and servicing nuclear weapons, known as a Podvizhnaya Remontno-Technicheskaya Baza (Mobile Repair-Technical Base), or PRTB. A PRTB was attached to each missile regiment, FKR regiment, motorized rifle regiment, or IL-28 squadron that operated nuclear warheads. Prior to arriving in Cuba, the warheads were under the control of an arsenal headed by Col. Nikolai Beloborodov, which reported to the original nuclear design bureaus. Once the warheads had arrived safely in Cuba and had been checked out, Beloborodov transferred formal control over them to the individual PRTBs, but shared responsibility for their proper maintenance.
A drive-through bunker: Cuba Activity Summary, 1963; CIA, Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, October 19, 1962, LBJ Library; NPIC memorandum, December 4, 1961, "Suspect Missile Sites in Cuba," NPIC/B-49/61, CREST.
The general staff had drawn up: Malinovsky, "Instructions for Chiefs of Reconnaissance Groups," July 4, 1962, LCV. See also Beloborodov memoirs in Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 210.
The stress of handling: Romanov death certificate, January 30, 1963, inspected by Karlov.
His principal deputy: Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 196; author's interview with Lt. Valentin Polkovnikov, who served in the same regiment as Boltenko.
Many of the technicians: Author's interview with Vadim Galev, May 2006; letters from Dr. V. P. Nikolski and Engineer Kriukov, MAVI.
The next night, they feasted: Recollections of Dmitri Senko in Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr', 265.
Every precaution was taken: Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 234-5.
"an unusual facility": Marshall Carter briefing, White House meeting, October 16, 1962, JFK2, 430.
A more detailed CIA analysis: Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, October 19, 1962, LBJ Library.
Reconnaissance planes overflew: Photographic Interpretation Reports, CREST.
In hindsight: Dwayne Anderson, "On the Trail of the Alexandrovsk," Studies in Intelligence (Winter 1966), 39–43, available through CREST.
in which he identified: See Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 546-8.
Soviet officers: See, e.g., Gribkov et al., U Kraya Yadernoi Bezdni, 209; Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, 46. In the latter, Gribkov incorrectly states that the Luna warheads were stored at Bejucal. According to Beloborodov, who was directly responsible for them, they were stored in Managua. The coordinates of the Bejucal bunker are 22deg56'18''N, 82deg22'39''W. The outlines of the bunker and circular road are still visible on Google Earth. The headquarters facility was half a mile south of the bunker, on the northeastern outskirts of Bejucal. The coordinates of the Managua complex (three bunkers) are 22deg58'00''N, 82deg18'38W.
"The experts kept saying": Author's interview with Dino Brugioni, May 2007.
"a double security fence": Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, October 19, 1962, CREST; Lundahl briefing of JFK, October 22, 1962.
The molasses factory: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 542. The CIA later correctly concluded that Mariel was an important transit point for nuclear warheads entering and leaving Cuba, but paid little further attention to Bejucal.
"having a hard time": USCONARC history, 154, NSAW.
The invasion plan was code-named: "Alternative Military Strikes," JFKL; "Air Force Response to the Cuban Crisis," 8, NSAW; Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 164. When Fidel Castro was informed about these plans at a conference in Havana in 1992, he misheard the number of air strikes as 119,000. He asked for the figure to be repeated, saying it seemed "a bit exaggerated." Told that the number was actually a mere 1,190, he remarked dryly, "I'm more at ease now."
Inevitably, with an operation: USCONARC history, 105, 130, 139, 143; Commanders' conference, February 4, 1963, CNO Cuba, USNHC; Don Fulham interview.
"Soviet Bloc military technicians": U.S. Marine Corps intelligence estimate, November 1962, JFKARC.
As word spread within the upper: See, e.g., CINCLANT message 311620Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.
The distance from the pre-launch position: Chervonnaya interview with Sgt. Vitaly Roshva, senior aviation mechanic, FKR unit, May 2006. According to U.S. intelligence intercepts, the launch position in Filipinas was at 20deg0'46''N, 75deg24'42''W. The pre-launch position at Vilorio was at 20deg5'16''N, 75deg19'22''W.
Among the Soviet soldiers: Chervonnaya interview with Gennady Mikheev, brother of Viktor, plus family photographs and correspondence, April 2006.
Maltsev called for surgeons: The exchange was intercepted by U.S. intelligence, as reported by Seymour M. Hersh, "Was Castro Out of Control in 1962?" WP, October 11, 1987, H1. The article contains several inaccuracies, including speculation that Cuban troops attempted to storm a Soviet SAM site. This account relies on an interview with Roshva and GITMO intelligence reports.
"dress for dinner": TV reports by Bjorn Ahlander, trans. by his son, Dag Sebastian Ahlander.
"While you are armed": Transcript of broadcast, October 26, 1962, Robert Williams Collection, University of Michigan.
"In the event": Carlos Alzuguray, "La crisis de octubre desde una perspectiva Cubana," Conference in Mexico City, November 2002; Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 248.
Nobody "seemed to notice": Halperin, 190.
"by far the worst day": Sorensen OH, JFKL.
CHAPTER EIGHT: STRIKE FIRST
The decision had been taken for security reasons: See, e.g., October 26, ExComm debate, JFK3, 290.
The Cuban navy played a continuous: Author's interview with Aubrey Brown, R Branch, USS Oxford, November 2005.
"diddy chasers": Author's interview with Keith Taylor, R Branch chief, November 2005.
On October 20, T-branchers: Ship logs, Oxford, NARA; author's interview with Dale Thrasher, T Branch chief, November 2005; President's Intelligence Check List, October 22, 1962, quoted in CIA Paper on Intelligence Relationship with JFK White House, 18, record no. 104-10302-100009, JFKARC. Information about the Oxford also supplied by George Cassidy, former T-brancher.
The radar systems at all three sites: NSA Cryptological Museum. The report does not mention the Oxford. Interviews with crew members and the ship logs make clear, however, that the Oxford was the source of the report.
The activation of the radar: "The 1962 Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba," 77, CREST; Memo from NSA assistant director John Davis, November 1, 1962, JFKL.
The Mars probe was off: Boris Chertok, Rakety i Lyudi: Goryachie Dni Kholodnoi Voini (Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1999), chapter on Karibskii Raketnii Krizis. See also Ivan Evtreev, Esche Podnimalos' Plamya (Moscow: Intervesy, 1997), 79–80, for reminiscences of a Soviet missile officer at Baikonur. The R-7s at Baikonur were brought to Readiness Condition 2, like the missiles in Cuba.
By Pentagon calculations: Kaufmann memo, Cuba and the Strategic Threat, OSD. The U.S. figure includes 144 ICBMs and 96 missiles based on Polaris submarines. The Soviet figures are from Karlov, the Strategic Rocket Forces historian, based on official Soviet data. The Soviet figure includes thirty-six R-16s and four R-7s, based at Plesetsk, plus the two reserve R-7s at Baikonur, which were not on permanent duty. The disparity in long-range bombers was even more pronounced, around 1–5 by most estimates. The CIA and State Department believed that the Soviet Union had sixty to seventy-five operati
onal ICBM launchers, somewhat less than the Pentagon estimate, but still higher than the official Soviet figure cited by Karlov ― Garthoff, 208.
In Havana, it was still: Oblizin interview; notes of Col. Vladimir Rakhnyansky, head of ballistic division, MAVI.
"cost the Soviets millions": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 109-11.
for "an important meeting": Alekseev message to Moscow, November 2, 1962, NSAW Cuba. Transcript of missile crisis conference in Moscow, January 1989. Bruce J. Allyn, James G. Blight, and David A. Welch, eds., Back to the Brink: Proceedings of the Moscow Conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis, January 27–28, 1989 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992), 159. See also Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 117-22.
He was full of complaints: Putilin, 108.
"took it for granted": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 252.
"con suprema dignidad": Castro letter to Khrushchev, October 28, 1962, Cuban document submitted to 2002 Havana conference.
"strengthen the Socialist camp": Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 345; Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 187.
"very complex and excessively sensitive": November 2, 1962, dispatch, NSAW.
dictated a holding telegram: NSAW Cuba.
"the brightest light": Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1986), 672.
"I'd be a jellyfish": Sakharov, 217.
"Fucked again": Dallek, 429.
The weather on Novaya Zemlya: G. G. Kudryavtsev, Vospominaniya o Novoi Zemlye available online at www.iss.nillt.ru; V. I. Ogorodnikov, Yadernyi Arkhipelag (Moscow: Izdat, 1995), 166; author's interview with atomic veteran Vitaly Lysenko, Kiev, May 2006.
To confuse American intelligence: Kudryavtsev article.
"Gruz poshyel": Ogorodnikov, 155-8; Pavel Podwig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 503.
"I wouldn't pull": Unpublished Maultsby memoir, made available to the author by Jeanne Maultsby. History of 4080th Strategic Wing (SAC), October 1962, FOIA.
"Your mind never relaxes": Heyser interview. See Michael Dobbs, "Into Thin Air," WP Magazine, October 26, 2003.