The PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS JOHN F. KENNEDY The PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS JOHN F. KENNEDY THE GREAT CRISES, VOLUME TWO SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 21, 1962 Timothy Naftali and Philip Zelikow Editors, Volume Two David Coleman George Eliades Francis Gavin Jill Colley Kastner Erin Mahan Ernest May Jonathan Rosenberg David Shreve Associate Editors, Volume Two 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 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1962 3 11:30–11:50 A.M. Meeting on U-2 Incident 4 12:35–1:00 P.M. Meeting on Soviet Arms Shipments to Cuba 19 4:00–4:50 P.M. Drafting Meeting on the Cuba Press Statement 33 5:00–5:55 P.M. Meeting with Congressional Leadership on Cuba 52 5:55–6:10 P.M. Meeting on the Congressional Resolution about Cuba 73 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1962 81 5:00–6:15 P.M. Meeting on the DOMINIC Nuclear Test Series 82 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1962 110 TIME UNKNOWN. Conversation with Douglas Dillon 112 12:35–12:40 P.M. Meeting with Billy Graham and Dwight Eisenhower 115 vii viii CONTENTS 12:40–1:02 P.M. Meeting with Dwight Eisenhower 118 6:45–7:15 P.M. Meeting on Berlin 135 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1962 149 4:55 P.M. Conversation with John McCormack, Thomas Morgan, and Carl Vinson 150 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1962 154 5:00–5:56 P.M. Meeting with Maxwell Taylor on His Far Eastern Trip 156 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1962 178 11:30 A.M.–12:03 P.M. Meeting on Laos 178 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1962 181 11:00 A.M.–12:27 P.M. Meeting on the Soviet Union 182 1:18–1:30 P.M. Meeting on the Crisis at the University of Mississippi 222 APPROXIMATELY 1:30–1:35 P.M. Meeting with Robert Kennedy on the Drummond Spy Case 230 2:00 P.M. Conversation with Ross Barnett 233 2:25 P.M. Conversation with Theodore Sorensen 237 2:30 P.M. Conversation with LeMoyne Billings 238 2:50 P.M. Conversation with Ross Barnett 239 7:36 P.M. Conversation with Torbert MacDonald 247 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30–MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1962 250 APPROXIMATELY 10:40 P.M.–1:00 A.M. Meeting on Civil Rights 251 12:14 A.M. Conversation with Ross Barnett 288 Meeting on Civil Rights, Continued 290 APPROXIMATELY 12:40 A.M. Conversation from the Oval Office between Robert Kennedy and Cyrus Vance 299 Meeting on Civil Rights, Continued 299 1:45 A.M. Conversation with Ross Barnett 306 1:50 A.M. Continuation of Conversation with Ross Barnett 308 2:00 A.M. Conversation between Robert Kennedy and Creighton Abrams 310 4:20 A.M. Conversation with Creighton Abrams 312 CONTENTS ix MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1962 314 8:46 A.M. Conversation with Ross Barnett 314 9:31 A.M. Conversation with Archibald Cox 316 11:12 A.M. Conversation with Cyrus Vance and Robert McNamara 317 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1962 319 4:20–5:20 P.M. Meeting on the Budget and Tax Cut Proposal 321 5:25 P.M. Conversation with Kenneth O’Donnell and Cyrus Vance 352 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1962 355 9:20 A.M. Conversation with Cyrus Vance 356 10:05 A.M. Conversation with John McCormack 357 SOMETIME THAT MORNING. Conversation with Lawrence F. O’Brien 359 MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1962 361 10:30 A.M. Conversation with Mike Mansfield 362 12:00 P.M. Conversation with Albert Gore 365 4:48–5:10 P.M. Meeting on the Budget 369 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1962 378 9:54 A.M. Conversation with Mike Mansfield and Mike Kirwan 379 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1962 381 TIME UNKNOWN. Conversation with George Smathers 382 TIME UNKNOWN. Conversation with Eugene Keogh 388 TIME UNKNOWN. Conversation about James Meredith 389 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1962 391 11:50 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 397 6:30–8:00 P.M. Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 427 x THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDINGS PROJECT WEDNESDAY, October 17, 1962 468 10:00–11:30 A.M. Meeting with West German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder 469 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1962 499 10:00–10:38 A.M. Cabinet Meeting on the Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 1964 499 11:10 A.M.–1:15 P.M. Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 512 NEAR MIDNIGHT. Kennedy Summarizes a Late-Night Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 572 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1962 578 9:45–10:30 A.M. Meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Cuban Missile Crisis 578 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1962 599 2:30–5:10 P.M. National Security Council Meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis 601 Index 615 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.