One minute to midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war (66 page)

I would like to thank Sergo Mikoyan and Sergei Khrushchev for their firsthand insights into the Soviet political system and for lifting the curtain into the lifestyle of senior Politburo members. Sergo served as an informal adviser to his father, Anastas Mikoyan, and accompanied him on several trips to Cuba. Sergei edited his father's memoirs and worked on the Soviet rocket program.

Researching a book on a subject like the Cuban missile crisis is a wonderful opportunity to study foreign countries and cultures. Thanks to a posting in Moscow as a reporter for
The Washington Post
from 1988 to 1993, I started this project with a pretty good knowledge of Russia and Russian, but my return visits to Moscow were greatly facilitated by Svetlana Chervonnaya. My guide in Kiev was Lena Bogdanova, a talented Ph.D. sociology student. Cuba and Latin America were largely new to me. For teaching me Spanish, and introducing me to Latin American culture, history, and literature, a very special
gracias
to Miryam Arosemena. Thanks to Miryam, I was able to get around Cuba by myself without relying on translators and official guides.

As with my previous books, I have benefited enormously from the advice of Ashbel Green, one of America's most distinguished editors, who retired at the end of 2007 after twenty-three years at Knopf. His authors included Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, and Milovan Djilas, so I could hardly have been in better company. I will miss him greatly, but he handed me on to Andrew Miller, who made many invaluable suggestions about how to improve this book. Others at Knopf I would like to thank include Sara Sherbill, who made the trains run on time; Ann Adelman, the copyeditor; Robert Olsson, the book designer; David Lindroth, the map maker; Meghan Wilson, the production editor; and Jason Booher, for the fabulous jacket. A special thanks, too, to my agent, Rafe Sagalyn, for his friendship and support.

Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, Peter Finn, Sergei Ivanov, and Masha Lipman went out of their way to be helpful when I was in Moscow. I enjoyed the hospitality of Alex Beam and Kiki Lundberg while I was in Boston. In London, Peter and Michelle Dobbs were unfailingly generous with offers of meals and accommodation, as was my brother Geoffrey.

In addition to the editors at Knopf, a number of people took the trouble to read the manuscript and make useful suggestions, including Tom Blanton, Svetlana Savranskaya, Raymond Garthoff, David Hoffman, Masha Lipman, and especially Martin Sherwin, who wielded a judicious scalpel. My mother, Marie Dobbs, an author in her own right, critiqued an early draft so extensively that I spent the next two months revising it.

My greatest debt of gratitude, as always, is to my wife, Lisa, and our three children, Alex, Olivia, and Jojo. I am dedicating this book to Olivia, whose music-making abilities, language talents, and curiosity about the world have blossomed during the two years I have been immersed in this book.

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS OF SOURCES

CHAPTER ONE: AMERICANS

"the clearing of a field": Robert F. Kennedy,
Thirteen Days
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1969, hereafter RFK), 24. Photographs of missile sites are available through the John F. Kennedy Library, the National Security Archive, the Naval Historical Research Center, and NARA.

"Daddy, daddy": CNN interview with Sidney Graybeal, January 1998, CNN CW. 3 "Caroline, have you": Dino Brugioni, "The Cuban Missile Crisis--Phase 1," CIA
Studies in Intelligence
(Fall 1972), 49-50, CREST; Richard Reeves,
President Kennedy: Profile of Power
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 371; author's interview with Robert McNamara, October 2005.

Once armed and ready to fire: CIA,
Joint Evaluation of Soviet Missile Threat in Cuba,
October 19, 1962, CREST. The CIA estimated the range of the R-12 (SS-4) missile as 1,020 nautical miles; the true range was 2,080 kilometers, or 1,292 miles. For simplicity, I have converted all nautical mile measurements to the more commonly used statute miles.

"The length, sir": For dialogue from ExComm meetings, I have relied on the transcripts produced by the Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Philip Zelikow and Ernest May, eds.,
The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises,
Vols. 2 and 3 (hereafter JFK2 and JFK3). The transcripts are available at the Miller Center Web site. I have also consulted Sheldon M. Stern,
Averting "the Final Failure": John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). For atmosphere, and to check discrepancies, I have listened to the original tapes, available through the Miller Center and the JFK Library.

"a hostile and militant Communist": Michael Beschloss,
The Crisis Years
(New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 101.

"to hurl rockets": Keating press release, October 10, 1962.

"Ken Keating will probably": Kai Bird,
The Color of Truth
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 226-7. Kenneth P. O'Donnell and David F. Powers,
Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 310.

"let it begin now": William Taubman,
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 499.

"It reminded me": Beschloss, 224-7. Robert Dallek,
An Unfinished Life
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 413-15. Reeves, 174.

"I'm inexperienced": Reeves, 172.

"fucking liar": Dallek, 429.

"an immoral gangster": Beschloss, 11.

the president's "dissatisfaction": FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. XI:
Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath,
Document 19. Sabotage proposals and earlier meeting of Special Group (Augmented) available through JFK Assassination Records Collection, NARA. See also Richard Helms,
A Look Over My Shoulder
(New York: Random House, 2003), 208-9.

"Demolition of a railroad bridge": Mongoose memorandum, October 16, 1962, JFKARC.

"the Cuban problem carries": CIA memorandum, January 19, 1962, JFKARC. See also Church Committee Report,
Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders
(U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 141.

"Everybody in my family forgives": Richard D. Mahoney,
Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy
(New York: Arcade, 1999), 87.

"Oh shit, shit, shit": Dino Brugioni,
Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis
(New York: Random House, 1991), 223; RFK, 23.

"the dominant feeling was one": RFK, 27.

"My idea is": Reeves, 264; Dallek, 439.

He even had his own full-time: Samuel Halpern interview with CIA history staff, January 15, 1988, JFKARC record no. 104-10324-1003.

"Robert Kennedy's most conspicuous folly": Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
Robert Kennedy and His Times
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 534.

"sit there, chewing gum": Author's interview with Thomas Parrott, October 2005.

"reflected the president's own": Richard Goodwin,
Remembering America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 187.

A top secret Lansdale memorandum: "The Cuba Project," February 20, 1962, JFKARC record no. 176-10011-10046.

"Lansdale's projects simply gave": McManus interview with Church Committee, JFKARC.

"Elimination by Illumination": Lansdale memo, October 15, 1962, JFKARC; Parrott interview with Church Committee. In a January 1, 1976, letter to the Church Committee, Lansdale indignantly denied making the illumination proposal, but the record shows that he did.

"will meet our requirements": Robert A. Hurwitch memorandum, September 16, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10046.

"There is only one thing": Eisenhower presidential papers quoted in Reeves, 103.

"
I know there is a God
": Ibid., 174.

"odds are even": Joseph Alsop, "The Legacy of John F. Kennedy,"
Saturday Evening Post,
November 21, 1964, 17. For the "one-in-five" quote, see Reeves, 179.

"
Bullfight critics
": Max Frankel,
High Noon in the Cold War
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 83.

the approval by "higher authority": Thomas Parrott memorandum, October 17, 1962, SCA, JFKARC record no. 179-10003-10081.

As the winds: State Department history of "The Cuban Crisis 1962," 72, NSA Cuba; CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 141, NSA Cuba.

"military intervention by the United States": JCS memorandum, April 10, 1962, JFKARC.

"We could blow up": L. L. Lemnitzer memorandum, August 8, 1962, JFKARC. 18 "I am so angry": Edmund Morris,
Theodore Rex
(New York: Random House, 2001), 456.

"an importance in the sum": James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch,
Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 323-4.

Bobby Kennedy was already: RFK desk diary, JFKARC. See also Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation, William Harvey to DCI, November 14, 1962, JFKARC.

"an initial burst": Evan Thomas,
Robert Kennedy: His Life
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 214.

"My brother is not going": Elie Abel,
The Missile Crisis
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1966), 51.

According to Harvey's record: Chronology of the Matahambre Mine Sabotage Operation; Harvey memo on sabotage operation, October 19, 1962, JFKARC.

"I don't want that man": Reeves, 182.

America had "the Russian bear": Brugioni,
Eyeball to Eyeball,
469.