Fallout
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“It is your good friend”: Oleg Penkovsky, “Letter to Be Passed to Appropriate Authorities of the United States of America,” CIA, cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0000012268. The CIA has declassified many of its Penkovsky-related files and placed them in the CIA online library under “Lt. Col. Oleg Penkovsky: Western Spy in Soviet GRU,” cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/lt-col-oleg-penkovsky-western-spy-soviet-gru.
Penkovsky’s suggested dead-drop site: A sketch is printed in Duns, Dead Drop, 328.
Bulik’s detective work: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 11–15.
CIA’s early attempts to contact Penkovsky: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 19–38; Ashley, CIA SpyMaster, 150.
“I can’t believe it, Greville”: Wynne, Contact on Gorky Street, 76.
“What do we speak, what language?”: Ashley, CIA SpyMaster, 27.
Penkovsky background: Ashley, CIA SpyMaster, 154–58; Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 53–59; “Meeting No. 1 (London) at Mount Royal Hotel,” April 20, 1961, transcript, CIA, cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000012392.pdf.
Light the Candle
Shepard launch details: Thompson, Light This Candle, 293–94; Cadbury, Space Race, 244–45; Wolfe, The Right Stuff, 238–50; Alan B. Shepard oral history transcript, available on NASA website: historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/ShepardAB/ABS_2-20-98.pdf.
“Gordo!” and subsequent lines: Shepard and Slayton, Moon Shot, 293; Thompson, Light This Candle, 293–94.
Kennedy watches launch from White House: Reeves, President Kennedy, 117–18.
“The people are afraid to do anything”: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 82.
“You could throw me on a U.S. airplane”: Ashley, CIA SpyMaster, 195.
Penkovsky returns to Moscow: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 175; Duns, Dead Drop, 96.
Kennedy’s back injury: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 342.
Berlin crisis background: Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 104–5; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 344–47; Taubman, Khrushchev, 482–83; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 194–99.
Kennedy prepares for Vienna: Kempe, Berlin, 6–7; Reeves, President Kennedy, 157–58; Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 129.
“Berlin is the testicles of the West”: Dean Rusk, As I Saw It, as told to Richard Rusk (New York: Norton, 1990), 227, in Gaddis, Cold War, 71.
Vienna
“Khrushchev will be here any minute”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 158; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 193.
Kennedy and Khrushchev meet, banter: Kempe, Berlin, 221; O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 340.
Details of the Khrushchev-Kennedy discussions: Reeves, President Kennedy, 160–63; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 358–65; Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 243–48. The Vienna talks are also covered in exhaustive detail in the U.S. State Department records of the meeting: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 5, Soviet Union eds. Charles S. Sampson and John Michael Joyce (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998), 206–30.
“You’re an old country”: Hugh Sidey, “What the Ks Really Told Each Other,” Life, June 16, 1961.
157“How did it go?”: Lincoln, My Twelve Years, 270.
“He treated me like a little boy”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 166.
“This man is very inexperienced”: Kempe, Berlin, 234.
“Mr. Khrushchev, won’t you shake hands” and Khrushchev’s reply: Eddy Gilmore, “Jacqueline Charms All Vienna, Especially K.,” Washington Post, June 4, 1961; Associated Press, “First Lady Wins Khrushchev, Too,” New York Times, June 4, 1961.
“I see one of your space dogs”: J. Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 210.
“He got halfway”: Associated Press, “Kennedy Barely Avoids Mme. Khrushchev’s Lap,” New York Times, June 4, 1961.
“the bone in my throat”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 168.
“If the U.S. wants to start a war”: Foreign Relations of the United States, 5:223.
“We can destroy each other” exchange: Reeves, President Kennedy, 171; Kempe, Berlin, 253.
“How was it”: John F. Stacks, Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 4, 198, 200, in Kempe, Berlin, 257.
Khrushchev partying: United Press International, “Khrushchev Lives It Up at Party for Sukarno,” Orlando Sentinel, June 7, 1961; Stanley Johnson, “Nikita Life of Party for Sukarno,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), June 7, 1961.
Time to Start
Pushinka arrives: J. Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 210; O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 348; Beschloss, Crisis Years, 238.
Penkovsky meets Janet Chisholm: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 184; Duns, Dead Drop, 113–18.
“You know, they have an atom bomb”: Sidey, “Were the Russians Hiding a Nuke?” 31.
“Ever since the longbow”: Hugh Sidey, introduction, Prelude to Leadership: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995), xxviii, in Stern, Averting ‘the Final Failure,’ 35.
Sakharov and Oval Hall scene: Sakharov, Memoirs, 215–17. Khrushchev recalls his disagreement with Sakharov over the H-bomb in Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, 68–71.
Kennedy’s televised address details: Kempe, Berlin, 310–14. A film and the full text of Kennedy’s “Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis,” July 25, 1961, is available at the JFK Library, jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/TNC/TNC-258/TNC-258.
“If war never comes”: “A Spare Room Fallout Shelter,” Life, January 25, 1960, in Rose, One Nation Underground, 191.
“When I get my shelter finished”: Time, “Gun Thy Neighbor?,” 58.
The head of civil defense in Las Vegas: Associated Press, “Nevada Militia Proposed to Give Protection,” Reno Gazette-Journal, July 29, 1961.
“The United States is openly preparing”: CIA, “Foreign Radio and Press Reaction to President Kennedy’s Speech on Berlin Crisis,” Daily Report, supplement, World Reaction Series, no. 4, July 27, 1961, in Reeves, President Kennedy, 203–4.
“When would it be best for you”: Kempe, Berlin, 317.
The Berlin Wall
“Mother, go away”: Galante, Berlin Wall, 48.
Harry Seidel background: Galante, Berlin Wall, 1–4; Mitchell, Tunnels, 1–2.
“Please do something. It’s my son”: Galante, Berlin Wall, 49.
“It’s not a very nice solution”: O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 350.
taunting them with insults: Kempe, Berlin, 354; Harry Gilroy, “Mood of Berlin: Controlled Fury,” New York Times, August 14, 1961; Associated Press, “Red Forces Stoned, Retaliate with Tear Gas,” Baltimore Evening Sun, August 14, 1961.
Ida Siekmann’s death: Galante, Berlin Wall, 79.
Günter Litfin’s death: Kempe, Berlin, 365–66.
“To use the language of chess”: N. Khrushchev, Last Testament, 504–5.
Seidel’s escape: Mitchell, Tunnels, 3–4.
“Hello, comrade” and Seidel rescues his family: Galante, Berlin Wall, 100–102.
“with a heavy heart”: “Excerpts from the Soviet Union’s Statement on Resumption of Nuclear Testing,” New York Times, August 31, 1961; Chalmers M. Roberts, “Reds Warn Their Scientists Have Created Superbombs,” Washington Post, August 31, 1961.
“F***ed again” conversation: Halberstam, Best and the Brightest, 84; Reeves, President Kennedy, 223.
Big Ivan design: Adamsky and Smirnov, “Moscow’s Biggest Bomb”; Atomic Heritage Foundation, “Tsar Bomba,” August 8, 2014, atomicheritage.org/history/tsar-bomba.
Human Race
Lemnitzer briefing scene: Dallek, Unfinished Life, 346.
“Under any circumstances”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 230.
“And we call ourselves the human race”: Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Waging Peace and War: Dean Rusk in the Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson Years (New York: Simon & Sch
uster, 1988), 330, in Reeves, President Kennedy, 230.
“Their Achilles’ heels”: Galante, Berlin Wall, 114.
Berlin Wall details and escapes: Mitchell, Tunnels, 46–50; Galante, Berlin Wall, 130; Associated Press, “Hijacks East German Train, Races Past Guards to West Berlin,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 6, 1961; Associated Press, “They Highballed Through Iron Curtain to Freedom,” Kansas City Star, December 31, 1961.
“We were going to be married”: Galante, Berlin Wall, 112, 116.
Chisholm and Penkovsky’s meetings: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 282–83; Duns, Dead Drop, 150–53; CIA Penkovsky files in the CIA online library.
Kennedy gets Penkovsky product: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 190, 318.
Big Ivan test details: Time, “Russia: A Bang in Asia”; Sakharov, Memoirs, 219–21; Atomic Heritage Foundation, “Tsar Bomba,” August 8, 2014, atomicheritage.org/history/tsar-bomba.
“There is no escaping the fact”: U.S. Department of Defense, Fallout Protection, 6–37.
“I urge you to read and consider seriously”: John F. Kennedy, “A Message to You from the President,” September 7, 1961, in Life, “Fallout Shelters,” 96.
“It comes down in rain”: O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 328.
Out of the East
Seidel’s tunnel: Galante, Berlin Wall, 141–46; Mitchell, Tunnels, 13–16.
“How would you like to go to Moscow”: F. G. Powers, Operation Overflight, 281–83.
“Of course not”: J. Donovan, Strangers, 420.
“However, if anything goes wrong”: F. G. Powers, Operation Overflight, 285.
Powers-Abel exchange details: F. G. Powers, Operation Overflight, 286–88; J. Donovan, Strangers, 421–23; Whittell, Bridge of Spies, 249–51; Carl Hartman, “Powers and Abel Cross Same Freedom Bridge,” Washington Post, February 11, 1962; Jerry Greene, “Powers on His Way Home,” Daily News (New York), February 11, 1962.
Salinger calls reporters: Salinger, With Kennedy, 165.
The Decision
Penkovsky spots car watching him: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 296–300.
“Be careful. They are watching you”: Ashley, CIA SpyMaster, 216.
Heinz Jercha killed: Mitchell, Tunnels, 17; Galante, Berlin Wall, 151–52; Hertle and Nooke, Victims, 74–75.
“I am sick and tired of all this”: Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 308.
Watching nuclear tests from Hawaii: Life, “First a Light Man Had Never Seen,” July 20, 1962, in Beschloss, Crisis Years, 369.
CIA’s Castro plots: Lebow and Stein, We All Lost, 25.
“The book says one of those men”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 306.
“I see U.S. missiles”: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 37.
“Rodion, what if we throw a hedgehog”: Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 171; Taubman, Khrushchev, 541.
Grave Issues
Yucatán asteroid: Riley Black, “What Happened the Day a Giant, Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit the Earth,” Smithsonian, September 9, 2019, smithsonianmag.com/ science-nature/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact-chicxulub-crater-timeline-destruction-180973075/; Michelle Z. Donahue, “Dino-Killing Asteroid Hit Just the Right Spot to Trigger Extinction,” National Geographic, November 9, 2017, nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/11/ dinosaurs-extinction-asteroid-chicxulub-soot-earth-science/.
Mount Tambora: Erik Klemetti, “Tambora 1815: Just How Big Was the Eruption?” Wired, April 10, 2015, wired.com/2015/ 04/tambora-1815-just-big-eruption/; Michael Greshko, “201 Years Ago, This Volcano Caused a Climate Catastrophe,” National Geographic, April 8, 2016, nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/160408-tambora-eruption-volcano-anniversary-indonesia-science/.
nuclear winter: Matthew R. Francis, “When Carl Sagan Warned the World About Nuclear Winter,” Smithsonian, November 15, 2017, smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/; DeGroot, The Bomb, 264.
Kennedy’s routine: Salinger, With Kennedy, 124–25.
Kennedy’s reaction to Guns of August: Dallek, Unfinished Life, 505.
“It is insane”: Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 218, in Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 229.
“do-nothing president”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 347.
“Were it to be otherwise”: John F. Kennedy, “U.S. Reaffirms Policy on Prevention of Aggressive Actions by Cuba,” September 4, 1962, U.S. State Department Bulletin 47, no. 1213 (September 24, 1962), 450, in R. S. Thompson, Missiles of October, 165.
Khrushchev’s Black Sea villa details: Taubman, Khrushchev, 3–4.
“War in this day and age”: “Memorandum of Conversation Between Secretary of the Interior Udall and Chairman Khrushchev,” September 6, 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 15, Berlin Crisis, 1962–1963 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), 309; Smith, Stewart L. Udall, 164; Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 209.
“Soon the storm will break loose”: Taubman, Khrushchev, 557.
Special Weapons
“Each of you has been entrusted”: Reed, Red November, 71; additional meeting details in Huchthausen, October Fury, 51–53. The authors of these books based their accounts on extensive interviews with the participants.
208Shumkov tests nuclear torpedo: Weir and Boyne, Rising Tide, 80.
208“I suggest to you”: Savranskaya, “Role of Soviet Submarines,” 240.
“Once your face has been slapped”: Weir and Boyne, Rising Tide, 83.
Arkhipov and K-19 details: Matt Bivens, “Horror of Soviet Nuclear Sub’s ’61 Tragedy Told,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1994; Huchthausen, K-19, 112–43; The Man Who Saved the World, documentary film.
Subs depart and read orders: Reed, Red November, 73–76; Huchthausen, October Fury, 59–65.
Milk Run
Wynne-Penkovsky meeting, including “I must go”: Wynne, Contact on Gorky Street, 195.
“They could begin it”: CIA, “Foreign Radio Broadcasts,” Daily Report, October 11, 1962, HHHH 7, in Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 219.
“for the sake of the revolution”: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 29.
Heyser U-2 flight and “milk run” quote: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 182–86.
Identifying the missile sites with Penkovsky’s intelligence: Andrew and Mitrokhin, Sword and the Shield, 182.
“I understand you fellows have found a beauty”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 201.
“Ray, our worst fears”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 203.
“Those things we’ve been worrying about”: Beschloss, Crisis Years, 4.
Bundy delays telling Kennedy: Bundy, Danger and Survival, 395–96; Sorensen, Kennedy, 673.
Soviet submarine details: Huchthausen, October Fury, 80–81; Vladimir Isachenko, “Book Recounts the Real Hunt for Red October,” Moscow Times, June 24, 2002.
Bullfighter
“No walls were built”: Tom Wicker, “Eisenhower Calls President Weak on Foreign Policy,” New York Times, October 16, 1962.
Bundy tells Kennedy about photos: Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble,” 222.
“He can’t do this to me”: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 6.
“We have some big trouble”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 368.
“Oh sh**! Sh**! Sh**!”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 223.
Kennedy meets Schirra: United Press International, “Kennedy, Schirras Chat at White House,” Detroit Free Press, October 17, 1962.
“Caroline, have you been eating candy”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 371.
Kennedy’s recording system: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 15.
The first meeting on the Cuban missiles, October 16, 1962: May and Zelikow, Kennedy Tapes, 32–36; Stern, Averting ‘the Final Failure,’ 59–75. The JFK Library has made some White House recordings from the Cuban Missile Crisis available in its online exhibit, “World on the Brink: John F. Kennedy a
nd the Cuban Missile Crisis; Thirteen Days in October 1962,” microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/.
Kennedy recites poem: Frankel, High Noon, 83.
Greenbrier shelter details: Ted Gup, “The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway,” Washington Post, May 31, 1992; Garrison, Bracing for Armageddon, 72.
Pretty Bad Fix
October 18 ExComm meeting: Stern, Averting ‘the Final Failure,’ 95–117.
“Assume combat readiness”: Reed, Red November, 98.
“Fry it”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 265.
“Well, maybe if we do this overflight right” and LeMay’s outlook: Rhodes, Dark Sun, 566; Paul Lashmar, “Stranger Than ‘Strangelove’: A General’s Forays into the Nuclear Zone,” Washington Post, July 3, 1994.
October 19 ExComm meeting: Stern, Averting ‘the Final Failure,’ 121–27; Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 22.
“You pulled the rug right out from under him”: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 22.
“These brass hats have one great advantage”: O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 368.
Your Move
Kennedy’s campaign trip to Midwest: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 806.
LeMay’s position: Meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, October–November 1962, transcript at National Security Archive, nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621000%20Notes%20Taken%20from%20Transcripts.pdf.
Press notices lights burning: “Capital Tense; Big Action on Cuba May Be Imminent,” Detroit Free Press, October 22, 1962.
Penkovsky missing and signal system: Duns, Dead Drop, 142; Schecter and Deriabin, Spy, 262.
President’s cold in Chicago: Salinger, With Kennedy, 316.
“We have completed the assignments”: Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight, 26.
“Gentlemen, today we’re going to earn our pay”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 314.