The Secret Sentry

by Matthew M. Aid

  49. Gribkov and Smith, Operation Anadyr, pp. 29, 34, 39.

  50. SC No. 08172/62, memorandum, Guthe to INR/RSB, Soviet Military Technicians Abroad, September 20, 1962, pp. 1–2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP70T00666R000100140020-8, NA, CP.

  51. USAFSS History Office, A Special Historical Study of the Production and Use of Special Intelligence During World Contingencies: 1950–1970, March 1, 1972, p. 52, declassified through FOIA by the National Security Archive, Washington, DC.

  52. NSA, COMINT report, “Cuban MIGs Scramble on Two U.S. Navy Patrol Planes,” September 11, 1962, in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://www.nsa.gov/cuba.

  53. Johnson and Hatch, Synopsis, pp. 4–5.

  54. NSA, COMINT report, “New Radar Deployment in Cuba,” September 19, 1962, in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://www.nsa.gov/cuba.; Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Emergency Actions Center, Summary of Items of Significant Interest for the Period 200701–210700 September 1962, p. 3, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, SC No. 08088/63-KH, The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba, 1963, p. 81, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 323.

  55. Message, OUT76318, Director to [deleted], September 13, 1962, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000242399, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  56. Message, OUT77481, Director to [deleted], September 17, 1962, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000242402, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  57. NSA, COMINT report, Further Information on Cargo Shipments to Cuba in Soviet Ships, September 25, 1962, in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://www.nsa.gov/ cuba.

  58. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, SC No. 08088/63-KH, The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba, 1963, p. 6, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP. These intercepts are also referenced in Defense Intelligence Agency, Use of the Intelligence Product, undated but circa 1963, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP68B00 255-R000300010009-0, NA, CP.

  59. John A. McCone, Memorandum of Mongoose Meeting Held on Thursday, October 4, 1962, October 4, 1962, p. 2, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, file 41, NA, CP; Thomas A. Parrott, memorandum for record, Minutes of Meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) on Operation MONGOOSE, 4 October 1962, October 4, 1962, pp. 2–3, National Security Archive, Washington, DC. Both documents were released in full in 1994 and 1997 respectively. In one of those laughable attempts at rewriting history, in 2004 the CIA released into its CREST database of declassified documents new versions of the documents, which this time were heavily redacted. The excised content includes all mentions of the National Reconnaissance Office, Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s participation in the meeting, and all discussion of covertly mining Cuban harbors, for which see “4 October (Thursday),” CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001700180033-1, NA, CP.

  60. Director of Central Intelligence, Report to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board on Intelligence Community Activities Relating to the Cuban Arms Build-Up: 14 April Through 14 October 1962, December 1962, p. 35, National Security Files: Countries: Cuba, box 61, JFKL, Boston, MA.

  61. NSA, COMINT report, Intercept of Probable Cuban Air Defense Grid Tracking, October 10, 1962, in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http:// www.nsa.gov/cuba.; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, SC No. 08088/63-KH, The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba, 1963, p. 81, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 323.

  62. CIA/ORR, SC 03387/64, DD/I staff study, Cuba 1962: Khrushchev’s Miscalculated Risk, February 13, 1964, p. 25, RG-263, entry 82, box 35, MORI DocID: 120333, NA, CP; Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Emergency Actions Center, Summary of Items of Significant Interest for the Period 200701–210700 September 1962, p. 3, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Johnson and Hatch, Synopsis, pp. 4–5.

  63. NSA, COMINT report, Further Information on Cargo Shipments to Cuba in Soviet Ships, October 11, 1962, in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://www.nsa.gov/ cuba.

  64. CIA, memorandum, Probable Soviet MRBM Sites in Cuba, October 16, 1962, p. 1, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, folder 46, NA, CP; memorandum, Lundahl to Director of Central Intelligence, Additional Information—Mission 3101, October 16, 1962, pp. 1–3, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, folder 50, NA, CP.

  65. For details of how the San Cristóbal area was designated as a possible missile-launching site to be investigated by a U-2 overflight, see excerpt from memorandum, Lehman to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA Handling of the Soviet Buildup in Cuba, 1 July–16 October 1962, November 14, 1962, pp. 23–26, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, folder 36, NA, CP. In another of those sadly too frequent instances of the CIA declassification personnel reclassifying previously declassified material in the post-9/11 era, in 2004 the CIA released to the CREST database at the National Archives another version of this document, which this time was heavily redacted, for which see CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001700180076-4, NA, CP.

  66. Memorandum for the record, MONGOOSE Meeting with the Attorney General, October 16, 1962, National Security Archive, Washington, DC.

  67. Confidential interview.

  68. NSA OH-1982-20, oral history, Interview with Harold L. Parish, October 12, 1982, p. 3, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD; NSA OH-1983-17, oral history, Interview with Paul Odonovich, August 5, 1983, pp. 123–127, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, pp. 326–27.

  69. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 327.

  70. Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee, Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, 2100 Hours, October 18, 1962, p. 1, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, folder 61, NA, CP; Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee, Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba, 2000 Hours, October 19, 1962, p. 2, RG-263, entry 25, box 1, folder 65, NA, CP; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 325.

  71. CIA, National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology: July–November 1962, June 18, 1963, p. 40, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161985, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; Timothy Naftali and Philip Zelikow, eds., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, vol. 2 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), pp. 520, 582.

  72. NSA OH-1983-17, oral history, Interview with Paul Odonovich, August 5, 1983, pp. 127–28, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD; Johnson and Hatch, Synopsis p. 9.

  73. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 329.

  74. Two weeks later, on November 4, the NSA cryptanalysts discovered that the same messages that were being passed on both teletype links were also being transmitted simultaneously by the Russian navy’s very low frequency (VLF) radio broadcast facility at Kudma, outside the city of Gorki. NSA concluded that neither of the radio links was providing communications support for the Soviet missile units in Cuba, suggesting that either the Kudma VLF radio transmission station or the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces’ primary high frequency radio transmitter facility at Perkushkovo, outside Moscow, was performing this function. Headquarters United States Air Force, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Revisions and Additions to S-25-62, Aerospace Forces Based in Cuba, supplement to annex 1, sec. 1, November 1, 1962, p. 32a, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, SC No. 08088/63-KH, The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba, 1963, pp. 78–79, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP; NPIC/R-1047/63, pho
tographic interpretation report, Soviet Communications Facilities in Cuba, January 1963, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78B04560A001000010081-8, NA, CP.

  75. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 329.

  76. National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology: July–November 1962, June 18, 1963, p. 48, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161985, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  77. CIA, DD/I staff study, The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba, February 17, 1964, p. 90, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Caesar-Polo-Esau Papers, http://www.foia.cia.gov/cpe.asp.

  78. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 329; message, 230750Z, USN-22 to DIST NOVEMBER WHISKEY/ALPHA, SIGINT Readiness Bravo, Owen, Spot Report No. 4, October 23, 1962; message, 230910Z, USN-22 to NOVEMBER WHISKEY/ALPHA, SIGINT Readiness Bravo, Owen, Spot Report No. 5, October 23, 1962, both in NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Document Archive of Declassified Files from the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://www.nsa.gov/ cuba. See also Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, eds., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, vol. 3 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p. 184.

  79. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 24, 1962, p. i, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725840, http://www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum for the director, Your Briefings of the NSC Executive Committee, November 3, 1962, p. 1, RG-263, entry 25, box 2, folder 109, NA, CP; National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology: July–November 1962, June 18, 1963, p. 52, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161985, http://www.foia.cia.gov; National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Measures, July 15, 1963, p. 14, RG-263, entry 82, box 28, MORI DocID: 107300, NA, CP; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 184.

  80. The eight ships that SIGINT indicated had reversed course were the freighters Yuri Gagarin, Klimovsk, Poltava, Dolmatova, Metallurg Kurako, Urgench, Fizik Vavilov, and Krasnograd. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 25, 1962, p. II-1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725841, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, Background Material for 24 October, sec. 3, Soviet Shipping to Cuba, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP 80B01 676-R001800010015-8, NA, CP; CIA, DD/I staff study, The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba, February 17, 1964, p. 89, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Caesar-Polo-Esau Papers, http://www.foia.cia.gov/cpe.asp.

  81. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 60.

  82. Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 329.

  83. Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 184.

  84. National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Measures, July 15, 1963, p. 10, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161983, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

  85. Norman Klar, Confessions of a Code Breaker (Tales From Decrypt) (privately published, 2004), pp. 137–38; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 185.

  86. Chief of Naval Operations, The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962, p. 49, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

  87. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 24, 1962, pp. 3–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725840, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 25, 1962, pp. 2–3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725841, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, Background Material for 24 October, pp. 2–3, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010015-8, NA, CP; memorandum for the director, Your Briefings of the NSC Executive Committee, November 3, 1962, p. 1, RG-263, entry 25, box 2, folder 109, NA, CP; Chief of Naval Operations, The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962, pp. 49–50, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, pp. 185, 187.

  88. Chief of Naval Operations, The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962, pp. 49–50, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

  89. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 25, 1962, pp. 2–3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725841, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, Background Material for 25 October, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010016-7, NA, CP; memorandum for the file, Executive Committee Meeting 10/25/62— 10:00 a.m., October 25, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100027-4, NA, CP; National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Changes, July 15, 1963, p. 15, RG-263, entry 82, box 28, MORI DocID: 107300, NA, CP; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 235.

  90. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 26, 1962, pp. 2–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725842, http://www.foia.cia.gov; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 287.

  91. United Nations General Assembly, Document A/5266, October 22, 1962, p. 2; memorandum for the file, Meeting of the NSC Executive Committee, 26 October 1962, 10:00 A.M., October 26, 1962, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100009-4, NA, CP.

  92. Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, p. 290.

  93. Chief of Naval Operations, OPNAV 24 Hour Resume of Events, 300000 to 310000 Oct 62, October 31, 1962, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; Commander Ser-vice Force U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Cuban Quarantine Operations, December 31, 1962, p. 4, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; memorandum, OP-03 to CNO, Compilation of Lessons Learned/Deficiencies Noted as a Result of the Cuban Operation, February 20, 1963, p. 12, National Security Archive, Washington, DC. See also Kennedy, Thirteen Days, p. 86; Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 56–57n; Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 444.

  94. NSA OH-1982-20, oral history, Interview with Harold L. Parish, October 12, 1982, p. 6, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

  95. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 27, 1962, pp. 3–5, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725843, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, Background Material for 27 October, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010026-6, NA, CP; Zelikow and May, Presidential Recordings, vol. 3, pp. 356–57.

  96. Regarding the August 30 and September 8, 1962, U-2 incidents, see IDEA 0887, memorandum, McMahon to Cunningham, Mission 127, September 12, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP33-02415A000300150009-2, NA, CP; memorandum, Lehman to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA Handling of the Soviet Buildup in Cuba, 1 July–16 October 1962, November 14, 1962, p. 12, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001700180076-4, NA, CP.

  97. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 28, 1962, pp. I-1–I-2, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725844, http://www.foia.cia.gov; National Indications Center, The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Changes, July 15, 1963, p. 15, RG-263, entry 82, box 28, MORI DocID: 107300, NA, CP; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, pp. 460, 491. Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing on U-2 intercept from JCS Historical Division, Notes Taken from Transcripts of Meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, October–November 1962, Dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, notes made in 1976 and typed in 1993, p. 22, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 329.

  98. NSA OH-1982-20, oral history, Interview with Harold L. Parish, October 12, 1982, p. 7, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD; Johnson, American Cryptology, bk. 2, p. 330. For another version of these events, see Seymour Hersh, “Was Castro out of Control in 1962?,” Washington Post, Octob
er 11, 1987.

  99. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 31, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725847, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, annex: Evidence on Possibility Cubans May Be Manning SA-2 SAM Sites in Cuba, November 1, 1962, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161977, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum for the file, NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November 1, 1962, 10:00 AM Meeting No. 16, November 1, 1962, p. 1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002600090022-3, NA, CP; CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, November 2, 1962, p. 2, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725850, http://www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum by McGeorge Bundy, NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November 2, 1962, 11:00 AM, Meeting No. 17, November 2, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002600090021-4, NA, CP; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, SC No. 08088/63-KH, The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba, 1963, pp. 81–82, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP; NSA OH-1982-20, oral history, Interview with Harold L. Parish, October 12, 1982, p. 6, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

  100.CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 28, 1962, pp. 3–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725844, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, DD/I staff study, The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba, February 17, 1964, p. 109, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Caesar-Polo-Esau Papers, http://www.foia.cia.gov/ cpe.asp.

  101. CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, October 29, 1962, p. IV-1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725845, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, Background Material for 29 October, p. IV-1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010029-3, NA, CP; memorandum for the record, October 29, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010029-3, NA, CP; John A. McCone, Memorandum of Meeting of Executive Committee of the NSC, Tuesday, October 30, 1962, 10:00 a.m., October 30, 1962, pp. 1–2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100009-4, NA, CP; CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, annex: Evidence of Cuban Instructions for Demonstrations, Sabotage Operations in Latin America, November 1, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725849, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum, The Crisis: USSR/Cuba, November 2, 1962, p. 3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725850, http://www.foia.cia.gov.