The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 (149 page)

605 “This man is going …”: quoted in Seymour Hersh, p. 104.

605 “Well, she loved him …”: LL interview with George Smathers.

606 “believe[d] his …”: R. W. Smith to W. C. Sullivan, “Subject: Frank A. Capell,” July 14, 1964, FBIFOI.

606 In the years since: Donald Spoto,
Marilyn Monroe
(1993), pp. 594-611.

606 Bobby’s host and: ibid., pp. 562-63.

606 Beyond that: Special Agent in Charge, San Francisco, to FBI Director, August 6, 1962, FBIFOI.

606 On one of these: LL interview with Edwin Guthman.

606 “I’m dancing …”: LL interview with Joe Naar.

606 “Eunice kidded …”: LL interview with Charles Bartlett.

606 “The man in charge …”: LL interview with Milton Gould.

607 “If there’s …”: LL interview with Milt Ebbins.

607 a decision that haunted: LL interview with Patricia Lawford Stewart.

607 “Bobby’s three younger …”:
Time,
August 3, 1962, p. 10.

607 The Forest Service, at:
U.S. News & World Report,
August 27, 1962, and Special Agent in Charge Milnes to Mr. Hoover, “Subject: Visit of Attorney General to Seattle and the Northwest,” August 7, 1962.

608 That was October 31, 1960: IR, p. 125.

608 “If you have seen …”: ibid., p. 133.

608 “He cautioned Larry Houston …”: interview, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, Rockefeller Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, April 9, 1975, Gerald R. Ford Library.

608 “I told the attorney general…”: Memorandum for Messrs. Tolson, Belmond, Evans, Sullivan, DeLoach, and Malone, May 10, 1961, HSCA, NA.

609 “Mr. Bissell… in connection…”: J. Edgar Hoover to Robert F. Kennedy, May 22, 1962, FBIFOI. See also IR, pp. 125-27.

609 “It must be understood …”: LL interview with Myer Feldman.

609 “contingency plans”: Brig. Gen. Lansdale, memorandum for the record, “Subject: Meeting with President,” March 16, 1962, Courtesy Gus Russo. See also David Corn and Gus Russo, “The Old Man and the CIA,”
Nation,
March 26, 2001.

610 “I commented that this was…”: ibid.

610 “exploited”: memorandum for the record, Caribbean Survey Group, March 21, 1962. Courtesy Gus Russo.

610 “His job was…”: LL interview with Samuel Halpern. See also Thomas, p. 178.

611 Operation Mongoose was not: CIA Operations Officer for Operation Mongoose (Harvey) to Chief of Operations (Mongoose) Lansdale, memorandum, Washington, D.C., July 24, 1962, FRUS.

611 Castro was so successful: memorandum for the file, Washington, D.C., December 27, 1961, CIA, “Subject: Discussion with Attorney General Robert Kennedy,” FRUS.

611 “expressed skepticism …”: guidelines for Operation Mongoose, Washington, D.C., March 14, 1962, Department of State, S/S files: Lot 65 D 438, FRUS.

611 “Bobby came over almost…”: LL interview with Dino A. Brugioni.

612 “I don’t think …”: Dino A. Brugioni,
Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis
(1991), p. 69.

612 “If you’re going to …”: LL interview with Samuel Halpern.

613 By the end of July 1962: CIA Operations Officer for Operation Mongoose (Harvey) to Chief of Operations (Mongoose) Lansdale, memorandum, Washington, DC, July 24, 1962, NSC files, FRUS.

613 “Which one is Meredith?”: Branch, p. 648.

614 “Thousand Said Ready to Fight for Mississippi”: ibid., p. 653.

614 “I love our customs!”: ibid., p. 659.

614 “And now—Governor…”: RKHT, p. 320.

615 “I appreciate your interest…”: PRIUM, belt 4-A.

615 “should be Mandrake the Magician”: RKIHOW, p. 167.

616 “Mr. President, let me say …”: PRIUM, belt 4-A.

616 “I say I’m going to …”: PRIUM, belt 4-C.

616 Bobby gave him: Branch, p. 660.

616 “the orders of the court…”: ibid., p. 665.

617 “The attorney general announced today…”: PRIUM, audiotape 26.

617 “I knew that he …”: RKIHOW, p. 165.

618 “They better fire …”: PRIUM, audiotape 26.

618 “was the avoidance …”: RKIHOW, p. 160.

618 “Well, I think we’re gonna have …”: PRIUM, audiotape 26A.

27. “A Hell of a Burden to Carry”

621 Kennedy had hurried: Saunders, p. 182.

621 “The South Korean army should have…”: conversation with General Douglas MacArthur, August 16, 1962, presidential recordings, tape 12, JFKPL.

621 “assess accurately…”: President’s Military Representative (Taylor) to President Kennedy, memorandum, Washington, D.C., August 17, 1962, NSC files, FRUS.

621 “noise level”: ibid.

622 “wondered whether…”: memorandum of conversation, Washington, DC, January 30, 1962, FRUS.

622 “wondered whether …”: ibid.

622-23 During a meeting: Press Secretary (Salinger) to President Kennedy, memorandum for the president, February 1, 1962, FRUS.

623 “At the time I called …”: Aleksei Adzhubei, report to Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, March 12, 1962, quoted in Fursenko and Naftali, p. 153.

623 new $133 million: ibid., p. 154.

623 Although historians debate: For varying analyses of the reasons, see Tony Judt, “On the Brink,”
New York Review of Books,
January 15, 1998, and Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds.,
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis,
(1997), pp. 666-70.

623 “Tell Fidel…”: Fursenko and Naftali, p. 182.

623 Khrushchev would arrive: ibid.

624 “these developments…”: intelligence memorandum, OCI 3047/62, “Subject: Recent Soviet Military Aid to Cuba,” August 22, 1962, FRUS.

624 “the instantaneous commitment…”: memorandum of meeting with

President Kennedy, August 23, 1962, CIA, DCI (McCone) files, FRUS.

625 remained deeply suspicious: interview with Myer Feldman.

625 “ominous reports”: Fursenko and Naftali, p. 205.

625 “Put it back…”: Marshall Carter, memorandum, September 7, 1962, CIA, DCI (Dulles) files, FRUS.

625 “Goddamn it!”: Thomas, pp. 207-8. See also Fursenko and Naftali, pp. 193-94.

626 “suspect[ed] the presence …”: notes prepared by Acting Director of Central Intelligence Carter, September 6, 1962, CIA, NSC meeting, FRUS.

626 “Out of respect…”: Fursenko and Naftali, p. 209.

626 “These congressmen …”: telegram 616 from Moscow, September 7, 1962, FRUS.

627 Soviet plans were: Fursenko and Naftali, pp. 188, 217.

627 each probably carrying:
Newsweek,
May 14, 2001.

627 50,874 Soviet troops: ibid., p. 188.

627 double the number: ibid.

627 He wanted American pilots: ibid., p. 217.

628 “general impression …”: memorandum of Operation Mongoose meeting, October 4, 1962, FRUS.

628 “nothing was moving …”: ibid.

629 “over twenty times …”: Fursenko and Naftali, p. 217.

629 “The weapons that…”: ibid., p. 219.

629 “a quiet evening…”: McGeorge Bundy,
Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years
(1990), pp. 684-85.

630 “Oh shit!”: Brugioni, p. 223.

630 “general dissatisfaction…”: memorandum for the record, CIA, “Mongoose Meeting with the Attorney General,” October 16, 1962, FRUS.

630 There were two meetings: The participants in the Ex Comm varied somewhat from meeting to meeting. They included John and Robert Kennedy, and from the State Department, not only Secretary Rusk but Charles Bohlen, a Russia expert (who in the midst of the crisis left to become ambassador to France), Undersecretary of State George Ball, Deputy Secretary U. Alexis Johnson, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America
Edwin M. Martin, and, newly returned from the Soviet Union, Ambassador at Large Llewellyn Thompson. The Defense Department contingent, headed by Secretary McNamara, included his deputy Roswell Gilpatric, Assistant Secretary Paul Nitze, and General Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The CIA group, led by McCone, included his deputy Marshall Carter and the head of NPIC, Arthur Lundahl. The other members included Vice President Johnson, UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, McGeorge Bundy, Ted Sorensen, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, USIA Deputy Directot Don Wilson, and Kenneth O’Donnell. Others were called in at various times.

631 “What is the strategic …”: Ex Comm meeting, October 16, 1962, tapes 28 and 28A, JFKPL. The Ex Comm meetings were secretly tape-recorded by President Kennedy. They have been transcribed and annotated in May and Zelikow,
The Kennedy Tapes.
Sheldon M. Stern, the longtime historian at the JFKPL, argued in the
Atlantic
in May 2000 that there are so many errors in the early editions that “
The Kennedy Tapes
cannot be relied on as an accurate historical document.” Stern expands his argument in “Source Material: The 1997 Published Transcripts of the JFK Cuban Missile Crisis Tapes: Too Good to Be True?”
Presidential Studies Quarterly,
September 2000, pp. 586-93. The author has listened to the tapes and, like Stern, found differences at various places from the May and Zelikow transcription. Students of this period are strongly advised to listen to the tapes themselves and to read a new edition of
The Kennedy Tapes
that promises to deal with the pattern of errors that Stern so assiduously discovered. They are doubly urged to do so since the author has radically truncated the dialogue at the Ex Comm meeting (while attempting to remain true to the spirit of these exchanges) in order to write a narrative that the average reader will find of tolerable length. Individual exchanges are cited from the tapes themselves. Dialogue from meetings that were not taped is cited from other sources.

632 Kennedy and Bohlen sauntered: Merry, p. 386.

633 By the time: May and Zelikow, p. 122.

633 “If we wanted to …”: Ex Comm meeting, October 18, 1962, 11:00
A.M.
, tapes 30 and 30A, JFKPL.

634 the top White House: LL interviews with Malcolm Kilduff and Myer Feldman.

634 “We figured …”: LL interview with Myer Feldman.

634 “I think it’s the whole …”: The secret tape recordings of this and other Ex Comm meetings for the most part parallel other contemporaneously narrated accounts of the events, but in this instance there are major differences. McCone was a meticulous man, but his account of this meeting does not even mention Robert Kennedy’s passionate doubts as recorded. It may be that McCone considered them unimportant or did not record them because they went against his own considered judgment. Memorandum
for the file, Washington, D.C., October 19, 1962, CIA, DCI/ McCone file, Job 80-B01285A, “Meetings with the President (top secret),” drafted by McCone, FRUS.

634—35 “Cuba belonged …”: memorandum of conversation, Washington, D.C., October 18, 1962, 5:00
P.M.,
NSC files, drafted by Akalovsky on October 21, 1962, approved by the White House on October 23, 1962, FRUS.

635 “The president of the …”: TD, p. 33.

635 Only now: May and Zelikow believe that the president was “possibly accompanied by his brother,” but there is no evidence that Bobby remained in the Oval Office. May and Zelikow, p. 171.

635 several secretaries, and almost certainly Bobby: It is clear that Robert Kennedy knew about the taping system because one of his first actions after he learned of President Kennedy’s shooting in Dallas on November 22, 1963, was to order the system dismantled. Thomas, p. 276.

636 “Secretary McNamara, Deputy Secretary Gilpatric…”: monologue of John F. Kennedy, October 18, 1962, tape 31, JFKPL.

637 “I think the benefit this morning…”: Ex Comm meeting, October 19, 1962, tape 31, JFKPL.

638 “useful play…”: The author has listened to this passage of the tape many times and remains unsure whether Kennedy says “play” or “ploy.”

640 “I don’t think I…”: Lord Harlech, KLOH. 640 “This thing …”: Thomas, p. 217.

640 “That’s not what…”: ibid.

641 “strange flip-flops”: Bird, p. 233.

641 “Well, I’m having …”: ibid., p. 234.

641 “a bit disgusted”: ibid., p. 232.

641 “spoken with the president…”: record of meeting, October 19, 1962, FRUS.

28. “The Knot of War”

643 eight hundred sorties: May and Zelikow, p. 197. 643 Bobby sat next: TD, p. 38.

643 “if we used …”: minutes of the 505th meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, D.C., October 20, 1962, 2:30-5:10
P.M.,
FRUS.