111. Hoskyns, op. cit., p. 214.
112. Taubman, op. cit., p. 477.
113. Kalb, op. cit., pp. 103–104.
114. Protocol 306, October 15, 1960, AOK.
115. Hoskyns, op. cit., p. 248.
116. Kalb, op. cit., p. 104.
117. U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots, p. 24.
118. Ibid., pp. 24–25.
119. See Lawrence Devlin’s comments at Cold War International History Project’s Critical Oral History Conference, “The 1960–1961 Congo Crisis,” September 22–24, 2004. The authors are grateful to Christian Ostermann, the director of the CWIHP, for allowing us to see the edited transcript of this event.
120. Kalb, op. cit., p. 111.
121. Ibid., p. 112.
122. Protocol 306, October 15, 1960, AOK.
123. Kalb, op. cit., p. 135.
124. Ibid., p. 136.
125. See Devlin, “The 1960–1961 Congo Crisis,” loc. cit.
126. Kalb, op. cit., p. 133.
127. Taubman, op. cit., pp. 475–76.
128. Protocol 306, October 15, 1960, AOK.
129. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., p. 63.
130. Ibid., pp. 65–70.
131. “Pravda Charges Plot by U.S.,” New York Times, October 15, 1960.
132. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., pp. 65–70.
133. Ibid.
134. Ibid., p. 161.
CHAPTER 13: SOUTHEAST ASIAN TEST
1. Diary of Soviet Ambassador Aleksandr Abramov, meeting with Kong Le, October 17, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2. MFA.
2. He visited Burma and Indonesia in the spring of 1960. It was Khrushchev’s second visit to Burma.
3. Strobe Talbott, ed., Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), p. 315.
4. Ibid., p. 480.
5. William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life (New York: Theia, 2000), pp. 493–95.
6. Ibid., pp. 510–13.
7. Memcon, Soviet Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. S. Chervonenko with the ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the People’s Republic of China, Chan Ti Bin, October 13, 1960, 0570, 6/3/5, MFA.
8. Draft Paper on Soviet-Laos Relations [no date] 0570 6/3/5, MFA.
9. This note was handed to the Laotian ambassador to Thailand on October 23, 1956. 0570/6/3/5, MFA.
10. Spravka, Laos, 0570, MFA.
11. S. Chervonenko, meeting with North Vietnamese Ambassador Chan Ti Bin, October 13, 1960, 0570 6/3/5, MFA.
12. North Vietnamese sources stated that the Soviets provided no assistance to Laos of any kind until December 1960. It is hard to believe that in the 1940s and 1950s the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ignored the Indochinese Communist Party and its Lao successor.
13. Memcon, Soviet ambassador to the PRC, S. Chervonenko, with DRV ambassador to China, Chan Ti Bin, October 13, 1960, 0570, 6/3/5, MFA.
14. Cited in Chen Jian and Yang Kuisong, “Chinese Politics and the Collapse of the Sino-Soviet Alliance,” Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance 1945–1963, ed. Odd Arne Westad (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 272.
15. Ibid., p. 273.
16. Talbott, ed., op. cit., p. 464.
17. See George Eliades, “United States Decision-making in Laos, 1942–1962,” unpublished Harvard dissertation, pp. 333–372, for a superb discussion of these debates in the Eisenhower administration in the second half of 1960.
18. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace 1956–1961: The White House Years (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), p. 607.
19. Eliades, op. cit., p. 256.
20. Eisenhower, op. cit., p. 608.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Diary of Ambassador Aleksandr Abramov, meeting with Indian Ambassador Patnom, October 13, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2. MFA.
24. Memcon, Souvanna and Abramov, October 27, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2, MFA.
25. “New Laos Drive Ordered,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 15, 1960.
26. “U.S. Urges Laos Drop Attack Plan; Fears Move on Right-Wing Force in Luang Prabang Would Aid Pro-Reds,” New York Times, November 16, 1960.
27. Jacques Nevard, “Laos to Seek Ties with Red Chinese; Missions Going to Peiping and North Vietnam—A Top General Defects to Rebels,” New York Times, November 18, 1960.
28. “Reds Taken into Laos Cabinet,” Washington Post and Times, November 19, 1960.
29. Memcon, Abramov and Souvanna Phouma, November 23, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2, MFA.
30. “Laos Regime Hints at Call for Red Aid,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 23, 1960.
31. “Soviet Aid to Arrive in Laos in Few Days,” New York Times, November 24, 1960; “Reds to Fly Supplies to Laos,” Washington Post and Times Herald, November 24, 1960.
32. Eliades, op. cit., p. 349.
33. “Laotians Report Rightist Attack; Premier Says 3 Battalions and Armor Are Striking 100 miles from Capital,” New York Times, December 1, 1960.
34. Roy Essoyan, “Laos Leftists Protest Inclusion of Rightists in All-Party Coalition,” Washington Post and Times Herald, December 3, 1960.
35. Jacques Nevard, “Laos Calls on US to Halt Rebel Aid; Premier Also Discloses Bid for Cease-fire Agreement with Attacking Rightists,” New York Times, December 6, 1960.
36. Jacques Nevard, “Laos Confirms Rightist Attack; Premier Tells of Fighting 100 Miles from Capital—Sends Reinforcement,” New York Times, December 4, 1960.
37. Jacques Nevard, “Rightist Troops Advance in Laos; Cross River at Scene of Fighting 100 Miles East of Neutralist Capital,” New York Times, December 5, 1960.
38. Jacques Nevard, “Soviet Says U.S. Fans War in Laos; Envoy in Vientiane Hints of Intervention If Neutralist Regime Is Imperiled,” New York Times, December 6, 1960. Arthur Dommen, Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 164.
39. Resolution, December 7, 1960, APRF. Some of the Soviet supplies were carried by rail across the Soviet-Chinese border to Nanjing and then flown to Hanoi and Vietienne. Eleven railway cars of weapons and thirty-five cars of petroleum products arrived at the Soviet-Chinese border on December 10, 1960. See Memcon, N. G. Sudarikov, and Li Xian, December 10, 1960, 0100, 53/455/13, p. 53, cited in Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003), p. 143.
40. “On Laos,” March 14, 1961, 0570, 7/6/19, pp. 1–3, MFA.
41. Memcons, Aleksandr Abramov and Quinim Pholsena, December 9 and 10, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2, MFA.
42. Arthur Dommen, “Laotian Army Chief Proclaims Military Rule,” Washington Post and Times Herald, December 11, 1960.
43. Jacques Nevard, “Soviet Guns Sent into Laos by Air; Pro-Red in Power; Artillery Bolsters Vientiane Defense against Pro-West Forces outside City,” New York Times, December 12, 1960.
44. Memcon, V. V. Kuznetsov and Polish Ambassador B. Yashchuke, January 9, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA.
45. Aleksandr Abramov, Diary, December 2–20, 1960, 0570, 6/3/2, MFA.
46. Madeleine G. Kalb, The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa—from Eisenhower to Kennedy (New York: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 184–89.
47. Herbert S. Parmet, Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (New York: Dial Press, 1980), pp. 226–29.
48. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), pp. 222–23.
49. Parmet, op. cit., p. 227.
CHAPTER 14: “HE IS A SON OF A BITCH”
1. Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 475.
2. American Legion Convention, Miami Beach, Fla., October 18, 1960. U.S. Senate, The Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences and Statements of Senator John F. Kennedy, August 1 through November 7, 1960, Committee on Commerce, 87th Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1961), 1961.
3. Ibid
., passim.
4. Fresno, California, September 9, 1960. Ibid.
5. Cincinnati, Ohio, October 6, 1960. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Gromyko to NSK, August 3, 1960, 5/30/335, pp. 92–108, TsKhSD, reproduced in Cold War International History Project [hereafter CWIHP] Bulletin, no. 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 65–67. Information Department (Department 16) to chief of D Department, May 31, 1961, pp. 96–109, SVR.
8. Gromyko to NSK, August 3, 1960, 5/30/335, pp. 92–108, TsKhSD, reproduced in CWIHP Bulletin, no. 4 (Fall 1994), pp. 65–67.
9. Information Department (Department 16) to chief of D Department, May 31, 1961, pp. 96–109, SVR.
10. Khrushchev’s view of the leadership of the United States comes through clearly in two stenographic accounts of Presidium meetings, May 26, 1961, and January 8, 1962, AOK.
11. See memcon, Ulbricht and Khrushchev meeting (East German version), November 30, 1960; Ulbricht to Khrushchev, September 15, 1961; Ulbricht to Khrushchev, October 31, 1961 in “Khrushchev and the ‘Concrete Rose,’” trans. Hope Harrison, Papers, appendices. Memcon, NSK and Ulbricht (Russian version), November 30, 1960, APRF.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Shelepin to NSK, December 3, 1960, SVR.
15. NSK to Ulbricht, January 30, 1961, “Khrushchev and the ‘Concrete Rose,’” loc. cit.
16. Remarks in Madera, California, September 9, 1960, U.S. Senate, Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences and Statements of Senator John F. Kennedy, loc. cit.
17. JFK press conference, July 28, 1960, ibid.
18. Cited in David G. Coleman, “The Greatest Issue of All: Berlin, National Security and the Cold War,” unpublished dissertation (University of Queensland, 2000), pp. 236–37. The authors are grateful to Professor Coleman for sharing his cogently argued and thoroughly researched dissertation.
19. Ibid.
20. John Helgerson, Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates 1952–1992 (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 1996), ch. 3, passim.
21. Harrison Salisbury observed the prices in early 1962. Harrison E. Salisbury, A New Russia? (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 120.
22. Steno, February 16, 1961, AOK.
23. Salisbury, op. cit., p. 120.
24. Ibid. Regarding the consequences of the decision to expand the height of these buildings, see Steno, June 17, 1961, AOK.
25. Protocol 320, March 23, 1961, AOK.
26. Steno, February 16, 1961, AOK.
27. Ibid.
28. Protocol 321, March 25, 1961, AOK.
29. William E. Griffith, Albania and the Sino-Soviet Split (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1963), p. 81. At their party congress in February the Albanians had launched a verbal attack on Khrushchev in the presence of a Soviet delegation headed by Presidium member Pyotr Pospelov. Hoxha’s regime in Tirana shared the view in Beijing that Khrushchev was too soft on Western capitalists.
30. Protocol 316, February 24, 1961, AOK.
31. Spravka, On Laos, March 14, 1961, 0570, 7/6/19, MFA.
32. Ibid.
33. Telegram, JFK to Rusk (Bangkok), March 27, 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1961–1963, vol. 24, pp. 105–7. This cable, in which the president described his meeting with Gromyko, is the only U.S. record that has been found. A Soviet memcon was not found among the Foreign Ministry’s Laos records.
34. Memcon, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister G. Pushkin with Nguyen Zui Chinya, deputy prime minister, DRV, April 1, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA.
35. The Soviets announced their support for a cease-fire on April 7. See statement of Pathet Lao in response to the Soviet position, April 7, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA. Telephonogram, Soviet Ambassador Chervonenko (Beijing) to Moscow, April 12, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA. Assessment of Chinese aide-memoire, May 12, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA.
36. Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2000), p. 431.
37. Ibid., pp. 433–34.
38. Fursenko, in Leningrad at the time, recalls the spontaneous pride of those in the USSR’s second city who came out to celebrate Gagarin’s achievement.
39. Sergei Khrushchev recalls his surprise at the scale of the celebration.
40. At a Presidium meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev discussed the problem of collapsing balconies. See Steno, June 17, 1961, AOK.
41. Canadian Embassy, Havana, to Ottawa, April 26, 1961, “Bay of Pigs 40 Days After: Briefing Book of International Documentation from Brazilian, British Canadian, Czech and Russian Archives,” International Conference, Havana, March 22–24, 2001.
42. KGB (Mexico City) to Center, April 12, 1961, SVR.
43. See Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: Norton, 1997), pp. 47–92.
44. Thompson to SecState, April 1, 1961, Record Group 59, State Department Central Decimal File, 611.61, NARA-II.
45. The President’s News news conference of April 12, 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy Containing the Public Message, Speeches, and Statement of the President January 20 to December 31, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962) pp. 258–59.
46. Fursenko interview of Aleksandr Alekseyev, 1993. See also Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., p. 89.
47. Memcon, Ernesto Guevara and S. M. Kudriavtsev, April 14, 1961, Bay of Pigs Collection, National Security Archive.
48. Canadian Embassy, Havana, to Ottawa, April 26, 1961, “Bay of Pigs 40 Days After: Briefing Book of International Documentation from Brazilian, British Canadian, Czech and Russian archives,” International Conference, Havana, March 22–24, 2001. Evidence that Castro did not know the date of the Bay of Pigs invasion ahead of time comes from a speech he made to the Cuban people on April 23; see Canadian Embassy, Havana, to Ottawa, April 27, 1961, ibid.
49. Havana to Center, April 17, 1961, File 88631, pp. 169–70, SVR. See Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., pp. 93–94, for the story of how the Soviet intelligence service mobilized to handle this unexpected development.
50. Athens to the Center, April 28, 1961, 87701 (March 1961–August 1962: Internal and Economic Politics of USA), p. 31, SVR; Washington to the Center, April 30, 1961, 87701, p. 33, SVR; London to the Center, April 29, 1961, 87701, p. 32, SVR. Kennedy did indeed undertake an internal review of the role of intelligence in the disaster. Soviet information on this internal review of the Bay of Pigs was quite poor. First, it was reported that Telford Taylor, former U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, was in charge of this study. In fact the chief was General Maxwell Taylor, military assistant to President Kennedy and later chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Paris to the Center, June 3, 1961, p. 49, SVR.
51. The source was a journalist named Wald, a correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune. London to the Center, April 29, 1961, 87701, p. 32, SVR.
52. See Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., pp. 92–97; Canadian Embassy, Havana, to Ottawa, April 27, 1961, “Bay of Pigs 40 Days After: Briefing Book of International Documentation from Brazilian, British Canadian, Czech and Russian Archives,” International Conference, Havana, March 22–24, 2001.
53. April 25, 1961, 3/65/900, p. 119, APRF.
54. Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), photo insert commentary.
55. Naftali interview with Edwin O. Guthman, July 14, 1994.
56. Timothy Naftali interview with McGeorge Bundy, November 1995.
57. Ibid.
58. For evidence of Kennedy’s commitment to a comprehensive nuclear test ban, see Timothy Naftali, ed., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy The Great Crises (New York: Norton, 2001), vol. 1, pp. 132–86.
59. Kennedy told his closest associates that had it not been for his experience in Laos, he would have sent men into Laos in April 1961. For a discussion of how close he came, see Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’
s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 299–304.
60. May 9, 1961, summary, Kratkoie Soveshchanie: Beseda G Bolshakova s R Kennedy (9 Maya 1961 goda–14 Dekabria 1962 goda), GRU [summaries of meetings between G. Bolshakov and R. Kennedy (May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962), GRU. Hereafter this document will be referred to as Bolshakov-RFK general meeting summaries (May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962)]. No American account of this meeting has been found.
61. NSK to JFK, May 12, 1961 (delivered May 16, 1961), FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 6, pp. 18–21.
62. Khrushchev discussed military pressure on him at the May 26, 1961, Presidium meeting. Steno, May 26, 1961, AOK. He mentioned the Soviet delay in developing the ability to test underground at a Presidium meeting in April 1963. Steno, April 1963, AOK.
63. Protocol 329, May 18, 1961, instructions regarding Bolshakov meeting with RFK, 3-66-311, APRF.
64. Pervukhin to MFA, May 19, 1961, cited in “Ulbricht and the Concrete ‘Rose,’” loc. cit., p. 36.
65. The basis for our knowledge of the May 21, 1961, meeting comes from two synopses of the RFK-Bolshakov conversations prepared by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. The first, prepared in 1995, we have referred to as the Bolshakov-RFK general meeting summaries (May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962) and the second, which was prepared in 1999, deals only with conversations related to the German question: Kratkoie Soveshchanie: Beseda G. N. Bolshakova s R Kennedy i blizhaishim okruzheniem ego i presidenta J. Kennedy po germanskomu voprosu (21 Maia 1961–13 Aprelia 1962) [summaries of meetings between Georgi Bolshakov and Robert Kennedy and with his inner circle and that of President J. Kennedy on the German Question (May 21, 1961–April 13, 1962). Hereafter these will be referred to as the Bolshakov German Question summaries (May 21, 1961–April 13, 1962)].
66. Summary, May 21, 1961, Bolshakov German Question summaries (May 21, 1961–April 13, 1962), GRU.
67. Ibid.
68. Thompson to SecState, May 24, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 66–69. Thompson did not report any direct quotations. These come from what Khrushchev told the Presidium on May 26. See Steno, May 26, 1961, and for Robert Kennedy’s responses to Georgi Bolshakov, see summary, May 24, 1961, Bolshakov-RFK general meeting summaries (May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962), GRU.
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