The PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS JOHN F. KENNEDY The PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS JOHN F. KENNEDY THE GREAT CRISES, VOLUME THREE OCTOBER 22–28, 1962 Philip Zelikow and Ernest May Editors, Volume Three David Coleman George Eliades Francis Gavin Max Holland Erin Mahan Timothy Naftali David Shreve Associate Editors, Volume Three 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 By Philip Zelikow and Ernest May xi Preface to John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises, Volumes 1–3 By 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 MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1962 3 9:18–9:20 A.M. Conversation with John McCloy 8 10:40 –10:47 A.M. Conversation with Dwight Eisenhower 11 11:00 –11:46 A.M. Meeting on Diplomatic Plans for the Crisis 16 11:47 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Meeting of Berlin Group on Crisis Planning 33 3:00 – 4:00 P.M. National Security Council Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 40 5:30 – 6:30 P.M. Meeting with the Congressional Leadership on the Cuban Missile Crisis 58 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1962 102 10:00 –11:03 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 102 11:36 –11:38 A.M. Conversation with Roswell Gilpatric 141 12:25–12:30 P.M. Office Exchange with Pierre Salinger and Conversation with Lucius Clay 143 vii viii CONTENTS 3:52–3:57 P.M. Conversation with Roswell Gilpatric 148 6:00 –7:10 P.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 150 7:10 –7:20 P.M. Discussion between President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy 173 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1962 10:00 –11:15 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 183 5:05– 6:10 P.M. Meetings with Staff and Congressional Leadership on the Cuban Missile Crisis 206 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1962 232 10:00 –11:10 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 232 5:25–5:45 P.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 269 6:55–7:05 P.M. Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 281 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1962 284 10:10 –11:20 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 284 11:55–11:58 A.M. Conversation with Dean Rusk 322 12:00 –12:12 P.M. Meeting with Intelligence Officials 323 4:30 – 4:32 P.M. Conversation with Dean Rusk 331 5:45–5:50 P.M. Conversation with Adlai Stevenson 332 6:03– 6:19 P.M. Meeting with Indian Ambassador Nehru about the Fighting between China and India 337 7:31–7:35 P.M. Conversation with Lincoln White 346 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1962 356 10:05–11:55 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 356 4:00 –7:45 P.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 387 9:00 –9:45 P.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 488 CONTENTS ix SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1962 512 11:05 A.M. Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council on the Cuban Missile Crisis 517 12:08–12:30 P.M. Conversations with Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Herbert Hoover on the Cuban Missile Crisis 519 Index 527 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. Yet, with the tape, a listener now can hear those changes taking place—can follow, as nowhere else, the logic of high-stakes decision making. Casting about for analogies, we have thought often of Pompeii. As the ruins uncovered there have given students of Greco-Roman civilization knowledge not to be found anywhere else, in any form, so the presidential recordings give students of the presidency, of U.S. and world history, and of decision making knowledge simply without parallel or counterpart. They are a kind of time machine, allowing us to go back and be in the room as history was being made. And, unlike even the finest archaeologi- cal site, what we uncover are the words and deliberations of the people themselves in the moment of action, not just the accounts, summary notes, or after-the-fact reconstructions they left behind.