9. Spravka (preceding the visit of Souphanouvong to the USSR), January 26, 1962, 0570, 8/8/15, MFA.
10. Protocol 11, January 8, 1962, AOK. The most significant absentee was Mikoyan, Khrushchev’s debating partner on Berlin, who in 1961 had openly predicted trouble. Shelepin and Brezhnev were also not in their chairs. Instead the visitors’ banks were filled with Gromyko and some of the key second-tier foreign policy specialists from the Central Committee and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
11. He also recalled having said this to the Italian prime minister Antonio Fanfani and the Norwegian foreign minister Halvard Lange.
12. Thompson to Kennan, January 5, 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1961–1963, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1998), vol. 5, p. 347.
13. Ibid., pp. 346–48.
14. Thompson to Rusk, January 12, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 751–55.
15. Moscow (Thompson) to State, January 12, 1962, ibid., pp. 751–55.
16. Summary, January 12, 1962, Bolshakov-RFK general meeting summaries (May 9, 1961–December 14, 1962), GRU.
17. Ibid.
18. NSK to JFK, January 18, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 14, pp. 763–66.
19. Theodore White, “Friday, the 26th,” Theodore White Papers, Box 193, Binder “May 1961–December 1962,” Harvard. The authors are grateful to Laura Moranchek for discovering this item.
20. The White House did not involve U.S. Ambassador Thompson in the invitation to Adzhubei. Thompson heard about the invitation from Moscow Radio on January 25, 1962. Thompson to Bohlen, January 25, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 5, p. 353.
21. Pierre Salinger, With Kennedy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 213–14.
22. Adzhubei to CC, March 12, 1962, APRF.
23. Adzhubei to Moscow, January 30, 1962, APRF. No U.S. memorandum of conversation for the postlunch conversation has been found. All that exists is a memorandum by an official who did not attend the meeting that was based on information given to him after the fact by President Kennedy. Akalovsky, January 30, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 5, pp. 356–60.
24. Ibid.
25. Malinovsky and Zakharov to CC, January 10, 1962, Berlin Report, Roll 4640, Fond 5, Opis 30, Delo 399, RGANI. That same day the Soviet Defense Ministry, which had been sending daily reports to the Central Committee on the situation in Germany, reduced the regularity of these reports to one a week.
26. January 20, 1962, MFA. The Foreign Ministry rejected a recommendation from Pervukhin that Moscow lodge a protest against the Americans for the use of the autobahn by the U.S. military. The Soviet ambassador in East Berlin was told that this protest was unnecessary.
27. CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, February 16, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 5, pp. 369–70.
28. Foy Kohler, memorandum for the record, February 7, 1962, ibid., vol. 14, p. 792.
29. CIA, Current Intelligence Weekly Review, February 16, 1962, loc. cit. Zakharov and Malinovsky to the CC, February 17, 1962, F. 5, Opis 30, Delo 399, p. 57, RGANI. This document describes the Soviet action as having been ordered by the headquarters of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and indicates that the Kremlin knew of the decision and presumably approved it.
30. Memcon, NSK and Ulbricht, February 26, 1962, APRF.
31. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy (New York: Norton, 1997), pp. 154–55.
32. Spravka (summary), GRU. This was also the period that Kennedy seemed to indicate in an interview with Stewart Alsop, published in the Saturday Evening Post, that he would be the first to use nuclear weapons in a war, if need be. See Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., p. 177.
33. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962–1986) (New York: Times Books, 1995), p. 52.
34. Rusk to Dept. of State, March 13, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 15, pp. 40–41.
35. Spravka (preceding visit of Souphanouvong to USSR), January 26, 1962, 0570, 8/8/15, MFA.
36. Memcon, Abramov and Souphanouvong, February 3, 1962, 0570, 8/7/5 MFA.
37. Spravka (preceding visit of Souphanouvong to USSR), January 26, 1962, 0570, 8/8/15, MFA.
38. Memcon, Abramov and Souphanouvong, February 3, 1962, 0570, 8/7/5 MFA.
39. Memcon, March 29, 1962, Abramov meeting with Liu Chuna of the Chinese economic and cultural mission in Laos. Memcon, March 31, 1962, Abramov meeting with the deputy chief of the State Planning Committee of North Vietnam, Le Van Huan. Liu Chuna and Le Van Huan both described to Abramov the agreements reached at the quadripartite meeting earlier in the month, 0570, 8/7/5, MFA.
40. Ibid.
41. Thee, op. cit., pp. 241–42. Abramov shared with his Polish colleague a copy of the letter that Moscow had given to Ho.
42. Lifeng Deng, Jianguohou junshi xingdong quanlu [Complete Records of Military Operations since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China] (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin, 1994), p. 355, cited in Han Zhao, “China’s Policy toward Laotian Neutrality, 1961–1975,” unpublished paper. The authors are grateful to Mr. Zhao, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, for sharing this paper. See also Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 104.
43. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., p. 153.
44. Ibid., pp. 143–45.
45. Ibid., pp. 159–60.
46. It was approved February 8, 1962. Ibid., p. 154.
47. Memcon, Alekseyev and Castro, February 6, 1963, APRF.
48. Ibid.
49. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., pp. 167–68.
50. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle of the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005), p. 43.
51. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., pp. 167–68.
52. For information on the Nicaraguan operation run by Andara y Ubeda (code name Prim), see Andrew and Mitrokhin, op. cit., p. 43.
53. April 9, 1962, decision of the Presidium, APRF.
54. Sergei Khrushchev attended this briefing. See Sergei N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev and the Making of a Superpower (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), pp. 468–82.
55. Ibid., p. 474.
56. For technical information on the R-16, see Oleg Bukharin et al., ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 189–92.
57. On the R-9, see Sergei Khrushchev, op. cit., p. 474; Bukharin et al., op. cit., pp. 192–95; James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon (New York, Wiley, 1997), pp. 117–20.
58. Steno, May 31, 1962, AOK.
59. Ibid.
60. Protocol 30, May 4, 1962, AOK.
61. Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy and the Jupiters, 1957–1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
62. The only record of this conversation comes from historian Colonel General Dmitri Volkogonov, Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (New York, Free Press, 1998), p. 236. As adviser to President Boris Yeltsin, Volkogonov had exclusive and extensive access to Soviet-era political and military records.
63. Ibid. The Russian Defense Ministry’s official history also argues that some staff work for this operation had to have been done before Khrushchev’s visit to Bulgaria. Na Kraiu Propasti [On the Brink] (Moscow: 1994), pp. 35–40.
64. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara briefing summarized in memcon, “Meeting with Congressional Leaders,” May 15, 1962, 9:15 A.M., FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 24, p. 770.
65. Message to DCI McCone, May 13, 1962, ibid., p. 763. Memcon, May 15, 1962, ibid., p. 770.
66. Memcon, May 13, 1962, ibid., p. 760.
67. Memo, Forrestal to JFK, May 14, 1962, ibid., pp. 767–68.
68. Khrushchev said this in a speech near Pleven, Bulgaria, on May 18. The Current Digest
of the Soviet Press, vol. 14, no. 20 (June 13, 1962), p. 4. Khrushchev was in Bulgaria from May 14 to 20.
69. Zakharov and Malinovsky to the CC, May 26, 1962, F. 5, Opis 30, Delo 399, RGANI.
70. Steno, May 26, 1961. On Chinese assessments of the situation in Southeast Asia, see Deputy Foreign Minister Ko Bang Fi’s September 23, 1961, presentation at the quadripartite socialist summit on Laos in Hanoi, 0570, 7/5/15, MFA, and memcon, Gromyko and Chen Yi, July 6, 1961, 0570, 7/5/14, MFA.
71. The gist of Bolshakov’s message was preserved in a memcon produced by Dean Rusk after speaking with RFK, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 24, p. 782, n. 2. A Soviet account was not found. However, the fact that Bolshakov and RFK met twice on May 17 to discuss Laos was noted by the GRU the list prepared of RFK and Bolshakov meetings.
72. Dobrynin, op. cit., p. 52.
73. Current Digest of the Soviet Press, vol. 14, no. 20 (June 13, 1962), p. 4.
74. Protocol 30, May 4, 1962, AOK.
75. Strobe Talbott, ed., Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 494.
76. John Lewis Gaddis uses this elegant concept to describe the Cuban missile crisis. It is equally useful in thinking about how the resolution of the Cuban problem eventually became bound up with Khrushchev’s efforts to resolve all his problems. Gaddis, op. cit., p. 261.
77. Talbott, ed., op. cit., p. 494.
78. Anastas Mikoyan, Tak Bylo [As It Was] (Moscow: Vagrius, 1994), p. 606.
79. Protocol 32, May 21, 1962, AOK.
80. Ibid. This note is cryptic on how he described the offensive nature of the plan. It is only through the study of associated materials and the later Malin notes that it becomes clear that he saw the strategic nuclear missiles as offensive weapons primarily deployed to establish a balance of terror with the United States.
81. Malin noted Khrushchev saying, “Comrade Malinovsky and Biryuzov should make calculations, consider the time issue.” Protocol 32, May 21, 1962, AOK.
82. Protocol 32, May 21, 1962, AOK and Dmitri Volkogonov, Sem’ Vozhdei [Seven Leaders] (Moscow: Novosti, 1995), pp. 421–22. For our reconstruction in “One Hell of a Gamble” of how the Kremlin considered Khrushchev’s proposal to send missiles to Cuba, we drew upon information from an apparent May 21 Defense Council meeting described in Volkogonov’s book Sem Vozhdei, as well as on Colonel General Semyon P. Ivanov’s brief notes from the Presidium meeting of May 24, 1962, and the short description of the resolution passed by the Presidium on May 24. We did not then have Malin’s notes for the May 21 and May 24 Presidium meetings where the proposal was discussed. The Malin notes showed that it took two Presidium meetings for the proposal to be adopted, and even then the operation was not to be formally approved by the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party until the Cubans said yes. It now appears that the May 21 meeting was a joint session of the Defense Council and the Presidium (the Defense Council included military commanders). It is not clear from the Malin note for the May 24 Presidium meeting whether it was also considered a joint Defense Council–Presidium meeting. See Protocol 32 (continuation), May 24, 1962, AOK.
83. Protocol 32 (continuation), May 24, 1962, AOK.
84. Fursenko interview with Aleksandr Alekseyev, February 16, 1994.
85. Ibid.
86. Fursenko and Naftali, op. cit., p. 182.
CHAPTER 18: “I THINK WE WILL WIN THIS OPERATION”
1. Resolution, April 11, 1961, APRF.
2. NSK to Castro, June 12, 1962, Folio 3, List 65, File 872, pp. 58–59, APRF.
3. Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989), p. 206. Garthoff cites General Dmitri Volkogonov.
4. Na Krayu Propasti [On the Brink] (Moscow: 1994), pp. 54, 73–74.
5. Protocol 35, June 10, 1962, AOK.
6. Protocol 39, July 1, 1962, AOK.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Steno, January 8, 1962, AOK.
11. Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), pp. 140–46.
12. Protocol 39, July 1, 1962, AOK.
13. Memorandum from Michael V. Forrestal to McGeorge Bundy, June 11, 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS] 1961–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994), vol. 24, pp. 837–39. See also note 1.
14. Telegram, Averell Harriman to secretary of state, July 3, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 19, pp. 860–62. In this cable, Harriman described his meeting on July 2 with Soviet official Georgi M. Pushkin, who had read a personal message from Khrushchev.
15. Kennedy’s envoy, Averell Harriman, who knew nothing about the substance of the Presidium’s July 1 meeting, nonetheless reported Mikoyan’s absence from the Kremlin that day. Harriman to Washington, July 3, 1962, ibid., vol. 24, p. 860.
16. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 191.
17. Malinovsky and Zakharov, “In connection with your instructions, the Defense Ministry Recommends…,” May 24, 1962, Volkogonov collection, Library of Congress.
18. Protocol 40, July 6, 1962, AOK. Although the switch in plan was evident from other materials available in the 1990s, the authors did not have access to this note (and Khrushchev’s differentiation between the different kinds of weapons) when writing “One Hell of a Gamble.”
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. NSK to JFK (undated), FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 15, pp. 207–12.
22. NSK to Ulbricht, July 11, 1962, APRF.
23. Even before this latest release of Soviet documents a few astute scholars noticed the sharp change in Soviet rhetoric on Berlin in July 1962 and concluded there might be a link to Khrushchev’s May decision to send missiles to Cuba. See Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House in the Cuban Missile Crisis, concise ed. (New York: Norton, 2001, 2002); and Graham T. Allison and Philip D. Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999). We think it unlikely that Khrushchev had West Berlin in the front of his mind when he decided to put missiles in Cuba during his visit to Bulgaria. Khrushchev’s plans for 1962 were characteristically dynamic. In May the Cuban operation had unfocused goals, reflecting the fact that the operation stemmed from a general impatience with the worldwide balance of power. By July, however, Khrushchev was clearly working out a more specific strategy for a major political offensive in 1962, one that would take final form only after Kennedy turned down Moscow’s last effort at a diplomatic settlement over West Berlin.
24. Memcon, JFK and Dobrynin, July 17, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 15, p. 223.
25. Memcon, “Meeting with the President on Berlin Planning, 1000 hours, 19 July 1962,” Timothy Naftali, ed., Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises (New York: Norton, 2001), vol. 1, pp. 203–26.
26. Cable, Thompson to DOS, July 26, 1962, 1:00 P.M., FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 5, p. 465.254.
27. Cable, Thompson to DOS, July 26, 1962, 1:00 P.M., FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 15, p.
28. Cable, Thompson to DOS, July 25, 1962, 4:00 P.M., ibid., pp. 252–53.
29. Naftali, “Introduction: Five Hundred Days,” Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, op. cit., pp. xli–iv.
30. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy, in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollection of the Kennedy Years (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 168.
31. Cited in Evan Thomas, Robert F. Kennedy, His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
32. Zakharov and Ivanov to Kosygin, September 12, 1962, APRF.
33. Ibid.
34. Instructions to Soviet ambassador (Dobrynin), (n.d., but clearly in response to RFK and Bolshakov meeting of July 31, 1962), Folio 3, List 66, File 316, pp. 194–95, APRF.
35. Ibid.
36. CIA, Special National Intelligence Estimate, “Soviet Intentions with
Respect to Berlin,” August 1, 1962, NSF, Box 100, LBJ Library.
37. Naftali, ed., Meeting with Llewellyn Thompson on Khrushchev, August 8, 1962, Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, loc. cit., vol. 1, p. 270.
38. Thompson to SecState, July 28, 1962, FRUS, 1961–63, vol. 15, p. 255.
39. Naftali, ed., Meeting with Llewellyn Thompson on Khrushchev, August 8, 1962, Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, loc. cit., vol. 1, p. 266.
40. Ibid., p. 267.
41. Ibid.
42. Vladimir S. Lavrov, Third European Department, to Mikhail F. Bodrov, July 25, 1962, “Materialy o politicheskom i ekonomicheskom polozhenii v Zapadnom Berline,” [Materials on the Political and Economic Situation in West Berlin], 1962, 7/54/29, MFA; Vladimir S. Lavrov to Vladimir J. Erofeev, July 25 1962, ibid.
43. Moscow (Third European Department) to Tunis; Moscow to Damascus; Moscow to Beirut; Moscow to Rabat; Moscow to Baghdad, July 28 1962, “Materialy o politicheskom i ekonomicheskom polozhenii v Zapadnom Berline,” [Materials on the Political and Economic Situation in West Berlin], 1962, 7/54/29, MFA.
44. Report of the responsible KGB officer from the Ukrainian KGB in the Nikolaiyevsky region, August 24, 1962. Report of the KGB officer to the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijian SSR, August 30, 1962, FSB.
45. Timothy Naftali and Philip Zelikow, eds., Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises (New York: Norton, 2001), vol. 2, p. 25.
46. Ibid., p. 27.
47. Ibid., p. 29.
48. Dobrynin, From the Diary of the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, September 13, 1962, APRF.
49. Ibid.
50. Malinovsky to Khrushchev, September 6, 1962, Volkogonov Collection, Library of Congress. Khrushchev scribbled his decision on this memorandum.
51. CIA memorandum, September 12, 1962, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 10, p. 1055, n. 1.
52. Ivanov, Spravka-Doklad, “On the Correction of a Section of Operation ‘Anadyr’ in September–October 1962,” September 13, 1962, Volkogonov Collection, Library of Congress.
Khrushchev's Cold War Page 85