John F. Kennedy
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS JOHN F. KENNEDY THE GREAT CRISES, VOLUME ONE JULY 30–AUGUST 1962 Timothy Naftali Editor, Volume One George Eliades Francis Gavin Erin Mahan Jonathan Rosenberg David Shreve Associate Editors, Volume One Patricia Dunn Assistant Editor Philip Zelikow and Ernest May General Editors B W. W. NORTON & COMPANY • NEW YORK • LONDON Copyright © 2001 by The Miller Center of Public Affairs Portions of this three-volume set were previously published by Harvard University Press in The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Philip D. Zelikow and Ernest R. May. Copyright © 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 The text of this book is composed in Bell, with the display set in Bell and Bell Semi-Bold Composition by Tom Ernst Manufacturing by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Book design by Dana Sloan Production manager: Andrew Marasia Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data John F. Kennedy : the great crises. p. cm. (The presidential recordings) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: v. 1. July 30–August 1962 / Timothy Naftali, editor—v. 2. September 4–October 20, 1962 / Timothy Naftali and Philip Zelikow, editors—v. 3. October 22–28, 1962 / Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, editors. ISBN 0-393-04954-X 1. United States—Politics and government—1961–1963—Sources. 2. United States— Foreign relations—1961–1963—Sources. 3. Crisis management—United States—History— 20th century—Sources. 4. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917–1963—Archives. I. Naftali, Timothy J. II. Zelikow, Philip, 1954– III. May, Ernest R. IV. Series. E841.J58 2001 973.922—dc21 2001030053 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110 www.wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT 1234567890 MILLER CENTER OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA The Presidential Recordings Project Philip Zelikow Director of the Center Timothy Naftali Director of the Project Editorial Advisory Board Michael Beschloss Taylor Branch Robert Dallek Walter Isaacson Allen Matusow Richard Neustadt Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Robert Schulzinger Contents The Presidential Recordings Project Philip Zelikow and Ernest May xi Preface to John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises, Volumes 1–3 Philip Zelikow and Ernest May xvii Editors’ Acknowledgments xxv Areas of Specialization for Research Scholars xxvii A Note on Sources xxix Meeting Participants and Other Frequently Mentioned Persons xxxi Introduction: Five Hundred Days Timothy Naftali xli WEEKEND OF JULY 28–29, 1962 3 Prologue: Taping System Installed 3 MONDAY, JULY 30, 1962 4 11:52 A.M.–12:20 P.M. Meeting on Brazil 5 12:25–12:57 P.M. Meeting on Peruvian Recognition 26 12:58–1:10 P.M. Meeting on Europe and General Diplomatic Matters 43 4:00–4:55 P.M. Meeting on the Economy and the Budget 52 5:00–6:48 P.M. Meeting on Nuclear Test Ban 80 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1962 130 11:30 A.M.–12:43 P.M. Meeting on Nuclear Test Ban 132 4:45–5:32 P.M. Meeting on Nuclear Test Ban 167 5:35–6:25 P.M. Meeting with the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) 186 viii CONTENTS FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1962 202 10:33–11:12 A.M. Meeting on Berlin 203 11:14 –11:20 A.M. Meeting with Lyman Lemnitzer 227 MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1962 233 6:00–6:42 P.M. Meeting with Wilbur Mills on the Tax Cut Proposal 234 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1962 260 10:36–11:12 A.M. Meeting with Llewellyn Thompson on Khrushchev 261 5:30–6:12 P.M. Meeting on China and the Congo 272 THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1962 287 10:00–10:55 A.M. Meeting on Peru and Haiti 287 10:55 A.M.–12:15 P.M. Meeting on Berlin 311 4:30–5:47 P.M. Meeting with Business Leaders on the Tax Cut Proposal 335 FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1962 361 10:10–11:10 A.M. Meeting on the Tax Cut Proposal 362 11:20 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Meeting on the Gold and Dollar Crisis 385 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1962 418 4:10–4:45 P.M. Meeting on Laos 419 6:35–6:53 P.M. Meeting with John McCone 439 THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1962 443 10:50–11:46 A.M. Meeting with Douglas MacArthur 445 5:50–6:32 P.M. Meeting on the Gold and Dollar Crisis 462 MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1962 480 11:48 A.M.–12:06 P.M. Meeting on Intelligence Matters 482 4:00–5:30 P.M. Meeting on the Gold and Dollar Crisis 489 TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1962 526 9:30 A.M. Conversation with Orville Freeman 527 10:00 A.M. Conversation with Dean Rusk 534 CONTENTS ix 10:14 A.M. Conversation with Robert McNamara 536 10:20 A.M. Conversation with Eugene Zuckert 540 10:25 A.M. Conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson 541 10:30 A.M. Conversation with James Eastland 545 5:05–5:15 P.M. Meeting on U.N. Strategy 546 5:15–5:55 P.M. Meeting with Adlai Stevenson 552 6:00–7:05 P.M. Meeting on Trade and Textile Policy 566 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1962 592 6:10–6:37 P.M. Meeting on Intelligence Matters 593 THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1962 603 9:36 A.M. Conversation with Philip Hart 604 MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 1962 608 TIME UNKNOWN. Dictated Memo to Eugene Zuckert 608 5:00–6:06 P.M. Meeting on Arab-Israeli Questions 610 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1962 623 11:06 A.M. Conversation with David McDonald 624 5:46–6:35 P.M. Meeting on Berlin 627 6:35–6:46 P.M. Meeting on the Congo 641 THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1962 651 9:30 A.M. Conversation with Walter Reuther 651 11:26 A.M. Conversation with Willard Wirtz 654 11:30 A.M. Conversation with a White House Operator 655 11:33 A.M. Conversation with George Harrison 656 11:35 A.M. Conversation with Walter Reuther 657 Index 659 The Presidential Recordings Project BY PHILIP ZELIKOW AND ERNEST MAY etween 1940 and 1973, presidents of the United States secretly recorded hundreds of their meetings and conversations in the BWhite House. Though some recorded a lot and others just a little, they created a unique and irreplaceable source for understanding not only their presidencies and times but the presidency as an institution and, indeed, the essential process of high-level decision making. These recordings of course do not displace more traditional sources such as official documents, private diaries and letters, memoirs, and con- temporaneous journalism. They augment these sources much as photo- graphs, films, and recordings augment printed records of presidents’ public appearances. But they do much more than that. Because the recordings capture an entire meeting or conversation, not just highlights caught by a minute-taker or recalled afterward in a memorandum or memoir, they have or can have two distinctive qualities. In the first place, they can catch the whole complex of considerations that weigh on a president’s action choice. Most of those present at a meeting with a president know chiefly the subject of that meeting. Even key staff advisers have compartmented responsibilities. Tapes or tran- scripts of successive meetings or conversations can reveal interlocked concerns of which only the president was aware. They can provide hard evidence, not just bases for inference, about presidential motivations. Desk diaries, public and private papers of presidents, and memoirs and oral histories by aides, family, and friends all show how varied and difficult were the presidents’ responsibilities and how little time they had for meeting those responsibilities. But only the tapes provide a clear pic- ture of how these responsibilities constantly converged—how a presi- dent could be simultaneously, not consecutively, a commander in chief worrying about war, a policymaker conscious that his missteps in eco- nomic policy could bring on a market collapse, a chief mediator among interest groups, a chief administrator for a myriad of public programs, a spokesperson for the interests and aspirations of the nation, a head of a sprawling political party, and more. The tapes reveal not only what presidents said but what they heard. For everyone, there is some difference between learning by ear and by xi xii THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS PROJECT eye. Action-focused individuals ordinarily take in more of what is said to them than of what they read, especially when they can directly question a speaker. A document read aloud to a president had a much better chance of registering than the same document simply placed in the in- box. Though hearing and reading can both be selective, tapes probably show, better than any other records, the information and advice guiding presidential choices. Perhaps most usefully, the secret tapes record, as do no other sources, the processes that produce decisions. Presidential advisers can be heard debating with one another. They adapt to the arguments of the others. They sometimes change their minds. The common positions at the end of a meeting are not necessarily those taken by any person at the outset. The president’s own views have often been reshaped. Sometimes there has been a basic shift in definition of an issue or of the stakes involved. Hardly anyone ever has a clear memory of such changes.