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Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 03:56 PM

Early August 1962 Paul Gregory begins his course of Russian conversation lessons with Marina.
8/1962 U.S. intelligence received several reports of Soviet missiles in Cuba during the month, all of which are either linked to SAM or cruise missiles or shown to be incorrect. After late August, numbers of such reports increase, as do reported sightings of MiG-21s and IL-28 s. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, pp. 10-11) Photos were taken of SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles being unloaded at Cuban ports. U-2 flights had gone over Cuba since Castro came to power; by 1962 two U-2s a month were being flown over the island.
8/1/1962 SIOP-63 went into effect on 1 August 1962, thus making it the war plan that was in place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only a few weeks before the crisis, on September 14, 1962, President Kennedy received a briefing on the new plan. SIOP-63 gave President Kennedy and Secretary McNamara more options, but it did not give them the flexibility they thought they needed to prosecute a less than "all-out" nuclear war. Years later, Robert McNamara explained that during an East-West military crisis, he would have been able to "cut back on the strike options" to ensure that an attack had the right scale. Nevertheless, McNamara did push for any systematic attempt to restructure the SIOP further; the massive overkill that he had worried about remained in place. It was not until the Nixon administration that White House officials, most prominently Henry Kissinger, began to urge the Pentagon to redo the SIOP. Believing that limited nuclear war was conceivable or at least a useful threat, Richard Nixon was the first president to make direct requests to the Pentagon for limited nuclear options. It took some time, however--the late 1970s and early 1980s--before such options became available to decision-makers.
8/3/1962 Life magazine published a story about Oral Roberts: "In a Kansas crusade he dreamed up a fund-raising gimmick called a blessing pact' which still accounts for far more than the old-fashioned collection plate. He asked his followers to pledge a certain amount of money each month for his work, and told them that they'd receive the same amount and more from a completely unexpected source within one yearâ€¦It goes into the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, which is a nonprofit organization that does not have to divulge either Roberts' salary or a breakdown of its multi-million-dollar budget."
8/3/1962 Date of alleged CIA document that claims Marilyn Monroe had been told about UFOs and alien bodies.
8/4/1962 Probably on this weekend, Lee Oswald and Marina moved to a small apartment at 2703 Mercedes Street. The WR estimated that this occurred in the middle of August, but Albert Newman demonstrates that a subscription order to The Worker shows that they made the move before 8/6. Also in early August, Oswald sent a letter to the Russian embassy and asks how to subscribe to Pravda, Izvestia and other Russian publications. (H 18 486)
8/5/1962 Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood home by her psychoanalyst Ralph S. Greenson after he was called by Monroe's live-in housekeeper Eunice Murray on August 5, 1962. She was 36 years old at the time of her death. Her death was ruled to be "acute barbiturate poisoning" by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office and listed as "probable suicide". Many individuals, including Jack Clemmons, the first Los Angeles Police Department officer to arrive at the death scene, believe that she was murdered. No murder charges were ever filed. The death of Marilyn Monroe has since become one of the most debated conspiracy theories.
8/5/1962 USSR resumed atmospheric nuclear tests with an explosion over the Arctic.
8/5/1962 MLK wrote, "But while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. The law may not change the heart - but it can restrain the heartless." (Times Magazine)
8/5/1962 Jamaica gains its independence from Britain.
8/6/1962 The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee concluded that the State Department had worked to discredit Tshombe and the Katanga independence movement and "pictured all opposition to the UN brutality and atrocities in Katanga as the work of 'ultra-conservatives' and those with financial interests in the Congo." They also faulted the government for refusing to grant Tshombe a visa to visit the US.
8/6/1962 Oswald re-subscribed to The Worker.
8/6/1962 Paris: a carload of assassins is held up by a red light and misses a rendezvous that would have led to an assassination attempt on De Gaulle. (Kill De Gaulle)
8/9/1962 Senate confirmed Max Taylor as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
8/9/1962 Soviets rejected new US proposals to break the deadlock in negotiations for a nuclear test ban.
8/10/1962 Sen. Thurmond said, "the Soviets never accept our initial offers of appeasement. They know we will be back again, with hat in hand, making further concessions toward their position."
8/10/1962 Robert Oswald picked Marina and Lee up and Marguerite acted hysterical as they drove away. Lee told Marina, "She'll be all right. It's not the first time." (Marina and Lee p231) Their new place was at 2703 Mercedes Street; George De Mohrenschildt called it a "decrepit shack."
8/10/1962 A meeting of the Special Group (Augmented), also known as Operation Mongoose, indicated that the subject of assassinating Castro was discussed (though RFK was not present.) The meeting is in Rusk's office. A new Lansdale proposal for large-scale sabotage raids called "stepped up Course B" is rejected by the majority of the group. McNamara got up to leave and voiced an opinion that "the only way to take care of Castro is to kill him. I really mean it." McCone testified that "liquidation" or removal of Castro and other Cuban leaders arose at the August 10 meeting in the context of exploring the alternatives that were available" for the next phase of MONGOOSE. He did not recall who made this suggestion, but remembered that he and Edward Murrow took "strong exception" to it. According to Walter Elder, a top aide of McCone, the CIA director shot down the idea of killing Castro as "completely out of bounds." Elder told this to Richard Helms, who was keeping the CIA-Mafia plots secret from McCone, on 8/11 or 8/12/1962. Elder told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had made it clear to Helms that McCone was against any such assassination plots. Helms told the Committee that he did "not have any recollection of such a conversation...I very seriously doubt that it ever took place." Gen. Lemnitzer later told David Belin that he couldn't recall any talk about killing Castro or other Cuban leaders. (Final Disclosure p125) Harvey's notes show that McNamara and Edward Murrow of the USIA raised the subject of assassination. McCone states in memorandum that at no time did the suggestion receive serious consideration, however, afterwards General Lansdale asks Harvey in a memo: "In compliance with the desires and guidance expressed in the 10 August policy meeting on Operation Mongoose. We will hold an Operational Representatives work session in my office. Papers required from each of you for the Tuesday meeting: Mr. Harvey: Intelligence, Political, including liquidation of leaders." Harvey is furious that the term "including elimination of leaders" has been put to paper and demands it removed. McCone testified to the Senate Committee in 1975 that he called McNamara after receiving Lansdale's August 13 memo: "insisted that the Memorandum be withdrawn because no decision was made on this subject, and since no decision was made, then Lansdale was quite out of order in tasking the Central Intelligence Agency to consider the matter." McCone said that McNamara agreed that Lansdales's Memorandum should be withdrawn for the same reason. McCone 's memoranda reads: "Immediately after the meeting, I called on Sec McNamara personally and reemphasized my position, in which he heartily agreed. I did this because Operation MONGOOSE --- an interdepartmental affair --- was under the operational control of [the Defense Department]" (Senate Committee, McCone, 6/6/75, p39) McNamara confirmed this testimony: "I agreed with Mr. McCone that no such planning should be undertaken." He added: "I have no knowledge or information about any other plans or preparations for a Castro assassination." (Senate Committee, McNamara, 7/11/75, p8) Harvey testified it was his recollection that "the question of assassination was raised by Secretary McNamara as one of shouldn't we consider the elimination or assassination ' of Castro. He told the committee there was "no extensive discussion of it, no back and forth as the whys and wherefores and possibilities"(Harvey, 7/11/75 p30) Victor Lasky: "That Robert Kennedy (and hence his brother the President) well knew about the plot against Castro has been established beyond a reasonable doubt....if such plotting had taken place, then President Kennedy most certainly should have known about it. To say that he didn't is just about as damaging as to say that he did." (It Didn't Start with Watergate)
8/10/1962 After examining CIA reports on the movement of cargo ships from the Black and Baltic seas to Cuba, John McCone dictates a memo for the President expressing the belief that Soviet MRBMs are destined for Cuba. McCone's memo is sent over the objections of subordinates concerned that McCone has no hard evidence to back up his suspicions. (Chronology of John McCone 's Suspicions on the Military Build-up in Cuba Prior to Kennedy's October 22 Speech, 11/30/62; Recollection of Intelligence Prior to the Discovery of Soviet Missiles and of Penkovsky Affair, n.d.)
8/11/1962 Memo from Courtney Evans to Belmont; a bug picked up Meyer Lansky talking about RFK having an affair with an El Paso girl; Lansky's wife commented that Frank Sinatra was the one who got the Kennedys all their women. Evans requested permission to "personally bring it to the attention of the Attorney General..."
8/11/1962 McCone told Harvey that he was opposed to the CIA being involved in assassinations. McCone personally worried about being excommunicated. He had learned that at a high-level meeting the day before on Cuba, there had been talk of assassination. (Church report) Lansdale wrote a memo using the expression, "including liquidation of leaders," but William Harvey persuaded him to delete those four words. (The Missiles of October p163, Thompson)
8/11-12/1962 Russian space capsules Vostok III and IV are in orbit at the same time, piloted by Andrian G. Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich.
8/12/1962 Oswald airmails a letter to the Socialist Workers Party in NY: "Please send me some information as to the nature of your party, its policies ect., as I am very interested in finding out all about your programm." (H 19 575)
8/13/1962 Aleksandr Alekseyev arrives in Havana to take up his post as the Soviet ambassador to Cuba. Alekseyev delivers to Fidel Castro the text of the agreement governing the missile deployment which RaÃºl Castro had worked out during his June visit to Moscow. Castro makes a few corrections in the text and gives it to Che Guevara to take to Moscow in late August. The text calls for "taking measures to assure the mutual defense in the face of possible aggression against the Republic of Cuba." (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p. 6; Alekseyev, p. 10; Draft Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Cuba and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on military cooperation for the defense of the national territory of Cuba in the event of aggression)
8/13/1962 In a nationwide address, JFK said he would propose tax reforms and cuts in 1963.
8/14/1962 William Harvey submits memo to his new boss, Richard Helms, reporting the Lansdale communication and what Harvey had done about it. Harvey 's memo states "The question of assassination, particularly of Castro, was brought up by Secretary McNamara. It was the obvious consensus at that meeting, that this is not a subject which has been made a matter of official record. Upon receipt of the attached memorandum, I advised that as far as CIA was concerned we would write no document pertaining to this and would participate in no open meeting discussing it."
8/14/1962 For the first time in 35 years, the Senate voted to stop a filibuster, in this case one by liberal senators who were against the communications-satellite bill.
8/15/1962 For the first time in history, the national debt exceeded $300 billion.
8/15/1962 Letter from Marina Oswald to Reznichenko at the Russian embassy; she says the necessary documents were forwarded 7/22 and expresses concern over whether they were received. (H 18 489-90)
8/16/1962 Oswald is interviewed by FBI agents John Fain and Arnold J. Brown in their car after work. During these first two interviews, he was described in reports as being arrogant and belligerent, though he promised to tell the FBI if any Soviet representatives contacted him. He denied being a Soviet agent. (WR 13) He refused to talk about why he had gone to the USSR, and again denied telling the Soviets he would give them any military secrets. Oswald said he didn't know any reason why Soviet intelligence would want to talk to him. (H 17 736) Gerald Posner says that Oswald did not tell Marina or his family about the first FBI interview. Though the FBI was essentially done with him after the second interview (according to Posner), Oswald thought his troubles were just beginning: "Now it's begun. Because I've been over there, they'll never let me live in peace. They think anyone who's been there is a Russian spy." (Marina and Lee p232) At this time he began to write the Soviet Embassy, perhaps with the idea of returning to the USSR. (CE 986) Harold Weisberg: "To obtain Oswald's agreement to report any Soviet approaches, an utter irrationality, would have required minutes only. It cannot and does not explain the 8/16/62 interview." (Whitewash IV 150) Hosty says that during this second interview Oswald was "radically different...He was polite and calmly answered the questions put to him...In Fain's mind, Oswald seemed a reasonable young man." (Assignment Oswald p45) Fain told the WC, "He had actually settled downâ€¦He wasn't as tense. He seemed to talk more freely with us." (H 4 421)
8/16/1962 While in Fort Worth, the Oswalds "were introduced to a group of Russian-speaking people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area." They were primarily interested in helping Marina, and had little use for Oswald, who was still a devoted Marxist. (WR 13) Gerald Posner: "most of them middle- or upper-middle class, politically conservative, and staunchly anti-Communist...They were always curious about current conditions inside the USSR...[they] tolerated Oswald because they liked Marina and felt sorry for her predicament." (Case Closed p78,83) They began helping Marina with baby clothes, food, etc. George Bouhe recalled that Oswald seemed to resent this implication that he was not able to care for his family. (H 8 372) Elena Hall recalled that Oswald got "real mad" when Bouhe bought groceries for them. (H 8 394) Anna Meller also said that Oswald was angry when "people tried to help Marina...He was against everything..." He once broke into "a rage" when Bouhe brought them a playpen for the baby. (H 8 383-4)
8/16/1962 James Phelan revived the issue of the Howard Hughes-Donald Nixon loan in The Reporter.
8/17/1962 US press reports that Russian troops are gathering in Cuba, some 18,000-20,000 landing since 7/29.
8/17/1962 On the basis of additional information, McCone states at a high-level meeting that circumstantial evidence suggests that the Soviet Union is constructing offensive missile installations in Cuba. Rusk and McNamara disagree with McCone, arguing that the build-up is purely defensive. (Chronology of John McCone's Suspicions on the Military Build-up in Cuba Prior to Kennedy's October 22 Speech, 11/30/62)
8/20/1962 Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the SGA, informs President Kennedy in a memo that the SGA sees no likelihood that the Castro government can be overthrown without direct U.S. military intervention. Taylor reports that the SGA recommends a more aggressive OPERATION MONGOOSE program. Kennedy authorizes the development of aggressive plans aimed at ousting Castro, but specifies that no overt U.S. military involvement should be made part of those plans. (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 147)
8/20/1962 Memo from Courtney Evans to Belmont; RFK denied that he had ever been to El Paso and denied having an affair with a girl there.
8/20/1962 McCone told JFK that the Soviets were building installations for offensive missiles in Cuba. (Missiles of October p163, Thompson)
8/22/1962 In a news conference, JFK partly confirms Cuba buildup story, saying there is evidence of arrival on the island of supplies and large numbers of Soviet technicians.
8/22/1962 Administration officials tell the NY Times that there are 20,000 communist guerillas in South Vietnam and a stalemate may have developed.
8/22/1962 Newsweek's Francois Sully reported that the war was "a losing proposition" and Diem's government was inadequate. Diem exploded over the article and forced Sully to leave the country 9/1962. He had also described Madame Nhu as a "detested" figure in Vietnam.
8/22/1962 French President Charles De Gaulle was the target of an assassination attempt, organised by the French paramilitary group of OAS. As De Gaulle's black CitroÃ«n official limousine sped through Petit-Clamart, a Paris suburb, it was met by a "barrage of submachine-gun fire". De Gaulle and his entourage, which included his wife, survived the attempt without any casualties or serious injuries, while the attempt's perpetrators were subsequently all arrested and put to trial. Two motorcycles preceded his car and a second Citron followed him. DeGaulle, his wife, his son-in-law, and a chauffeur were in the first car. When submachine guns opened fire on the vehicles, the well-trained drivers continued on as if nothing were happening. De Gaulle himself did not even deign to duck until after Colonel Alain de Boissieu, his son-in-law, shouted at him twice. De Gaulle leaned forward just as bullets flew past the back of his head. 12 bullets hit his car, with one narrowly missing his head; the rear window was shattered. De Gaulle's wife was by his side and was similiarly unfazed by the whole incident. The attack was delayed, and then rushed because of the rainy weather, which made it difficult for them to spot De Gaulle's car. A motorcycle escort was killed in the fusilage of about 100 bullets fired. Though the limo's rear ties were shot out, the chaffeur sped away; a vehicle meant to block the limo failed to stop it. Most of the conspirators were quickly rounded up because they had been rather sloppy. Most OAS rebels were amnestied in 1968, but ringleader Colonel Bastien-Thiry was shot by firing squad, primarily because De Gaulle was upset that his wife had nearly been killed.
8/23/1962 President Kennedy calls a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to air John McCone's concerns that Soviet missiles were in the process of being introduced into Cuba. Although Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara argue against McCone's interpretation of the military build-up in Cuba, Kennedy concludes the meeting by saying that a contingency plan to deal with a situation in which Soviet nuclear missiles are deployed in Cuba should be drawn up.
8/23/1962 Kennedy's instructions are formalized in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 181, issued this same day. Kennedy directs that several additional actions and studies to be undertaken "in light of the evidence of new bloc activity in Cuba," and assigning studies on Berlin, Cuba, and Mongoose problems stating: "What actions can be taken to get Jupiter missiles out of Turkey?" With regard to MONGOOSE, Kennedy orders that "Plan B Plus," a program aimed at overthrowing Castro without overtly employing the U.S. military, be developed "with all possible speed." (Document 12, National Security Action Memorandum 181, on Actions and Studies in Response to New Soviet Bloc Activity in Cuba, 8/23/62)
8/23/1962 McCone left Washington for his honeymoon, and while in Europe received daily briefings on the situation. He sent telegrams back to the CIA 9/7, 10, 13 and 20/1962 expressing his growing concern about the Cuban situation.
8/24/1962 Attempted assassination of Castro by CIA-backed Cuban Student Directorate fails. (The Fish is Red) Two exile motorboats had slipped into Havana Bay at night and shelled the Hotel Icar where Castro was known to have dinner.
8/25/1962 The Oswalds meet George Bouhe and various Russian immigrants at a dinner party given by Peter Gregory and his wife, probably on this date.
8/25/1962 New York Times reported that large Soviet ships were being unloaded at night in Cuba, using forty-foot cranes and closed trucks.
8/26/1962 Che Guevara, Cuba's Minister of Industries, and Emilio AragonÃ©s Navarro, a close associate of Fidel Castro , arrive in the Soviet Union. On August 30, Guevara and AragonÃ©s meet with Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha in the Crimea, where Guevara delivers Castro's amendments to the Soviet-Cuban agreement governing the deployment of missiles in Cuba. Although Guevara urges Khrushchev to announce the missile deployment publicly, the Soviet premier declines to do so. The agreement is never signed by Khrushchev, possibly to preclude the Cuban government from leaking it. Following additional talks in Prague, Guevara and AragonÃ©s return to Cuba on September 6. (Evidence of Soviet Military Commitment to Defend Cuba, 10/19/62; Visit to the Soviet Union by Che Guevara and Emilio Aragones, 8/31/62; Alekseyev, pp. 9-10; Garthoff 1, p. 25)
8/26/1962 More Cuban exile boats shelled the Havana shoreline.
8/26/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "US Impounds Two Boats Used in Shelling of Havana."
8/27/1962 The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, barring the poll tax in federal elections, was approved by Congress.
8/27/1962 Oswald receives requested literature from the Socialist Workers Party
8/27/1962 Sen. Homer Capehart claimed that most of the Russians arriving in Cuba were combat troops; Capehart demanded an invasion of the island.
8/27/1962 US space probe Mariner II reached vicinity of Venus. 12/14 it passed within 21,000 miles of that planet and transmitted radio signals back to earth.
8/28/1962 Felix Frankfurter resigned from the Supreme Court due to ill health.
8/28/1962 Oswald airmailed to the Socialist Workers Party an order for a pamphlet on Trotsky. (H 19 571)
8/28/1962 Reznichenko's consular section of the Russian embassy acknowledges receipt of Marina's documents, says passport will be returned in near future. (H 18 491-2)
8/29/1962 JFK named Arthur Goldberg to the Supreme Court.
8/29/1962 JFK gave the film The Manchurian Candidate a special screening at the White House. (Brothers, Talbot)
8/29-10/7/1962 the spy plane program over Cuba was increased to seven flights. Kennedy claimed publicly that there was no evidence of Soviet long-range missiles being placed in Cuba; this claim was mostly based on what he was being told by the intelligence community. A U-2 flight today provides conclusive evidence of the existence of SA-2 SAM missile sites at eight different locations in Cuba. Additional reconnaissance shortly thereafter also positively identifies coastal defense cruise missile installations for the first time. However, U-2 photography of the area around San CristÃ³bal, Cuba, where the first nuclear missile sites are later detected, reveals no evidence of construction at this time.
8/29/1962 U-2 photograph showing no construction at San Cristobal. U-2 photograph showing no construction at Guanajay. U-2 photograph of SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) site under construction at La Coloma.
8/29/1962 JFK told reporters, "I'm not for invading Cuba at this time...I think it would be a mistake to invade Cuba...could lead to very serious consequences for many people." Kennedy repeats that he has seen no evidence that Soviet troops were stationed in Cuba and stated that there was "no information as yet" regarding the possible presence of air defense missiles in Cuba.
8/30/1962 JFK named Willard Wirtz to succeed Goldberg as Secretary of Labor.
8/30/1962 Chicago and North Western railroad was shut down by a strike of 1000 telegraphers.
8/30/1962 James B. "Smiling Jim" Donovan flew to Cuba on behalf of JFK to talk to Castro about releasing prisoners from the Bay of Pigs. Castro told him he wanted $2.9 million for prisoners already released, plus $25 million in the form of food and medicine for the rest. But Congress, led by Sens. John J. Williams (R-Delaware) and John Stennis (D-Miss.) refused to give money to Castro. The Kennedy administration then went around Congress to raise the money. (The Missiles of October p235-7, Thompson).
8/30/1962 Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago became an independent nation.
8/31/1962 Sen. Keating told the Senate that he had evidence of Soviet "rocket installations in Cuba." He also stated that 1200 uniformed Soviet troops had arrived in Cuba between 8/3 and 8/15. Government sources denied possessing any data to back up that claim.
8/31/1962 Kennedy is informed that the August 29 U-2 mission has confirmed the presence of SAM batteries in Cuba. (Sorensen, p. 670)

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 04:10 PM

9/1962 Johnny Rosselli informs William Harvey the poison pills are still with "asset" in Cuba. Verona is ready to send in another team but it doesn't appear that they ever go.
First week of September 1962: Soviet troops belonging to four elite armored brigades are believed to have begun arriving in Cuba at this time. Troops belonging to the combat groups continue to embark through the second week of October. However, U.S. intelligence does not recognize the existence of the organized combat units until the middle of the missile crisis, on October 25. (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p.13)
9/1962 Alleged meeting at the Scott Byron Hotel, Miami Beach, where mob leader Santos Trafficante talked of Kennedy being killed. Cuban exile Jose Aleman later insisted that he told the FBI about Santos Trafficante's threatening remarks to have Kennedy killed. But a review of FBI reports could find no record of this. (HSCA p174-5) Curt Gentry remarked that he wouldn't be surprised if this record, along with others, had been destroyed at Hoover's orders. (The Man and the Secrets p547) Aleman told the HSCA 3/12/1977 that Trafficante said 'He's not going to be reelected, he's going to be hit.' He told the HSCA that it was his "impression" that Trafficante meant JFK was going to be hit. (HSCA 5 301-14) After the assassination, he said, two agents rushed to see him, interviewed him, and asked him to keep the conversation confidential. One agent whom he claimed to have talked to before the assassination, Paul Scranton, has refused to confirm or deny the claim: "I wouldn't want to say anything to embarrass the Bureau," he told the Washington Post in 1976. 9/1/1962 US press reports that a US Navy aircraft on a training mission 15 miles off Cuba's north coast was shot at by two Cuban patrol vessels.
9/2/1962 Cuba denies firing at the US plane and charges the US with numerous violations of Cuban airspace.
9/2/1962 Moscow announces that they will help defend Cuba from "imperialist" threats.
9/3/1962 At Kennedy 's request, Walt Rostow submits his assessment of the Soviet military build-up. According to Rostow, while the SAMs do not pose a threat to U.S national security, a "line should be drawn at the installation in Cuba or in Cuban waters of nuclear weapons or delivery vehicles..." Senior State Department official Walt Rostow recommends that current OPERATION MONGOOSE activities be intensified but also suggests studying the possibility of having independent anti-Castro groups oust Castro with minimal U.S. assistance. (Document 14, W. W. Rostow's Memorandum to the President, Assessing Soviet Military Aid to Cuba, 9/3/62)
9/4/1962 RFK met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dorbynin, who assured him that only "defense" weapons were being supplied to Cuba, and that Russian missiles would never be placed there.
9/4/1962 JFK told the press that the Soviets had troops and surface-to-air missiles in Cuba, but "there is no evidence of...the presence of offensive ground-to-ground missiles, or of other significant offensive capability...Were it otherwise the gravest issues would arise."
9/5/1962 Oswald pays $9.71 (money order) to State Dept against travel loan. Posted 9/6/62 from 270 Mercedes St, Fort Worth (CE1120)
9/5/1962 A U-2 photographed a Soviet MiG on a Cuban airstrip.
9/6/1962 Rod Serling letter to Kirk Douglas: "I very much share your enthusiasm for the Seven Days in May' project. I also count myself extremely luck to finally get this opportunity to work with you. The project has not only great import, but is the most eminently dramatizeable story I've seen in many a moon."
9/6/1962 The Russian embassy returns Marina's passport. (H 18 493-4)
9/7/1962 A government study on birth control that had been suppressed was ordered to be made public by the Dept. of HEW.
9/7/1962 JFK asked Congress for the authority to call 150,000 members of the reserves to active duty for a year.
9/7/1962 French announced arrest of five people accused of having tried to kill De Gaulle 8/21.
9/7/1962 Dobrynin assures Adlai Stevenson that "only defensive weapons are being supplied" to Cuba.
9/7/1962 Harvey met with Roselli about the anti-Castro plots. (Church Report)
9/7/1962 The U.S. Tactical Air Command (TAC) establishes a working group to begin developing plans for a coordinated air attack against Cuba to be launched well before an airborne assault and amphibious landing. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) military planners have, until then, made no provision for such an operation.
9/8/1962 Around this date, some members of the Russian community notice that Marina Oswald has a black eye.
9/8/1962 A very large Soviet freighter, the Omsk, steamed into the Cuban port of Casilda.
9/9/1962 The Worker's headlined story is "Kennedy Renews Threats Against Cuba's Freedom."
9/10/1962 Robert Frost, after interviewing Khrushchev, said that the Soviet leader had remarked that "American liberals were too soft to fight." (St Louis Post Dispatch)
9/10/1962 This night, Alpha 66 attacked two Cuban vessels and a British freighter in the harbor of Caibarien.
9/10/1962 Supreme Court justice Hugo Black issued an order requiring Ole Miss to admit James Meredith in time for him to begin the fall semester.
9/10/1962 The AEC and the DOD announced that the test had produced an unexpected 'radiation belt' that made satellite communications inoperable.
9/11/1962 The same month as Trafficante's alleged threat against JFK, Carlos Marcello is supposed to have uttered a similar threat. During a business meeting in New Orleans with a close relative, and a man named Edward Becker, Marcello who has been drinking is asked about his war with the Kennedys. "It was then that Carlos' voice lost its softness, and his words were bitten off and spit out when mention was made of U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedyâ€¦'Livarsi na petra di la scarpa!' Carlos shrilled the mafia cry of revenge: Take the stone out of my shoe!' Don't worry about that little Bobby son of a bitch,' he shouted. He's going to be taken care of!' He realized that he had to eliminate the President to eliminate the Attorney General. Simply getting rid of RFK would bring the whole federal government down on him. He was thinking of using a "nut" to do the job. (Ed Reid, The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America, 1969, Regnery) Becker is in fact an informant, working an ex-FBI agent named Julian Blodgett, who works for a private investigative agency in Los Angeles doing contract work with the L.A. FBI office. He had arranged the meeting through a nephew of Marcello's named Carl Roppolo to obtain investment capital from Marcello for an oil venture. Within a week Becker will meet with his ex-FBI contact. Ed Reid will interview Becker in 1967. The FBI will show intense interest in Becker during the fall of 1962. Becker meets with Blodgett on Sep 18 in Brownwood, Texas. They return together to Shreveport, Louisiana. Becker will meet again with Marcello. (HSCA Vol. 9)
9/11/1962 TASS releases an authorized Soviet government statement condemning U.S. overseas bases and denying any intention of introducing offensive weapons into Cuba. The statement declares: "The arms and military equipment sent to Cuba are intended solely for defensive purposes....there is no need for the Soviet Union to set up in any other country--Cuba for instance--the weapons it has for repelling aggression, for a retaliatory blow."
9/11/1962 Castro declared that the US was "playing with fire and with war." Moscow warns that any attack by the US on Cuba will be met with nuclear retaliation.
9/11/1962 William Harvey met with Roselli again about the anti-Castro plots. (Church report)
9/11/1962 "Aâ€¦Brooklyn salesman who has served as a Government informant within the Communist Party pointed out William Albertson today as one who had a big voice in party affairs in New York. The Justice Departmentâ€¦contends he is a member of the party's national committee. At a meeting in October 1961, Mr. Prince said, Mr. Albertson advised party members to invoke the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination if arrested by the FBI." (NYT 9/12/62)
9/12/1962 Cuban papers and officials boasted publicly that if the US invaded, the US would be attacked in kind.
9/13/1962 JFK told reporters that there was no plan for invading Cuba, and accused Castro of a "frantic effort to bolster his regime" by scaring his people. The president reiterates that new movements of Soviet technical and military personnel to Cuba do not constitute a serious threat and that "unilateral military intervention on the part of the United States cannot currently be either required or justified." Nevertheless, he again warns that if Cuba "should ever attempt to export its aggressive purposes by force...or become an offensive military base of significant capacity for the Soviet Union, then this country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies."
9/13/1962 "The French police announced the arrest today of a sixth person accused of participating in the attempt to kill President de Gaulle Aug. 22." (NYT 9/14/62)
9/13/1962 The Senate unanimously approves presidential standby authority to call up reservists.
9/14/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram quotes Gen. Walker saying that the US Army should use Castro's Cuba for holding maneuvers, not Texas farm and ranch land. This afternoon, the Dallas Times-Herald reports, "Walker charged both the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations with selling out' to Communismâ€¦Walker claimed that it was no secret' that the US armed forces are to be placed under United Nations control."
9/15/1962 Letter from JFK to Khruschev, declassified 12/1989. "SECRET - EYES ONLY. I am happy to note your suggestion that you are prepared to negotiate a treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water in the immediate future...we should at the same be negotiating towards a treaty for banning nuclear weapons tests in all environments...A test ban agreement, together with an agreement on the nondissemination of nuclear weapons...would have a powerful effect in detering the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities to other countries."
9/15/1962 photograph of the Soviet large-hatch ship Poltava on its way to Cuba. 9/15-17/1962 medium-range ballistic missiles were unloaded from the Soviet freighter Poltava at the port of Mariel. GOP Senators and Richard Nixon began calling for JFK to "quarantine" Cuba from the import of Soviet arms.
9/15/1962 Columnist Edith Roosevelt claimed that the CIA had supplied weapons to the underground in Cuba in such a way that they could never be used; some groups had 30.06 ammo and .45 caliber rifles, while others were provided with .45 ammo and 30.06 rifles. (Shreveport Journal)
9/16/1962 The Worker editorializes, "In Washington the dogs of war are straining at their leash."
9/17/1962 US News and World Report, reviewing the Bay of Pigs invasion, blamed its failure entirely on JFK's failure to provide air support.
9/18/1962 JFK arrives in Boston with Jackie from Newport, Rhode Island, to vote in the Massachusetts primary. After voting, they return to Newport. Edward M. Kennedy wins the special Democratic primary for Senator by a margin of 311,900 votes, against Edward J. McCormack. (Rachlin, Chronology)
9/19/1962 The United States Intelligence Board (USIB) approves a report on the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba. Its assessment, Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 85-3-62, states that some intelligence indicates the ongoing deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba. In particular, the report notes: (1) two large-hatch Soviet lumber ships, the Omsk and the Poltava, had been sighted riding high in the water suggesting that they carried military cargo; (2) intelligence accounts of sightings of missiles and a report that Fidel Castro 's private pilot, after a night of drinking in Havana, had boasted, "We will fight to the death and perhaps we can win because we have everything, including atomic weapons"; and (3) evidence of the ongoing construction of elaborate SA-2 air defense systems. The report asserts that the Soviet Union "could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba..." However, it concludes that "the establishment on Cuban soil of Soviet nuclear striking forces which could be used against the U.S. would be incompatible with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it...[and the Soviets] would almost certainly estimate that this could not be done without provoking a dangerous U.S. reaction."
9/19/1962 JFK confers with President Gregoire Kavibanda of Rwanda, which became independent July 1. (Rachlin, Chronology)
9/20/1962 A reliable eyewitness report of an offensive missile - made by a CIA sub-agent 9/12 - reached Ray Cline.
9/20/1962 A Senate resolution on Cuba sanctioning the use of force, if necessary, to curb Cuban aggression and subversion in the western hemisphere, passes the Senate by a vote of eighty-six to one. The resolution states that the US is determined "to prevent the creation or use of an externally supported offensive military capability endangering the security of the U.S." and to "support the aspirations of the Cuban people for a return to self-determination." In the House, a foreign aid appropriations bill is approved with three amendments designed to cut off aid to any country permitting the use of its merchant ships to transport arms or goods of any kind to Cuba. The House ratified the resolution Sep 26 by 384 to 7.
9/20/1962 Kennedy signs a bill to establish the Delaware River and Bay Authority. In an address before a joint session of the Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the Sheraton-Park Hotel, JFK appeals to other nations to share the economic burden of foreign aid. (Rachlin, Chronology)
9/20/1962 Harrisburg, Penn: JFK speaks at a Democratic fund-raising dinner. (Rachlin)
9/20-21/1962 boasts by Cuban officials seemed to indicate that nuclear weapons were being set up in Cuba.
9/21/1962 Becker and Blodgett travel to Shreveport, La where the former meets again with Roppolo, arranging a second meeting with Marcello. (HSCA 9 80)
9/21/1962 In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Andrei Gromyko charges the US with whipping up "war hysteria" and threatening to invade Cuba. Gromyko states that "any sober-minded man knows that Cuba is not...building up her forces to such a degree that she can pose a threat to the United States or...to any state of the Western Hemisphere." Gromyko further warns that any U.S. attack on Cuba or on Cuba-bound shipping would mean war.
9/22/1962 Lyman Lemnitzer to the President, "SIOP 63 Briefing," 22 September 1962, Top Secret Source: National Archives, Record Group 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman's Files, Records of Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Box 2, CM 1962, 950-62- to 995-62 This may be the only surviving evidence that President Kennedy received a SIOP-63 briefing on 14 September 1962. The editor has made requests for the briefing text, but if it still exists, no one in the U.S. government has been able to locate it.
9/22/1962 NYT reports that according to the French press, "President de Gaulle refused to duck when assassins fired on his car last month. After the first round of shots I shouted, Get down,' but General de Gaulle and his wife remained upright.'"
9/22/1962 US planes spotted a convoy of Soviet freighters, a tanker and two subs heading for Cuba.
9/24/1962 Arthur K. Watson of IBM (later ambassador to France) told a conference of accountants in NYC: "The disk memory unit, the heart of today's random access computer, is not the logical outcome of a decision made by IBM management. It was developed in one of our laboratories as a bootleg project over the stern warning from management that the project had to be dropped because of budget difficulties. A handful of men ignored the warning. They broke the rules. They risked their jobs to work on a project they believed in."
9/24/1962 Marines at Guantanamo began adding to the fortifications around the base.
9/24/1962 The House passes standby reserve call-up authority for the President 342-13.
9/25/1962 Gov. Barnett, in a physical confrontation with James Meredith, US Attorney John Doar, and Chief US Marshal James J.P. McShane, bars entrance to university trustees' office in Jackson, Miss. He refuses to accept the court order, and this night Barnett is cited for contempt.
9/26/1962 McCone returned to Washington.
9/26/1962 U-2 photograph showing surface-to-surface cruise missile (named "Kennel" by the U.S., FKR in Soviet plans) launch area at Banes.
9/27/1962 The plan for a coordinated tactical air attack on Cuba in advance of an airborne assault and amphibious landing is presented to Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff. The concept is approved and October 20, is set as the date when all preparations needed to implement such an attack should be completed.
9/27/1962 Justice Dept masses 25 federal marshals for another try at registering Meredith but, confronted with 200 police deployed around the campus plus a mob of 2500, they postpone the attempt.
9/28/1962 Navy air reconnaissance aircraft observing Cuba-bound ships photograph ten large shipping crates on the decks of the Soviet vessel Kasimov. After studying the size and configuration of the crates, photoanalysts determine that the containers hold Soviet IL-28 light bomber aircraft. The IL-28s are over twelve years old and have been removed almost entirely from the Soviet Air Force in 1960. Although technically capable of carrying nuclear payloads, the aircraft have never been given a nuclear delivery role.
9/28/1962 photograph of Soviet ship Kasimov with IL-28 bomber fuselages in crates.
9/28/1962 "On September 28, 1962 Dallas confidential informant T-1 advised that Lee H. Oswald, who at that time resided at 2703 Mercedes Street, Fort Worth, Texas, was a subscriber to The Worker, an East Coast communist newspaper." (FBI Hosty Report of 10 Sep 1963 re: Oswald/Russia)
9/28/1962 Press quotes Gen. Walker calling for 10,000 civilians to help block James Meredith from entering the university. Walker's battle cry is, "Barnett yes, Castro no."
9/28/1962 NSAM 189 to Secretaries of state, defense, Joint Chiefs Chairman, DCI. "SUBJECT: Presidential meeting on Laos, September 28, 1962....the President took the following action: 1.Authorized the withdrawal by October 7, 1962, of the remaining elements of MAAG Laos in accordance with the Geneva Agreements; 2.Authorized a special US contribution to the Royal Lao Government for the month of September not to exceed two million....4. Accepted the retention of US combat forces in Thailand pending a further review of developments in Laos. Carl Kaysen."
9/28/1962 Muhammad Al-Badr, imam (ruler) of Yemen, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt.
9/29/1962 Teamster official Edward G. Partin tells Justice Dept that Jimmy Hoffa is planning to kill RFK.
9/29/1962 U-2 flight over western Cuba photographed a surface-to-air missile site and a cruise missile installation.
9/29/1962 Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, was the target of a failed assassination attempt.
9/30/1962 A Dallas police car stopped a vehicle driven by 22-year-old Ashland F. Burchwell of Roseville, Michigan for a routine traffic violation. The car contained a .357 Magnum pistol, three .22 rifles, a larger rifle, three thousand rounds of ammo, blankets, change of clothes, two or three hundred file cards, and a switchblade knife. Burchwell was a protÃ©gÃ© of Gen. Walker, had served in the "special warfare" section of the 24th Division in Germany, and was helping Walker with his political activities. He denied being en route to Oxford to join the general. He was placed in jail for a week until he raised bail. (10/2/1962 Dallas Morning News)
9/30/1962 US News & World Report wrote of 5000-10,000 Soviet troops present in Cuba.
9/30/1962 The US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy consulted with Governor Barnett, who agreed to have James Meredith enroll in the university. After being barred from entering on September 20, on October 1, 1962, he became the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. White students and anti-desegregation supporters protested his enrollment by rioting on the Oxford campus. Robert Kennedy called in 500 U.S. Marshals to take control, who were supported by the 70th Army Engineer Combat Battalion from Ft Campbell, Kentucky. They created a tent camp and kitchen for the US Marshals. To bolster law enforcement, President John F. Kennedy sent in U.S. Army military police from the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and called in troops from the Mississippi Army National Guard and the U.S. Border Patrol as well. In the violent clash, two people died, including the French journalist Paul Guihard, on assignment for the London Daily Sketch. He was found dead behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back. One hundred-sixty US Marshals, one-third of the group, were injured in the melee, and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen were wounded. The US government fined Barnett $10,000 and sentenced him to jail for contempt, but the charges were later dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Meredith's entry is regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of civil rights in the United States. He graduated on August 18, 1963 with a degree in political science. William Doyle, author of Inside the Oval Office, calls the forced integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962 "the biggest domestic military crisis of the twentieth century." In An American Insurrection, he delivers a blow-by-blow account of how the school, popularly known as Ole Miss, was opened to black students for the first time. At the center of the tale is James Meredith, a determined but unusual hero gripped by what Doyle calls "an almost messianic vision of destroying the system of white supremacy in Mississippi." Meredith was one of the first black men to serve in the armed forces following its integration, enlisting right out of high school in 1951. He later decided to seek a college education and resolved to get his degree from the all-white precincts of Ole Miss. Through clever plotting and the assistance of a beleaguered civil rights movement, Meredith won admittance to the school, but his troubles had only just begun. Thousands of segregationists descended upon Oxford, Mississippi, to block Meredith from attending class. Their numbers included students, state police, governor Ross Barnett, and an assortment of troublemakers with no real ties to the university. Through it all, Meredith "succeeded in forcing three new allies to his side: the president of the United States, the U.S. Justice Department, and the most powerful military machine in history." The president ordered the deputies to escort Meredith onto campus September 30th in preparation for his registration the next morning in the Lyceum, the central administration building. It was inside the Lyceum that Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, the senior federal official present, held fort. He manned a bank of telephones in a makeshift newsroom, staying in contact with the president and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. As dusk fell on the 30th, angry students gathered outside the building. Their numbers quickly grew. The contingent of deputy marshals spaced themselves on the sidewalk outside of the building and held guard. They stood at 15-foot intervals, facing the street, and later closed ranks when other federal officers arrived. The deputies concealed loaded side arms under their suit coats, but they were ordered not to use them. About every third man had a teargas launcher with blast dispersion ammunition rather than projectile ammunition. They were outfitted in makeshift military gear. Gas masks and vests, riot batons and old helmets newly painted white with U S MARSHAL stenciled across the front were the order of the day. Tensions mounted, battle lines were drawn and sides were chosen. And the crowd grew loud and agitated with each passing minute. The verbal insults and threats stung. "Most of the harassing, jeering language was so foul I refuse to reiterate it," said retired Southern California Deputy Bud Staple, one of the 127 who stood tall for the agency that night and held their ground. Officers from the Mississippi Highway Patrol were aligned on the opposite side of the street from the deputies. However, they were given conflicting orders by their superiors and they did not quell the impending storm of hatred that was brewing. The student protesters formed into angry mobs, but they tailed off as the evening wore on. However, taking up ranks alongside of them and even replacing them were rioters and assorted troublemakers from as far away as California. "We were successful early on, but as the night wore on, there were fewer and fewer students and more and more people from other places," said Duncan Gray, an Episcopal bishop who confronted the mobs with calls for peace only to be beaten for his efforts by reactionary hoodlums.
9/30/1962 At 10:30pm, JFK goes on national television to talk about the events in Mississippi: "Americans are free to disagree with the law but not to disobey it. For a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent and powerful, and no mob, however, unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men, by force or threat of force, could long defy the commands of our courts and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors."
Fall 1962 French Navy is withdrawn from NATO.

**Dawn Meredith** · 13-04-2014, 05:10 PM

This is a fantastic tool. My only suggestion is that it run chronologically in time instead of jumping back and forth.
What a massive undertaking.
Dawn

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 05:13 PM

10/1962 A directive is issued from the Defense Dept leadership instructing all civilian and military personnel at the Pentagon to report, before the end of each working day, on all contacts with newsmen and the subjects discussed. (Mollenhoff, The Pentagon)
10/1962 Press releases announce that a film version of the novel Seven Days in May, with screenplay by Rod Serling, is already in the works.
10/1962 Ngo Dinh Diem stated, "Everywhere we are passing to the offensive, sowing insecurity in the Communists' reputedly impregnable strongholds, smashing their units one after another." (Don't Quote Me, Atyeo & Green)
10/1962 The missile crisis arose because, as Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs, "we were quite certain that the [Bay of Pigs] invasion was only the beginning and that the Americans would not let Cuba alone." To defend Cuba from the threat of another U.S. invasion, Khrushchev said he "had the idea of installing missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba without letting the United States find out they were there until it was too late to do anything about them." His strategy was twofold: "The main thing was that the installation of our missiles in Cuba would, I thought, restrain the United States from precipitous military action against Castro's government. In addition to protecting Cuba, our missiles would have equalized what the West likes to call 'the balance of power.' The Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you." Khrushchev Remembers, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Edward Crankshaw (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 492.
10/1/1962 Secretary McNamara meets with the JCS for a briefing on the latest intelligence on Cuba and to discuss intensified Cuban contingency planning. Defense Intelligence Agency analysts inform the group that some intelligence points to the possibility that MRBMs have been positioned in Pinar del RÃo Province. After the meeting, Admiral Robert Dennison, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command (CINCLANT), is directed by McNamara "to be prepared to institute a blockade against Cuba." The commanders-in-chief of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force under the Atlantic Command are also directed to pre-position military equipment and weapons needed to execute the airstrike plan. (USCONARC Participation in the Cuban Crisis, 10/63, p. 8; CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 4/29/63, p. 39; Department of Defense Operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2/12/63, p. 2)
10/1/1962 Maxwell Taylor becomes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, replacing Lemnitzer. Gen. Earl Wheeler becomes Army Chief of Staff. Even after General Lemnitzer lost his job as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the JCS still planned false-flag pretext operations at least into 1963. A different U.S. Department of Defense policy paper created in 1963 discussed a plan to make it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) so that the United States could retaliate. The U.S. Department of Defense document says of one of the scenarios, "A contrived 'Cuban' attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the U.S. and OAS." The plan expresses confidence that by this action, "the U.S. could almost certainly obtain the necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba." Included in the nations the Joint Chiefs suggested as targets for covert attacks were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Since both were members of the British Commonwealth, the Joint Chiefs hoped that by secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could incite the people of the United Kingdom into supporting a war against Castro. As the U.S. Department of Defense report noted: "Any of the contrived situations described above are inherently, extremely risky in our democratic system in which security can be maintained, after the fact, with very great difficulty. If the decision should be made to set up a contrived situation it should be one in which participation by U.S. personnel is limited only to the most highly trusted covert personnel. This suggests the infeasibility of the use of military units for any aspect of the contrived situation." The U.S. Department of Defense report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: "The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro's subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo." (Bamford, Body of Secrets)
10/1/1962 George de Mohrenschildt drove Marina and June to a friend's house (Adm. Henry C. Bruton) for a swim in their pool. Mr. Bruton was away on travel, and his wife was sympathetic to Marina's plight, portraying her as having been abandoned by her husband. Then Oswald showed up unexpectedly while they were outside, and George became visibly irritated; a friend of the Bruton's, Philip Weinert, was also present. He and Mrs Bruton began talking with Oswald, who acted friendly and articulate. Lee and Marina didn't seem angry at each other, either; George's plan to move Marina in with the Brutons fell apart.
10/1/1962 US News and World Report stated that "competent authorities at the Navy base [Guantanamo] believe Washington is underplaying the Soviet buildup in Cuba - and are puzzled why."
10/1/1962 Gen. Edwin Walker is arrested in Mississippi and charged with insurrection. The arresting officer states, "I didn't feel like I was talking to a rational manâ€¦There was a wild, dazed look in his eyes. He was unable really to speak too well." (NYT 10/2)
10/1/1962 NYT reported on 10/2: "Dallas A 22-year-old man has been arrested for trying to transport a small arsenal to Mississippi, the police said today. They said the man, Ashland Burchwell of Dallas, told them he had worked for Edwin A. Walker in the latter's unsuccessful campaign for Governor. Four pistols, a rifle and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition were seized."
10/2/1962 As a result of his meeting with the JCS the previous day, Robert McNamara sends a memo to the JCS outlining six circumstances in which military action against Cuba may be necessary: a. Soviet action against Western rights in Berlin... b. Evidence that the Castro regime has permitted the positioning of bloc offensive weapons on Cuban soil or in Cuban harbors. c. An attack against the Guantanamo Naval Base or against U.S. planes or vessels outside Cuban territorial air space or waters. d. A substantial popular uprising in Cuba, the leaders of which request assistance... e. Cuban armed assistance to subversion in other parts of the Western Hemisphere. f. A decision by the President that the affairs in Cuba have reached a point inconsistent with continuing U.S. national security. McNamara asks that future military planning cover a variety of these contingencies, and place particular emphasis on plans that would assure that Fidel Castro is removed from power. (CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, /29/63, p.-42)
10/2/1962 Kennedy was making piecemeal concessions to the military on Vietnam. That fall marked one of the worst. On October 2, 1962, he authorized a "limited crop destruction operation" in Phu Yen Province by South Vietnamese helicopters spraying U.S.-furnished herbicides. Dean Rusk had argued against the military's push for crop destruction, saying that even though "the most effective way to hurt the Viet Cong is to deprive them of food, " nevertheless those doing it "will gain the enmity of people whose crops are destroyed and whose wives and children will either have to stay in place and suffer hunger or become homeless refugees living on the uncertain bounty of a not-too-efficient government." While sensitive to Rusk's argument, Kennedy had yielded to the pressures of McNamara, Taylor, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and approved a criminal action. By going along with the military on crop destruction, Kennedy was violating both his conscience and international law. In August he had already approved a separate herbicide operation whose purpose of defoliation, as recommended by McNamara, was to "deny concealed forward areas, attack positions, and ambush sites to the Viet Cong." However, in his August approval, Kennedy had asked "that every effort be made to avoid accidental destruction of the food crops in the areas to be sprayed." In October, the actual purpose of the program he approved was crop destruction. Why did he do it? According to Michael Forrestal, "I believe his main train of thinking was that you cannot say no to your military advisors all the time."
10/2/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Gen. Walker was being held in a hospital and charged with blocking justice.
10/2/1962 At a luncheon, JFK said the US would "contain the expansion of Communism fromâ€¦Cuba andâ€¦take those steps which will finally provide for the freedom of the Cuban people."
10/3/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Gen. Walker is being held for mental evaluation.
10/3/1962 JFK asked the JCS to draw up plans for a possible air strike on Cuba.
10/3/1962 Washington: Latin American foreign ministers end two-day talks with Dean Rusk on measures to meet "Sino-Soviet intervention in Cuba."
10/3/1962 Mercury 8: near-perfect flight of Walter Schirra in Sigma 7 for nine-hour endurance test in space. After six orbits, he splashed down and was picked up by the carrier Kearsarge.
10/4/1962 The SGA meets to discuss the progress of OPERATION MONGOOSE. According to minutes of the meeting, RFK states that the President was "concerned about progress on the MONGOOSE program" and believed that "more priority should be given to trying to mount sabotage operations." The attorney general also expresses the president's "concern over [the] developing situation," and urges that "massive activity" be undertaken within the MONGOOSE framework. The group agrees that plans for the mining of Cuban harbors and for capturing Cuban forces for interrogation should be considered. It was established that "General Lansdale's authority over the entire Mongoose operation, and that the CIA organization was responsive to his policy and operational guidance, and this was thoroughly understood." (Memorandum of Mongoose Meeting Held on Thursday, October 4, 1962; Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 147; Document: Memorandum of Project Mongoose meeting.)
10/4/1962 McNamara told JFK that an air strike could work if carried out. A meeting of the US Intelligence Board was held. Looking at photos taken of Cuba, no offensive missiles could be spotted, though there had been no pictures of the western sector of the island since 9/5. McCone ordered overflights of that area stepped up. But the CIA worried that an SA-2 (which had downed Powers) might shoot down another U-2 over Cuba, again involving the CIA; McNamara recommended that the overflight operation be transferred to the Strategic Air Command, and McCone agreed. RFK complained that McCone's covert operations against Cuba hadn't been working.
10/4/1962 JFK issues an executive order effective in two weeks to curb use of US or foreign ships for Cuban trade. It closes US ports to all ships of any nations that permit their vessels to carry military equipment to Cuba. UK and Canada criticize the move.
10/5/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that ACLU of Houston feels that Gen. Walker's rights are being violated.
10/5/1962 CIA chart of "reconnaissance objectives in Cuba."
10/6/1962 CINCLANT directs increased readiness to execute an invasion of Cuba. On October 1, CINCLANT orders military units to increase their readiness posture to execute Oplan 312, the airstrike on Cuba. With the new orders, the pre-positioning of troops, aircraft, ships, and other equipment and supplies are directed to increase readiness to follow an airstrike with a full invasion of the island using one of two U.S. invasion plans known as Oplan 314 and Oplan 316.
10/6/1962 Dallas Times Herald quoted LBJ as saying that a blockade of Cuba was dangerous: "stopping a Russian ship is an act of war."
10/7/1962 Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Gen. Walker's legal staff had freed him from Springfield under stipulation that he will submit to a psychiatric evaluation in Dallas. He arrived at Love Field this afternoon and was greeted by 200 well-wishers.
10/7/1962 This afternoon, a gathering of the Russian community takes place at Mercedes St.; George Bouhe, Anna Meller, Elena Hall, Alex Kleinlerer, George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, Alexandra and Gary Taylor, and Lee and Marina Oswald. Marguerite briefly appears. It is decided at this gathering that Oswald will come to Dallas to look for a job; Marina will stay with the Taylors for some time in Dallas while she gets her teeth worked on at the Baylor Dental Clinic. Marina will then return to Fort Worth and live with Mrs. Hall until Oswald could get them an apartment in Dallas. Oswald acted as though his job at Leslie Welding was over, though the foreman there thought Oswald was an outstanding worker. George de Mohrenschildt urged his new friend Lee Harvey Oswald to move to Dallas, where more of the Russian immigrants lived. Oswald took him so seriously that the next day he quit his job at a Fort Worth welding company and made the move. (Hurt, Reasonable Doubt) De Mohrenschildt then became Oswald's mentor in Dallas. The Baron's wife and daughter said it was he who organized Oswald's securing a new job, four days after his move, with a Dallas graphic arts company, Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. The official record is that Louise Latham of the Texas Employment Commission sent Oswald to the firm. Author Henry Hurt interviewed Ms. Latham, who denied that de Mohrenschildt got the job for Oswald. Whoever was responsible for Oswald's immediate hiring, it was a remarkable achievement. Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, described by the Warren Commission simply as "a commercial advertising photography firm," had contracts with the U.S. Army Map Service. Its classified work connected with Oswald's history as an apparent traitor. From interviews with Jaggars-Chiles Stovall employees, Hurt concluded, "Part of the work appears to have been related to the top secret U-2 missions, some of which were then making flights over Cuba." Four days before President Kennedy was shown U-2 photos that confirmed Soviet missiles in Cuba, Lee Harvey Oswald reported to work at a defense contractor that was apparently involved in logistics support for the U-2 mission. According to Oswald's co-workers, some of them were setting type for Cuban place names to go on maps-probably for the same spy planes whose radar secrets the ex-Marine had already offered to the Soviet Union. Oswald was once again, through the intervention of undercover angels, defying the normal laws of government security barriers.
10/8/1962 JFK's order to McNamara, and from McNamara to the generals, to open up the opposite option of withdrawal from Vietnam, was going nowhere. General Harkins continued to drag his heels on a withdrawal plan. A report on McNamara's next SECDEF conference, held October 8, 1962, in Honolulu, states: "General Harkins did not have time to present his plan for phasing out US personnel in Viet-Nam within 3 years." At this meeting McNamara did not push Harkins, probably because Kennedy did not push McNamara. At the time JFK was preoccupied with the Cuban missile situation.
10/8/1962 British agreed to let US use the British Bahamas for supply-storage.
10/8/1962 Oswald worked a full day at Leslie Welding, then left without giving any notice or forwarding address. Jeanne De Mohrenschildt takes Marina to the dentist. (H 21 550-56) This night, Oswald and Elena Hall move the Oswalds' belongings to her house; he gives his landlord no word that he is leaving. 10/8-10/1962 Marina and June Oswald lived with the Taylor family while Lee looked for work.
10/8/1962 Cuban President DorticÃ³s, addressing the U.N. General Assembly, calls upon the UN to condemn the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Near the end of his address, DorticÃ³s declares: "If...we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons which we would have preferred not to acquire and which we do not wish to employ." The speech is interrupted four times by anti-Castro demonstrators.
10/8/1962 A squad of Cuban exiles raided the port of Isabela de Sagua, killing some Russian soldiers.
10/9/1962 Dallas Morning News reports that Gen. Walker will present himself for examination to Dallas psychiatrist Dr. Robert Stubblefield.
10/9/1962 The main post office on Ervay Street in Dallas is the location where Oswald rented box 2915 from October 9, 1962, to May 14, 1963. (WR) Oswald visits the Dallas post office and rents box 2915; he then goes to the Texas Employment Commission, where he has been given the name Helen Cunningham, a friend of the Mellers. On the application he writes the Taylors' address correctly but gives the wrong location for Leslie Welding. On the PO Box application, he writes 3519 Fairmore instead of Fairmount for the Taylors' address. Marguerite discovers that the Oswalds are no longer at the Mercedes St address and storms over to Robert's house to ask where they've gone. She doesn't see Lee again until the time of the assassination.
10/9/1962 In a report, McNamara noted that "a tremendous amount of progress had been made during the past year" though he thought it was too early to predict that the tide had turned in Vietnam.
10/9/1962 Walter Lippman warned that Castro was only seeking Soviet aid to defend against another invasion, not to threaten the US, and that "those who are prone by temperament and character to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign power, have not always been in the right." Twenty years later, Anthony Cordesman described the picture: "During the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the US had approximately 1500 B-47s and 500 B-52s, and had already deployed over 200 of its first generation of ICBMs. In marked contrast, the Soviet strategic missile threat consisted of a few token ICBM deployments whose unreliability was so great that it was uncertain exactly whom they threatened. Soviet long range bomber forces consisted only of 100 Tu-Bears and 35 May Bison, whose range and flight characteristics forced them to fly at medium and high altitudes, and which made them extremely vulnerable to US fighters and surface-to-air missiles." (p. 7, cited in Bobbitt)
10/9/1962 Tonight, Castro told the Cuban people for the first time that Russian military "technicians" were stationed in their country to defend against a US attack.
10/10/1962 OSWALD pays $10.00 (postal money order) to State Dept against travel loan. Posted 10/11/62 from 270 Mercedes St., Fort Worth (CE1120) Oswald visits the Texas Employment Service and is interviewed by Mrs. Cunningham; he impresses her as neat and bright. Oswald mails a change-of-address form to Fort Worth redirecting his mail from Mercedes St to Dallas. He also mails a postcard to Robert: "Dear Robert for the new address you can write to Box 2915 Dallas, Texas."
10/10/1962 JFK went to Baltimore to campaign for Democratic congressional candidates, and more than 200,000 people came out to see his motorcade.
10/10/1962 AP quoted Gen. Barksdale Hamlett, US Army Vice Chief of Staff: "The training, transportation and logistical support we are providing in Vietnam has succeeded in turning the tide against the Vietcong."
10/10/1962 Sen. Keating (R-NY) announced that he had confirmed reports that missiles in Cuba could hit the US or the Panama Canal. Among his papers stored at the University of Rochester almost all of the materials from 9-10/1962 are missing. (Missiles of October p15, Thompson)
10/11/1962 JFK signed into law the Trade Expansion Act which lowered tariffs. He called it the "most important international piece of legislation since the Marshall Plan."
10/11/1962 Kennedy went to New York to help Robert Morgenthau's campaign against Nelson Rockefeller.
10/11/1962 Oswald is referred by the Texas Employment Commission to Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a graphic-arts firm, in answer to a phone call from John Graef, head of the company's photographic department, who is looking for a photoprint trainee. Graef selects the enthusiastic Oswald from a number of applicants.
10/11/1962 NY Daily News reporter Ted Lewis wrote that JFK was organizing a "private ransom committee [for Bay of Pigs prisoners in Cuba], headed...by Eleanor Roosevelt, Walter Reuther and Milton Eisenhower. And he urged citizens to contribute to it."
10/11/1062 Alpha 66 claimed responsibility for a raid on the Cuban port of Isabela de Sagua on Monday night.
10/12/1962 JFK campaigned from NY to New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
10/12/1962 Gen. Edwin Walker met with Dr. Stubblefield for an interview. (Dallas Morning News)
10/12/1962 Oswald's first workday at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall. JAGGARS-CHILES-STOVALL was a graphic arts firm in Dallas that Oswald worked at 10/12/1962-4/6/1963. He worked in the photographic department. The company made maps for the US Army and required a security clearance for employees. (Spy Saga 82-86; Reasonable Doubt 220-224) He was hired as a photo-print trainee, making $1.35 an hour. Gerald Posner says "the company prepared advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and trade publications and was also under contract to the Army's Map Service...Oswald did write the term 'micro-dots' next to Jaggar's listing in his address book. But Jaggar's work for the government was almost entirely unclassified. [Testimony of Robert Stovall, H 10 168] The small percentage that was confidential involved the setting of words, letters and figures for maps, but at no time did the company have any idea of what the material correlated to - the actual maps were never at Jaggars. [ibid, 168-9] The employees who worked in the map section had security clearances. Oswald did not have one, did not work with the Army maps, and never had access to that section. [ibid 169] Jaggars never did work involving microdots. [Posner interview with David Perry, 9/28/1992]" (Case Closed 90-91) Oswald often worked overtime, trying to learn as much as he could about photography; he first made calling cards for himself and De Mohrenschildt (CE 800). Then he sent samples of his work to The Worker and The Militant, which he had begun subscribing to shortly after he returned to the US. He offered his services to both; The Worker thanked him and said it might call him. (Weinstock Exhibit 1, H 21) Michael Eddowes: "A fellow employee testified that he spoke frequently to Lee and had received the impression that Lee went to the Soviet Union as an agent of the United States, because Lee was particularly interested in talking about the military disposition of troops, tanks and aircraft in that country, and appeared to have considerable information as to the methods the Soviets used in placing the various branches of the military in different locations. Lee told him that he had married a White Russian. None of the three Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall staff was asked why Oswald had executed work for the Army Map Service as indicated on his work sheet. [H 10 167-213]" (Oswald File 49) The Dallas Times Herald talked about the firm (without mentioning it by name) 11/29/1963: "'He was very intelligent, I'd say. He was smart enough to do anything he wanted if he wanted to bad enough.' The words belong to a man who worked alongside Lee Harvey Oswald for seven months in a downtown printing firm...[Oswald] was fired from his job for incompetency. 'On the day the President was shot I was riding in a car with a friend. We heard the description of the man they were holding and I turned to my friend and said it sounded just like a guy named Lee Oswald. "He's a real kookie guy," I said.'...The man said Oswald had trouble with some of the employees at the firm, where he worked from October 1962 until May 1963. 'It was with people from another department, though. He never had any trouble with us like that,' said the man, who requested that his name not be used. 'There was a narrow path between two developing sinks and the wall with barely enough room for one person. But Lee would crowd through anyway even though there were many other ways he could have passed. He'd just barge through, never apologizing. Finally, somebody said something to him about it. They had words. Next time, though, Oswald barged through again...There must have been three or four persons he had run-ins with.' (Another employee said his impression was that nearly three-fourths of the other workers had threatened to 'knock his block off.') 'I seldom ever saw him smile or laugh or talk with the others. He was just a misfit more or less...He was definitely a loner. His shoes were awfully, awfully worn. He was pretty badly dressed...And he never showed any money.' The man said he never remembered Oswald joining the others for lunch. 'Usually he had a book that he would read while he ate his sack lunch. Several times he brought some Russian magazines to work and once I saw him with a copy of the Daily Worker.' The firm handles some classified work for the government, but Oswald didn't work in that department."
10/12/1962 This night an exile gunboat sank a Cuban boat off Cardenas.
10/12/1962 The Los Angeles Times reported Rep. A. Paul Kitchin (R-Penn.) revealing information that "contradicts government figures on arms buildup in Cuba."
10/13/1962 (Sat) The Second Vatican Council, convened by Pope John XXIII to break down the barriers separating Christians of different denominations and to reform the structure of the Catholic Church, opened in Rome.
10/13/1962 JFK campaigned in the Midwest. He denounced Sen. Capehart's call for US intervention in Cuba.
10/13/1962 Alpha 66 bragged to reporters that they were planning more raids on Cuba, including a raid against British shipping to Cuba.
10/13/1962 Chester Bowles has a long conversation with Dobrynin. Bowles, after having been briefed by Thomas Hughes of the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, tells Dobyrnin that the US "had some evidence" indicating that Soviet nuclear missiles were in Cuba. Dobyrnin, who had not been told of the missile deployment by the Kremlin, repeatedly denies that the Soviet Union harbored any intention of placing such weapons in Cuba.
10/14/1962 (Sun) Kennedy finished campaigning and flew back to Washington.
10/14/1962 Early morning: A U-2 flies over western Cuba from south to north. The reconnaissance mission, piloted by Major Richard Heyser, is the first Strategic Air Command (SAC) mission after authority for the flights is transferred from the CIA to the Air Force. The photographs obtained by the mission provide the first hard evidence of MRBM sites in Cuba, at San Cristobal.
10/14/1962 Soviet truck convoy deploying missiles near San Cristobal, Cuba, on Oct. 14, 1962. Taken by Maj. Steve Heyser's U-2, it was the first picture proving Soviet missiles were being emplaced in Cuba. U-2 photograph of MRBM site two nautical miles away from the Los Palacios deployment the second set of MRBMs found in Cuba. This site was subsequently named San Cristobal no. 1 (the photo is labeled 15 October for the day it was analyzed and printed).
10/14-15/1962 National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington to analyze photos taken by Heyser's U-2 mission. Late in the afternoon, one of the teams finds pictures showing the main components of a Soviet MRBM in a field at San CristÃ³bal. Analysis of reconnaissance photos during the day also identifies all but one of the remaining twenty-four SAM sites in Cuba. Other photographs of San JuliÃ¡n airfield show that IL-28 light bombers are being uncrated. A senior officer at NPIC phones CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence Ray Cline to inform him of the discovery. The officials at NPIC have tried to contact CIA Director McCone but are unable to reach him en route to Los Angeles. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, who is given the news by Ray Cline, decides to wait until morning to alert President Kennedy. Bundy later states that he chose to wait because it was not possible to prepare a presentation information until morning and because he feared that a hastily summoned meeting at night would jeopardize secrecy.
10/14 or 15/1962 The SGA orders the acceleration of covert activities against Cuba. In particular, the group agrees that "considerably more sabotage should be undertaken" and that "all efforts should be made to develop new and imaginative approaches with the possibility of getting rid of the Castro regime." (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p. 147)
10/14 or 15/1962 A major U.S. military exercise named PHIBRIGLEX-62 is scheduled to begin. The two-week long maneuver was to have employed twenty thousand Navy personnel and four thousand Marines in an amphibious assault on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island and the overthrow of its imaginary tyrant, "Ortsac"-"Castro" spelled backwards. (However, because of the impending crisis, PHIBRIGLEX62 is used primarily as cover for troop and equipment deployments aimed at increasing military readiness for a strike on Cuba.) (CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 4/29/63)
10/14/1962 McGeorge Bundy, on 'Issues and Answers,' downplayed the significance of the Soviet military aid to Cuba.
10/14/1962 Tonight an Alpha 66 boat sank a Cuban patrol boat.
10/15/1962 (Mon) Eisenhower campaigned for GOP candidates, attacking JFK's "dreary foreign record of the past twenty-one months."
10/15/1962 Reports surface that US chopper crews in Vietnam have begun to fire first upon VC formations.
10/15/1962 Oswald moved into the YMCA on this date, according to the WC, and left 10/19. The Report failed to account for where he stayed the previous several days. He stayed at the YMCA at 605 N. Ervay for awhile as he looked for work in Dallas, but thought it was too expensive at $2.25 a night. (WR 718-9) De Mohrenschildt and Bouhe both tried to find work for Oswald; he scored well on aptitude tests given by the Texas Employment Commission, indicating that he could do clerical work. Oswald rented the PO Box in Dallas that day, under the name "Lee H. Oswald." The application for the P.O. box was in Oswald's handwriting. (WR) Marina comes to Dallas for a dental appointment and stays overnight with the De Mohrenschildts.
10/15/1962 Morning: Quick readout teams at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington analyze photos taken by Richard Heyser's U-2 mission. Late in the afternoon, one of the teams finds pictures showing the main components of a Soviet MRBM in a field at San CristÃ³bal. Analysis of reconnaissance photos during the day also identifies all but one of the remaining twenty-four SAM sites in Cuba. Other photographs of San JuliÃ¡n airfield show that IL-28 light bombers are being uncrated.
10/15/1962 U-2 photograph of IL-28 bomber crates at San Julian airfield.
10/15/1962 Late afternoon: A senior officer at NPIC phones Ray Cline to inform him of the discovery. The officials at NPIC have tried to contact McCone but are unable to reach him en route to Los Angeles. Cline requests that NPIC completely recheck the photographs and consult with missile experts outside of the agency. Cline asks that he be called again between 8:00 and 10:00P.M. to be informed of the results of these additional analyses. ("A CIA Reminiscence." Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1982) Key administration officials are tracked down in Washington and briefed about the discovery of the missiles. McGeorge Bundy, who is given the news by Ray Cline, decides to wait until morning to alert President Kennedy. Bundy later states that he chose to wait because it was not possible to prepare a presentation information until morning and because he feared that a hastily summoned meeting at night would jeopardize secrecy. McNamara was at a dinner party that night, so Roswell Gilpatric was told about the photos of missiles in Cuba by the Pentagon and CIA.
10/15/1962 Rudolph Anderson, an Air Force major on loan to the CIA, flew a U-2 over Cuba (Deep Black 122-23)
10/16/1962 (Tue) JFK signed his investment incentive plan to encourage business to buy more equipment and expand factories. He called it a "good start on bringing our tax structure up to date," though some of his reform ideas had been eliminated by Congress. The same month, there was a sharp increase in orders for machine tools. By the spring of 1963 companies cited his tax plan as an important reason for increased business investment. (Business Week 4/27/1963) Kennedy was able to persuade Congress to pass an act that removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad. While this law applied to industry as a whole, it especially affected the oil companies. It was estimated that as a result of this legislation, wealthy oilmen saw a fall in their earnings on foreign investment from 30 per cent to 15 per cent. Kennedy decided to take on the oil industry. On 16th October, 1962, Kennedy was able to persuade Congress to pass an act that removed the distinction between repatriated profits and profits reinvested abroad. While this law applied to industry as a whole, it especially affected the oil companies. It was estimated that as a result of this legislation, wealthy oilmen saw a fall in their earnings on foreign investment from 30 per cent to 15 per cent.
10/16/1962 Dr. King meets with JFK for an hour at the White House.
10/16/1962 JFK signed a bill extending Secret Service protection to the Vice President. (NYT 10/17/62)
10/16/1962 Oswald finished his training at Jaggers and began working in the camera department. His work sheet showed that he executed a job that morning for the Army Map Service. Marina has daughter June baptized by a Russian Orthodox priest in Dallas; she doesn't tell Oswald about this.
10/16/1962 The USIB meets to examine U-2 photographs and to coordinate intelligence on the crisis. During the meeting, the USIB directs the Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee (GMAIC) to prepare an immediate evaluation of the Soviet missile sites. The GMAIC concludes that the missiles are clearly under Soviet control and that there is no evidence that nuclear warheads are present in Cuba. It also concludes that the missile installations thus far identified do not appear to be operational. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, p. 36)
10/16/1962 Premier Khrushchev receives U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Foy Kohler for a three-hour conversation on a variety of subjects. Khrushchev reassures Kohler that the Cuban fishing port that the Soviet Union has recently agreed to help build will remain entirely non-military. Khrushchev adds that the Cuban government has announced the agreement without consulting Soviet officials, and that when he learned of the leak, he "cursed them and said they should have waited until after the U.S. elections." Once again, Khrushchev insists that all Soviet activity in Cuba was defensive and sharply criticizes U.S. bases in Turkey and Italy. (Report on Khrushchev Kohler Meeting, October 16 (Part IV: Discussion of U-2, Cuban Fishing Port, Nuclear Test Ban and U.S. Elections) In Two Sections, 10/16/62; Sorensen, p. 691; Hilsman 1, p. 166)
10/16/1962 JFK described Sen. Homer Capehart's call for a blockade or invasion of Cuba "irresponsible warmongering."
10/16/1962 A Gallup poll showed that 51% of Americans feared an invasion of Cuba would trigger war with Russia.
8:45am (EST) McGeorge Bundy informs President Kennedy that "hard photographic evidence" has been obtained showing Soviet MRBMs in Cuba. Kennedy immediately calls a meeting for 11:45am.
9:00am: (EST) RFK was called to the White House by the President: "he told me that a U-2 had just finished a photographic mission and that the Intelligence Community had become convinced that Russia was placing missiles and atomic weapons in Cuba." (13 Days) President Kennedy briefs his brother Robert, who expresses surprise at the news. JFK and RFK determine they have two missions: to get the missiles out and to contain war impulses. (Mahoney p200) Kennedy also telephones John McCloy, who recommends that the president take forceful action to remove the missiles, even if that involves an airstrike and an invasion. (The Missile Crisis, Abel; The Wise Men)
11:15am (EST) Kennedy confers for half an hour with Charles Bohlen, who later recalls that at this early stage in the crisis, "there seemed to be no doubt in [Kennedy's] mind, and certainly none in mine, that the United States would have to get these bases eliminated...the only question was how it was to be done." Bohlen participates in the first ExComm meeting later that morning but leaves for France on the following day.
11:50am: (EST) Cabinet Room, White House. The first meeting of the ExComm (the Executive Committee of the National Security Council) convenes. JFK, RFK, LBJ, Rusk, McNamara, Gilpatric, Bundy, Taylor, Carter, Sorensen, Dillon, Ball, Edwin M. Martin, McCone, Dean Acheson and Robert Lovett. (Robert S. Thompson says that McCone was not present; Bohlen, Alexis Johnson, O'Donnell, Arthur Lundahl of CIA, were present). The meeting was tape-recorded. Note: JFK decides not to "attend all the meetings of our committee," to keep discussions from being inhibited." (Kennedy, p33)
10/16/1962 On the morning of October 16, CIA imagery analysts brief the president on the results of U-2 photo reconnaissance overflights of Cuba on Sunday that had discovered the existence of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) in Cuba. The briefing begins with an interpretation of the images by Arthur Lundahl from CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), who speaks loud and clearly, with supporting analysis from the CIA's Acting Director Marshall Carter, whose voice is low and often difficult to hear. The president then asks Lundahl several questions about the images. Lundahl then introduces Sidney Graybeal ("our missile man") who shows the president photos of similar weapons systems taken during Soviet military parades. Obviously concerned, the president then asks Graybeal when the missiles will be ready to fire. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara then joins the discussion, adding that he doubts that the missiles are yet ready to fire since there is no indication that nuclear warheads are present. The CIA showed photos of what they said were missiles sites being constructed. The missiles are initially identified by photoanalysts as nuclear tipped SS-3s by their length; by evening, the MRBMs are correctly identified as longer range SS-4 missiles. No nuclear warheads are reported seen in the area. CIA photoanalyst Sidney Graybeal informs the group that "we do not believe [the missiles] are ready to fire." RFK recalled, "I, for one, had to take their word for it. I examined the pictures carefully, and what I saw appeared to be no more than the clearing of a field for a farm or the basement of a house. I was relieved to hear later that this was the same reaction of virtually everyone at the meeting including President Kennedy." (13 Days) The first part of the noon meeting covers questions regarding the validity and certainty of the evidence, Soviet military capabilities in Cuba and what additional U.S. surveillance might be required. Further U-2 flights are ordered, and six U-2 reconnaissance missions are flown during the day. In the freewheeling discussion, participants cover a number of different options for dealing with the Cuban situation. The principle options discussed are: (1) a single, surgical airstrike on the missile bases; (2) an attack on various Cuban facilities; (3) a comprehensive series of attacks and invasion; or (4) a blockade of Cuba. Preliminary discussions lean toward taking some form of military action. As discussions continue on proposals to destroy the missiles by airstrike, RFK passes a note to the president: "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor." This phase of the meeting ended at 12:57pm. (Robert Kennedy, Thirteen Days (New York: Signet, 1969)
12:15 PM (EST) Afternoon: McNamara, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, and the JCS hold a luncheon meeting to begin preparing the military for any actions that might be ordered. At the State Department, additional discussions continue with Dean Rusk , Undersecretary of State George Ball , Adlai Stevenson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Edwin Martin, Deputy Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson , and State Department Soviet specialist Llewellyn Thompson . (Chronology of the Cuban Crisis October 15-28, 1962, 11/2/62, p.1; Taylor, p. 269) The SGA convenes in the White House prior to the second ExComm meeting. According to Richard Helms's notes, Robert Kennedy expresses President Kennedy's "general dissatisfaction" with progress under the MONGOOSE program. The SGA discusses but rejects several alternatives for eliminating the newly discovered Soviet missile sites in Cuba, including a proposal to have Cuban emigrÃ©s bomb the missile sites. (Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 11/20/75, p.146; Hurwitch, p. 33) Following the CIA briefing, McNamara and then General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, brief the president on his military alternatives. Taylor's presentation is followed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Rusk's voice is faint, but he warns the president that an air strike on the missile installations may actually trigger a "general nuclear war" if the event that they are in fact armed and the Soviets decide to launch them before they are destroyed on the ground. McNamara disagrees. The president then questions the Soviet motive for establishing the missile sites, with subsequent comments from McNamara and then Taylor. National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy then asks whether a military strike on Cuba would include all airfields. McNamara responds. Rusk is then faintly heard asking again about the Soviet motive, suggesting that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev may want the U.S. to "live under the fear" of Soviet nuclear weapons the same way the Soviets live with missiles in Turkey. The clip ends with the president asking how many missiles are in Turkey.
12:45 PM (EST) Cabinet Room, The White House. Later in the same meeting the president sums up the military options. His brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, adds that a full invasion is also an option, but warns that this would probably provoke a response from the Soviets. A short conversation then ensues in which McNamara and Taylor explain how much time is needed to prepare for a full invasion of Cuba.
1:00 PM (EST) Cabinet Room, The White House. At the end of the Tuesday session, the president states that the group should consider the various proposed responses to the situation, adding that photo reconnaissance flights should continue and that preparations for strikes against the missile installations should continue since "that's what we're going to do anyway . . . We're going to take out these missiles." He is not yet sure, however, whether to proceed with a larger air strike or an invasion. Bundy then asks whether they have ruled out a political solution, and discussion then ensues about various tracks that could be followed. Bundy and the president then discuss the importance of keeping the plans secret. McNamara mentions the importance of careful contact with Khrushchev. The president then asks how long it will be before preparations for air strikes are complete. Carter and Lundahl respond that cloud cover makes the reconnaissance mission difficult. Near the end of the clip, Robert Kennedy inquires as to how long it would take invading U.S. military forces to gain control of Cuba.
6:30pm (EST) At the second ExComm meeting, Marshall Carter states that the missiles could be "fully operational within two weeks," although a single missile might achieve operational capability "much sooner." After the intelligence report is presented, Robert McNamara outlines three broad options for action. The first is "political," involving communications with Fidel Castro and Premier Khrushchev ; the second is "part political, part military," involving a blockade of weapons and open surveillance; the third is "military" involving an attack on Cuba and the missile sites. The ExComm members debate, but do not resolve, which option should be used. (Document 16, Transcript of the Second Executive Committee Meeting, 10/16/62) The meeting resumed with Nitze and Adlai Stevenson joining the group. McNamara sounded very hawkish; he suggested "a very large-scale moblization, certainly exceeding the limits of the authority we have from Congress." Taylor warned that an air strike might have little effect against mobile missiles. Adlai Stevenson suggested that once the missiles were removed, the US would promise not to invade Cuba and would withdraw its obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey. They also discussed the idea of a blockade. The meeting ended at 7:55pm. Source: U.S., Department of State, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961-1963, Volume XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath Source: Kennedy Library, President's Office Files, Presidential Recordings, Transcripts.
7:00 pm Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, October 16, 1962 Source: U.S., Department of State, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961-1963, Volume XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath Moscow, October 16, 1962, 7 p.m.
10/17/1962 (Wed) McCone was back in Washington and arrived at the White House.
10/17/1962 Morning: Adlai Stevenson writes to President Kennedy that world opinion would equate the U.S. missiles stationed in Turkey with Soviet bases in Cuba. Warning that U.S. officials could not "negotiate with a gun at our head," he states, "I feel you should have made it clear that the existence of nuclear missile bases anywhere is negotiable before we start anything. "Stevenson suggests that personal emissaries should be sent to both Fidel Castro and Premier Khrushchev to discuss the situation. (Document 19, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson 's Opinions Against an Airstrike on Cuba, 10/17/62)
10/17/1962 Morning: Further debate on the Cuban situation takes place at the State Department. Dean Acheson and John McCone attend discussions for the first time, though President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson are absent. By this time, Robert McNamara has become the strongest proponent of the blockade option. McNamara reports that a "surgical" airstrike option is militarily impractical in the view of the JCS and that any military action would have to include attacks on all military installations in Cuba, eventually leading to an invasion. McNamara urges seeking alternative means of removing the missiles from Cuba before embarking on such a drastic course of action. However, critics of the blockade, led primarily by Dean Acheson, argue that a blockade would have no effect on the missiles already in Cuba. Airstrike proponents also express concern that a U.S. blockade would shift the confrontation from Cuba to the Soviet Union and that Soviet counteractions, including a Berlin blockade, might result. (Chronology of the Cuban Crisis October 15-28, 1962, 11/2/62, p. 2; Kennedy, pp. 34-35)
10/17/1962 Around this time, Georgi Bolshakov, a Soviet embassy official who served as an authoritative back channel for communications between Soviet and U.S. leaders, relays a message from Premier Khrushchev to Attorney General Robert Kennedy that the arms being sent to Cuba are intended only for defensive purposes. Bolshakov had not been told by Khrushchev that the Soviet Union is actually in the process of installing MRBMs and IRBMs in Cuba. By the time Bolshakov's message reaches President Kennedy , he has been fully briefed on the Soviet missile deployment. (Hilsman, p. 166; Kennedy, p. 27; Schlesinger, pp. 499-502)
10/17/1962 An SS-5 IRBM site, the first of three to be identified, is detected in Cuba. The SS-5s have ranges of up to 2,200 nautical miles, more than twice the range of the SS-4 MRBMs . The GMAIC estimates that the IRBM sites would not become operational before December but that sixteen and possibly as many as thirty-two MRBMs would be operational in about a week. No SS-5 missiles actually reach Cuba at any time, although this is not completely confirmed by U.S. officials during the crisis. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, p. 36; Department of Defense Press Conference of Robert McNamara , 2/28/63, p. F-2; Garthoff 1, p. 209)
10/17/1962 More photos of Cuba are taken, showing more missile installations. (13 Days) There is little news from Washington on Cuba because the administration has imposed a blackout. Kennedy approved the blockade of Cuba. Acheson and Dillon wanted to invade Cuba, while McNamara and RFK wanted a blockade. RFK feared that air strikes against the targets in Cuba would make the US look bad to the rest of the world.
10/17/1962 U-2 photograph of first IRBM site found under construction.
10/17/1962 JFK went ahead with campaign trips to create the appearance that all was normal; a trip to St Louis and Seattle that weekend was called off, with Salinger announcing that Kennedy had a cold.
10/17/1962 GOP Congressman James B. Utt (Calif.) called JFK a "compulsive liar, at least a pathological liar." This was in response to a speech JFK had made claiming that the Cuban economy was collapsing.
10/17/1962 As Marine reinforcements pour into Guantanamo, Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria is in Havana and agrees with Castro that the US base must go. (Dallas Times Herald 10/18)
10/17/1962 Tonight the spacecraft Ranger V was launched from Canaveral, but it quickly burned up.
10/18/1962 (Thur) Today is Lee Oswald's 23rd birthday. He registers at the YMCA for the last time. Mrs. Hall, with whom Marina has been staying in Fort Worth, is injured in a traffic accident and hospitalized until 10/26. Marina, unable to speak English, is aided by Mrs. Max Clark, Russian-speaking wife of the lawyer, and Alex Kleinlerer.
10/18/1962 11:00A.M.: The ExComm convenes for further discussions. The JCS, attending part of the meeting, recommends that President Kennedy order an airstrike on the missiles and other key Cuban military installations. However, Robert Kennedy responds by asking whether a surprise air attack would be a morally acceptable course of action. According to Robert Kennedy , the ExComm spent "more time [deliberating] on this moral question during the first five days than on any other single matter." (Kennedy, pp. 38-39; Taylor, p. 269) An Excomm meeting discussed a CIA memo which detailed evidence from 3/1962 of Soviet missiles being shipped into Cuba. "Now the question really is what action we take which lessens the chances of a nuclear exchange, which obviously is the final failure." Sheldon M. Stern, Averting "The Final Failure " ( Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003) , pp. 95, 1 05-6.
By the morning of October 18 CIA analysts had discovered that, in addition to the medium-range missiles spotted two days earlier, the Soviets were also installing intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) on the island, with twice the range of the MRBMs. While this discovery hardened the positions of those advocating a swift military response, others, like Under Secretary of State George Ball, warned about the consequences of such an escalation "without giving Khrushchev some way out."
10/18/1962 Discussion between Ball and McNamara about the consequences of an unannounced U.S. air strike on the military installations. Ball argues that they need to consider the consequences of such an attack and the likely reaction of Khrushchev in Turkey or elsewhere. Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon states, "I think they'll take Berlin." The president replies that Khrushchev will "take Berlin" whether or not the strikes are announced ahead of time. McNamara echoes this point. After an unidentified speaker mentions that a blockade might buy some time, the president again asserts that Khrushchev will "grab Berlin" over missiles that do not even threaten the NATO allies. Soon thereafter, McNamara raises the specter of a Soviet invasion of Berlin which Ball says will lead to "general war." This prompts the president to ask, "You mean a nuclear exchange?" After some more discussion the president tries to bring some focus to the discussion suggesting that they try to determine what course of action would most lessen the chance of nuclear war, "which," he notes, "is obviously the final failure." Discussion then turns to the option of a blockade of Cuba, and the president asks whether this would require a declaration of war.
2:30P.M.: More discussions take place in Dean Rusk 's conference room at the State Department. President Kennedy , who does not attend the talks, confers privately with Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara at 3:30P.M. During the day, Kennedy also meets privately with Dean Acheson for over an hour. When the president raises his brother's concern over the morality of a "Pearl Harbor in reverse," Acheson reportedly tells Kennedy that he was being "silly" and that it was "unworthy of [him] to talk that way." Acheson again voices his opinion that the surgical airstrike was the best U.S. option. Acheson, however, is in the minority in dismissing the Pearl Harbor analogy. Although Paul Nitze also recalls thinking that the analogy was "nonsense," others like George Ball find it persuasive. In some cases, as with Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, the moral argument becomes the deciding factor behind their support for the blockade. (Blight, pp., 142, 152; Schlesinger, p. 508; Issacson, p. 622) Some of his advisors urge him to invade Cuba, but Kennedy resists. RFK informed JFK this night that Excomm recommended a blockade. JFK told Excomm to go back and work on other possible solutions. (13 Days)
5:00P.M.: Andrei Gromyko and President Kennedy meet at the White House. White House photograph of President Kennedy meeting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin in which JFK does not reveal he knows about the missiles, and Gromyko asserts that Soviet military assistance is purely defensive. Gromyko states that Premier Khrushchev plans to visit the United Nations following the U.S. elections in November and that he believes a meeting with Kennedy at that time would be useful. After Kennedy agrees to meet the Soviet Premier, Gromyko turns the discussion to Cuba, charging that the United States is "pestering" a small country. According to the minutes of the meeting, "Gromyko stated that he was instructed to make it clear...that [Soviet military] assistance, [was] pursued solely for the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba...If it were otherwise, the Soviet Government would never had become involved in rendering such assistance." Kennedy has decided not to discuss U.S. awareness of the missiles with Gromyko. So, without taking exception to Gromyko's claim, Kennedy responds by reading a portion of his September 4 statement warning against the deployment of offensive weapons in Cuba. After a discussion of other issues, the meeting ends at 7:08P.M. Following the talk with Gromyko, Kennedy directs Llewellyn Thompson to inform Ambassador Dobrynin that a summit would not in fact be appropriate at that time. Kennedy then meets with Robert Lovett, a former government official brought in to give advice in the crisis. Lovett warns that an airstrike would appear to be an excessive first step. He argues that a blockade is a better alternative, although he expresses a preference for blocking the movement of all materials into Cuba except for food and medicine, rather than limiting the quarantine to offensive weapons. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, pp. 56-58; Memoranda of Conversations on Kennedy-Gromyko Meeting [in Four Parts], 10/18/62; Bundy , p. 399; Garthoff 1, p. 48)
9:00 P.M.: Meeting at the White House, the ExComm presents its recommendations to President Kennedy . By this time, most members of the committee support the blockade option. As the meeting progresses however, individual opinions begin to shift and the consensus behind the blockade brakes down. Kennedy directs the group to continue its deliberations. (Kennedy, pp. 43-44)
Evening: Robert Kennedy phones his deputy, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, to request the preparation of a brief establishing the legal basis for a blockade of Cuba. The legality of a blockade is also examined independently at the State Department by Leonard C. Meeker, the deputy legal adviser. (NYT, 11/3/62)
10/18/1962 The first of a series of daily "Joint Evaluation" intelligence reports is disseminated. The evaluation, the product of collaboration between the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC) and the Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee (GMAIC), states that the MRBMs in Cuba could probably be launched within eighteen hours. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, pp. 45-46, 53)
10/18/1962 CHAMA Dominic Airdrop test over Johnston Island area. 1.59 Megaton yield Hydrogen bomb test by US.
10/18/1962 The NY Times reported large-scale US military maneuvers in the Caribbean.
10/18/1962 Tonight, LBJ called The Dallas Morning News' managing editor, Jack Krueger, and told him to be ready to cover a possible invasion of Cuba very soon. Hugh Aynesworth was sent to Washington to cover the story. (Washington Times 10/26/1987)
At some point during the discussions on invading Cuba, Marine Corps Commandant Shoup displayed a map of Cuba during a meeting by overlaying it on a map of the US; everyone was surprised at how big the island was. Then he placed a red dot over the map of Cuba, and explained that this represented the island of Tarawa, which cost 18,000 Marines to capture in WWII. Shoup would become Kennedy's favorite general. (The Best and the Brightest p85; RFK and his Times p484)
10/19/1962 (Fri) Senate Armed Services Committee issued its report showing that military leaders were being censored and restrained from attacking Communism.
10/19/1962 A major South Vietnamese offensive against VC guerillas ends with few results.
10/19/1962 A memo to Kirk Douglas and John Frankenheimer on the promotional efforts being made to publicize the soon-to-be-made film based on the book Seven Days in May.
10/19/1962 Excomm met all day over the missile crisis, and RFK talked with the President several times. (13 Days)
10/19/1962 Dallas Morning News reports that a squadron of the latest jet fighters were transferred to Key West on 10/6.
10/19/1962 Khrushchev became concerned that an invasion of Cuba was imminent. Similar stories were circulating throughout Washington.
11:00A.M.: At the State Department, Nicholas Katzenbach and Leonard Meeker provide the ExComm with their legal opinions regarding a blockade of Cuba. As the meeting progresses, it becomes apparent that sharp disagreements about how the United States should proceed still exist. In order to provide clear options to President Kennedy , the ExComm decides that independent working groups should be established. Separate groups are to develop the blockade and airstrike options, drafting speeches for each plan and outlining possible contingencies. (The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, p. 63; Document 21, Minutes of October 19, 1962, 11:00A.M. ExComm Meeting, 10/19/62; Schlesinger 1, p. 515)
Early afternoon: Discussions continue in the ExComm . The papers developed by the separate working groups are exchanged and critiqued. In the course of this process, airstrike proponents begin to shift their support to the blockade option. The airstrike speech is abandoned, and Theodore Sorensen agrees to try to put together a speech for President Kennedy on the blockade. Sorensen completes the speech at 3:00A.M. the following day. (Chronology of the Cuban Crisis October 15-28, 1962, 11/2/62, p. 3; Kennedy, pp. 45-47; Sorensen, pp. 692-93)
8:40P.M.: U. Alexis Johnson and Paul Nitze meet to develop a specific timetable for carrying out all of the diplomatic and military actions required by the airstrike or the blockade plan. The schedule includes raising military alert levels, reinforcing Guantanamo naval base and briefing NATO allies. All timing revolves around the "P Hour"--the time when President Kennedy would address the nation to inform Americans of the crisis. (Quarantine, 10/20/62; Blight 1, p. 145; Johnson, pp. 383-86)
Evening: Responding to questions about an article by Paul Scott and Robert Allen dealing with Soviet missiles in Cuba, a Defense Department spokesperson replies that the Pentagon has no information indicating that there are missiles in Cuba. Reports that emergency military measures are being implemented are also denied. (Chronology of the Cuban Crisis October 15-28, 1962, 11/2/62, p. 4; The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, p. 71a)
SNIE 11-18-62, entitled "Soviet Reactions to Certain U.S. Courses of Action on Cuba," reports that a direct approach to Premier Khrushchev or Fidel Castro is unlikely to halt the ongoing deployment of missiles to Cuba. On the other hand, a total blockade of Cuba, the SNIE projects, would "almost certainly" lead to "strong direct pressures" elsewhere by the Soviet government. Any form of direct military action against Cuba would result in an even greater chance of Soviet military retaliation. In such a situation, the report notes, there exists "the possibility that the Soviets, under great pressure to respond, would again miscalculate and respond in a way which, through a series of actions and reactions, could escalate to general war..." The SNIE is read by President Kennedy and most of the main policy planners the following day. SNIE 11-19-62, produced on October 20, draws similar conclusions. (Soviet Reactions to Certain U.S. Courses of Action on Cuba, 10/19/62; Document 24, CIA SNIE, Major Consequences of Certain US Courses of Action on Cuba, 10/20/62; The Cuban Crisis, 1962, ca. 8/22/63, p. 68)
JFK secretly taped the White House meetings during the crisis. The tapes were declassified, transcribed, and published in the late 1990s. [(In 1997 Ernest R. May and Philip D . Zelikow edited and published transcripts of the Cuban Missile Crisis tapes in their book The Kennedy Tapes ( Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 1997). In 2000 the accuracy of their transcripts was challenged in two articles by Sheldon M. Stern, historian at the JFK Library from 1977 to 1999: "What JFK Really Said, " Atlantic Monthly 285 (May 2000): pp. 122-2 8 , and " Source Material: The 1997 Published Transcripts of the JFK Cuban Missile Crisis Tapes: Too Good to Be True ? " Presidential Studies Quarterly 30 ( September 2000 ) : pp. 5 8 6-93. When Zelikow, May, and Timothy Naftali brought out a revised set of missile crisis transcripts, The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: Volumes 1 -3, The Great Crises (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), Stern critiqued their revision for further inaccuracies in his article " The JFK Tapes: Round Two, " Reviews in American History 30 (2002) : pp. 680-88. Sheldon M. Stern has written a comprehensive narrative account of the missile crisis deliberations of President Kennedy and the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) , citing his own transcripts of the tapes, Averting "The Final Failure ": John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings ( Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003 ) . My citations of the tapes are taken from Averting "The Final Failure."] The transcripts reveal how isolated the president was in choosing to blockade further Soviet missile shipments rather than bomb and invade Cuba. Nowhere does he stand more alone against the pressures for a sudden, massive air strike than in his October 19, 1962, meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this encounter the Chiefs' disdain for their young commander-in-chief is embodied by Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay, who chall...

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 05:18 PM

Dawn Meredith Wrote:This is a fantastic tool. My only suggestion is that it run chronologically in time instead of jumping back and forth.
What a massive undertaking.
Dawn

Some sections are just not ready to post yet, so I'm posting what is most complete first. It's not hard to use the Search feature to find a particular period. Maybe when I'm all done (if that ever happens) the administrators can reorder the posts chronologically.

***Peter Lemkin*** · 13-04-2014, 05:33 PM

Tracy Riddle Wrote:
Dawn Meredith Wrote:This is a fantastic tool. My only suggestion is that it run chronologically in time instead of jumping back and forth.
What a massive undertaking.
Dawn

Some sections are just not ready to post yet, so I'm posting what is most complete first. It's not hard to use the Search feature to find a particular period. Maybe when I'm all done (if that ever happens) the administrators can reorder the posts chronologically.

Maybe when it is complete, some nice person would like to re-order all the posts....::evilpenguin:: It is possible, but one hell of a lot of work...something like doing a rubic's cube.

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 07:18 PM

Peter Lemkin Wrote:
Tracy Riddle Wrote:
Dawn Meredith Wrote:This is a fantastic tool. My only suggestion is that it run chronologically in time instead of jumping back and forth.
What a massive undertaking.
Dawn

Some sections are just not ready to post yet, so I'm posting what is most complete first. It's not hard to use the Search feature to find a particular period. Maybe when I'm all done (if that ever happens) the administrators can reorder the posts chronologically.

Maybe when it is complete, some nice person would like to re-order all the posts....::evilpenguin:: It is possible, but one hell of a lot of work...something like doing a rubic's cube.

Well, then, we won't worry about it. Smile

If I could rearrange them myself, I would.

***Peter Lemkin*** · 13-04-2014, 07:29 PM

Tracy Riddle Wrote:
Peter Lemkin Wrote:
Tracy Riddle Wrote:
Dawn Meredith Wrote:This is a fantastic tool. My only suggestion is that it run chronologically in time instead of jumping back and forth.
What a massive undertaking.
Dawn

Some sections are just not ready to post yet, so I'm posting what is most complete first. It's not hard to use the Search feature to find a particular period. Maybe when I'm all done (if that ever happens) the administrators can reorder the posts chronologically.

Maybe when it is complete, some nice person would like to re-order all the posts....::evilpenguin:: It is possible, but one hell of a lot of work...something like doing a rubic's cube.

Well, then, we won't worry about it.
If I could rearrange them myself, I would.

You can when your done....with something like 59.1.1, 59.1.2,..... 60.1.1 etc..... Smile

So far, I've cut and pasted them in order onto my own computer...but it ain't easy - but well worth it. Amazing amount of work. Do you have any for the last year of WWII and the 2-3 years after? [much that affected all after occurred then, IMHO]

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 07:51 PM

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Do you have any for the last year of WWII and the 2-3 years after? [much that affected all after occurred then, IMHO]

Sort of, but those years are not as complete as I'd like them to be yet.

Tracy Riddle · 13-04-2014, 08:00 PM

11/1962 Gen. Wheeler said publicly, "It is fashionable in some quarters to say that the problems in Southeast Asia are primarily political and economic rather than military. I do not agree. The essence of the problem is military." (To Move a Nation)
11/1962 SAC started inactivation planning of the 306th Bombardment Wing at MacDill AFB in Florida, slated for April 1963. Phase down and transfer of B-47s was started, and by 15 February 1963 the Wing was no longer capable of fulfilling its part of the strategic war plan. General Curtis E. LeMay, USAF Chief of Staff, recalling his days as the 306th Bomb Group's executive officer, compared its WWII role as "one of the handful of groups" that pioneered strategic daylight bombing and "carried the air war to the enemy during the lean days of 1941-43", to its role in the late forties as pioneer of jet bombardment tactics and combat ready deterrent force. He went on to say that this considerable accomplishment was done while at the same time assuming the staggering mission of maintaining a bomber alert force. On 1 April 1963, SAC inactivated the 306th BW at MacDill and activated it at McCoy AFB, Florida. The 4047th Strategic Wing personnel, equipment, B-52Ds and KC-135As were re-designated the 306th Bombardment Wing.
11/1962 JFK ordered McCone to stop all raids on Cuba, and McNamara to begin pulling the missiles out of Turkey.
11/1962 In a conversation that fall with his friend John Kenneth Galbraith, Kennedy again spoke angrily of the reckless pressures his advisers, both military and civilian, had put on him to bomb the Cuban missile sites. "I never had the slightest intention of doing so," said the president. John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in Our Times ( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 388.
11/1/1962 1:00A.M.: Adlai Stevenson reports to Washington that he has received preliminary reports from U Thant and Indar Jit Rikhye on their visit to Cuba. The U.N. officials report that relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union are, in Rikhye's words, "unbelievably bad." Rikhye states that although they have not had "definitive" discussions about the IL-28 bombers, "the Russians repeated...that they were determined to take out all equipment which the president has regarded as offensive and this would include the IL-28 's..." (Document 61, State Department Cable on Secretary General U Thant's Meetings with Castro, 11/1/62; Report by Rikhye on Impressions from United Nations Visit to Cuba, 11/1/62)
10:00A.M.: President Kennedy authorizes continued low-level reconnaissance flights over IL-28 airfields and missile bases but decides that no immediate retaliatory measures will be carried out if any U.S. aircraft are shot down. (NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November 1, 1962, 10:00A.M., Meeting No. 16, 11/1/62)
2:59P.M.: Instructions approved by President Kennedy are issued to U.S. negotiators in New York for use in upcoming meetings with Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan . Kennedy directs U.S. negotiators to stress the importance of obtaining verification, which he describes as "essential" in "view of the history of the affair." With regard to the Soviet bombers stationed in Cuba, the negotiators are told to try to "elicit a clear confirmation that the IL-28 's are included [in the Kennedy- Khrushchev understanding] and are being dismantled for removal from Cuba." (Points President Kennedy Wishes Made in Conversation with Anastas Mikoyan and Vasily Kuznetsov, 11/1/62)
7:30P.M.: Anastas Mikoyan meets with John McCloy and Adlai Stevenson shortly after arriving in New York. Stevenson has been instructed to provide Mikoyan with a list of weapons that the United States considers "offensive" and expects the Soviet government to withdraw. However, engrossed in discussions dealing with many matters, Stevenson and McCloy apparently forget to give the list to Mikoyan. The U.S. negotiators remedy this oversight the next day by sending Mikoyan a letter with the list attached (see entry for November 2, 1962--morning). (Meeting between Adlai Stevenson , John McCloy and U Thant on Inspection Issues, 11/2/62; Garthoff 3, pp. 432-33)
8:30P.M.: Fidel Castro reports on his meetings with U Thant in a speech carried by Cuban radio and television. Castro also discusses the differences that had arisen between the Soviet Union and Cuba over the resolution of the missile crisis. Adopting a conciliatory tone, he states, "we have confidence in the leadership of the Soviet Union...more than ever, we should remember the generosity and friendship that the Soviets have shown us." Castro and Soviet Ambassador to Cuba Alekseyev meet during the day for the first time since October 27. (Transcript of Interview with Castro on his Meeting with U Thant--in Spanish, 11/1/62; Alekseyev, p. 19)
11/1/1962 Photoreconnaissance shows that all MRBM sites in Cuba have been bulldozed and that the missiles and associated launch equipment have been removed. Construction at the IRBM sites appears to have stopped, and the installations are partially dismantled. U.S. intelligence further reports that work is continuing on IL-28 s at San JuliÃ¡n airfield but that it is unclear whether the bombers are being assembled or dismantled. (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p. 86)
11/1/1962 Anastas Mikoyan arrives in NY en route to Havana, participates in UN meeting.
11/1/1962 KINGFISH Dominic High altitude Missile test over Johnston Island Area. Sub Megaton test.
11/1/1962 High Altitude Russian Nuclear Test conducted at Kapustin Yar. Hydrogen Bomb on Rocket. Yield approx. 300 Kilotons.
11/1/1962 In a radio and TV address, Castro rejects any international inspection on Cuba soil.
11/1/1962 USSR launched Mars 1 spacecraft. Korabl 13, launched 11/4 failed in earth orbit and reentered on 11/5. Mars 1 experienced communications failure 3/21/1963. Mars 1 passed within 120,000 miles of Mars 6/19/1963.
11/2/1962 10:00A.M.: At a meeting of the ExComm , Kennedy confirms that the United States will press for the removal of the IL-28 bombers currently stationed in Cuba. In other matters, Kennedy states that the quarantine must continue to be maintained but only by hailing all vessels entering the quarantine zone. He reconfirms orders to U.S. Navy vessels not to board Soviet Bloc ships. (Document 63, Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee, November 2, 1962, 10:00A.M., Meeting No. 17, 11/2/62)
11/2/1962 morning: In a letter to Anastas Mikoyan , Adlai Stevenson lists those items the United States considers to be "offensive weapons," adding, "we trust that the weapons you plan to remove include all those on this list."
5:30P.M.: In a brief televised address, President Kennedy informs the nation that the U.S. government has concluded "on the basis of yesterday's aerial photographs...that the Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled, their missiles and related equipment are being crated, and the fixed installations at these sites are being destroyed." (Statement of the President, November 2, 1962, the White House, 11/2/62)
11/2/1962 Anastas Mikoyan arrives in Havana and immediately announces his support of Fidel Castro 's "five points." Castro, still angry with the Soviet decision to remove the missiles, reportedly does not want to meet Mikoyan but is persuaded to do so by Ambassador Alekseyev. Castro's anger and concern revolve around not only the lack of consultation before the Soviet decision to remove the missiles but a belief that the United States will invade Cuba despite pledges to the contrary resulting from the Kennedy- Khrushchev agreement. Because of his distrust of any agreement, Castro agrees to the missile withdrawal only after receiving assurances from the Soviet government, including a pledge to maintain one Soviet combat brigade on the island. (Blight, pp. 267-68; Khrushchev 1, p. 500)
11/2/1962 Oswald called Marina and told her he had found an apartment for them at 604 Elsbeth Street, in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. The photo below shows the building today, long deserted.
11/2/1962 JFK announced that the Soviets would withdraw their missiles from Cuba; he said that once the missiles were removed the US would "give assurances against invasion of Cuba" and that the US "shall neither initiate nor permit aggression in this hemisphere." Kennedy then assured the Cuban exiles: "We will not, of course, abandon the political, economic and other efforts of this Hemisphere to halt subversion from Cuba nor our purpose and hope that the Cuban people shall someday be truly free. But these policies are very different from any intent to launch a military invasion of the island."
11/2/1962 Press reports that while Soviet missile bases are being dismantled, Castro complains, "We have some reason for discontent with the Soviet Union."
11/3/1962 9:00A.M.: Anastas Mikoyan holds his first formal meeting with Fidel Castro at Castro's apartment in Havana. Castro meets alone with Mikoyan, Ambassador Alekseyev, and a Soviet interpreter. However, the talks are immediately interrupted by the news that Mikoyan's wife in the Soviet Union has died unexpectedly. Mikoyan later decides to have his son Sergo, who was accompanying him, return to Moscow while he remains in Cuba. (Alekseyev, p. 23)
4:30P.M.: The nineteenth meeting of the ExComm focuses on inspection questions and the issue of the IL-28 bombers. Adlai Stevenson , who attends the meeting with John McCloy and Charles Yost, brings the group up to date on the slow-moving talks in New York. President Kennedy states his belief that the United States should announce that it considers the IL-28 s to be offensive weapons should be withdrawn from Cuba, but he agrees that the public announcement of this position should be delayed until the next day. (Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 19, November 3, 1962, 4:30P.M., 11/3/62)
8:44 p.m: President Kennedy issues additional directions to "all concerned with the present negotiations in Cuba." The formal instructions state: "We have good evidence that the Russians are dismantling the missile bases...[But] the assembly of IL-28 's continues. There is some evidence of an intent to establish a submarine-tending facility. The future of the SAM sites is unclear. We have no satisfactory assurances on verification..." Kennedy concludes, "in blunt summary, we want no offensive weapons and no Soviet military base in Cuba, and that is how we understand the agreements of October 27 and 28." (Instructions from the President to All Concerned with Present Negotiations in Cuba, 11/3/62; Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 19, November 3, 1962, 4:30P.M., 11/3/62)
11/3/1962 President Kennedy replies to Premier Khrushchev 's letter of October 30 addressing the issue of inspection and verification before the naval quarantine can be lifted. Kennedy cites "very serious problems" if Fidel Castro cannot be convinced to allow on-site verification, and he suggests that sustaining quarantine "can be of assistance to Mr. Mikoyan in his negotiations with Premier Castro." (Kennedy- Khrushchev Messages Exchanged on the Cuban Crisis, 11/3/62)
11/3/1962 Sometime after 4pm, Oswald rents the 604 flat at 602 Elsbeth Street in Oak Cliff, Dallas, from Mahlon Tobias.
11/3/1962 In Washington, NSC wants on-site verification of Soviet base dismantling as precondition for formal US pledge not to invade Cuba.
11/4/1962 John McCloy lunches with Soviet negotiators at his Stamford, Connecticut, home. Vasily Kuznetsov says all missile sites constructed by the Soviet Union were dismantled as of November 2. Kuznetsov proposes that the United States conduct at-sea inspections: the Soviet Union would give the United States a schedule for the removal of the missiles and allow the United States to bring ships alongside Soviet vessels to examine the cargo on deck. In return, the Soviet government wants the quarantine lifted and a formal protocol of U.S. guarantees, including a pledge that the United States will not invade Cuba or induce other Latin American countries to attempt an invasion. Kuznetsov also seeks a guarantee that no subversive activity will be undertaken against Fidel Castro and suggests U.N. observation in the United States as well as in Cuba. (The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Chronology July-November 1962, 6/18/63, p. 89)
11/4/1962 Alexandra and Gary Taylor drive to Fort Worth to help the Oswalds move to their new place. Alex Kleinlerer witnessed a fight between Marina and Lee, in which Lee slapped her hard twice; the Taylors did not see this. Marina hated the new apartment and called it a pigsty. But Oswald persuaded her that it was three rooms for only $68 a month.
11/4/1962 Miami press reports that the anti-Castro Cuban Student Directorate claims that Soviet missiles are being held in caves in Cuba.
11/5/1962 3:15P.M.: President Kennedy dispatches a brief memo to Robert McNamara warning that "the Russians may try again. This time they may prepare themselves for action on the sea in the Cuban area. Does Admiral Anderson think they could build up a secret naval base which will put them on a near parity with us if we should once again blockade?" Admiral Anderson later advises McNamara that the Soviet Union could base naval forces in Cuba in several ways, but he believes that U.S. intelligence would detect all but the most "austere" buildup. Anderson repeats his earlier recommendation that submarines operating out of, or supported from, Cuban bases should be declared offensive weapons and placed on the list of prohibited materials. (Concern over the Possible Establishment of a Soviet Submarine Base in Cuba, 11/5/62; Johns, p. 259)
11/5/1962 In a three-page letter to President Kennedy , Premier Khrushchev writes that he is "seriously worried" about the way in which the United States has defined "offensive weapons" that the Soviet Union is to remove from Cuba, that is, as including the IL-28 s and Komar-missile boats. Khrushchev asks Kennedy to withdraw his "additional demands," saying that the Soviet Union views them as "a wish to bring our relations back again into a heated state in which they were but several days ago." (Document 66, Premier Khrushchev 's Letter to President Kennedy , Regarding U.S. List of Offensive Weapons in Cuba, 11/5/62) Soviet ships begin to return the first MRBM missiles and associated launch equipment to the Soviet Union. The process of removing the equipment is completed on November 9. (Department of Defense Press Conference of Robert McNamara , 2/28/63, p. M-1)
11/5/1962 President Kennedy hands Secretary of Defense McNamara a short memorandum expressing his concern that U.S. plans for an invasion of Cuba seem "thin." Warning that using too few troops could result in the United States becoming "bogged down," Kennedy recommends calling up three Army Reserve divisions and, if necessary, building additional divisions. As a result of the memo, McNamara tells military planners later that day that additional Army divisions might be needed for a successful invasion. The JCS meet on November 7 with CINCLANT to rectify the problem. (U.S. Army in the Cuban Crisis, 1/1/63)
11/5/1962 Robert Kennedy continues to exert pressure on the IL-28 question in a meeting with Anatoly Dobrynin , telling the Soviet ambassador that "it was very clear that the... IL-28 's had to go." Further pressure to remove the bombers is brought to bear by U Thant, who, at the request of the United States, raises the issue with Vasily Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov replies that the bomber question is "a new issue" and not "covered" in the Kennedy- Khrushchev understanding. (Meeting with Soviet Representatives on On-Site and ICRC Inspection, 11/5/62; Garthoff 1, p. 110)
11/5/1962 An aerial encounter between a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and Cuban-based MiG fighters occurs. Although no shots are known to have been fired, U.S. policymakers express concern that the incident suggests that more attempts to intercept reconnaissance aircraft would be made in the future. Robert McNamara , with the concurrence of the JCS, proposes that the public not be informed of the incident, but that a diplomatic protest be made to the Soviet Union. Both high- and low-altitude reconnaissance flights continue as scheduled the following day. (Chronology of JCS Decisions Concerning the Cuban Crisis, 12/21/62, p. 70; Highlights of World Activities and Situations, 11/5/62)
11/5/1962 Low-level photography documents loading of Soviet missiles at the main Mariel port facility for return to the USSR. On the dock are vehicles later identified by NPIC as nuclear warhead vans.
11/5/1962 The Oswalds had a violent fight and Marina ran from the house. Marina called Anna Meller from a gas station, and they picked her and June up; she told the Mellers that Lee had beaten her. She promised herself, "I'll never go back to that hell." (Marina and Lee 263)
11/6/1962 President Kennedy sends another letter to Premier Khrushchev regarding the U.S. definition of "offensive weapons." In it he responds to Khrushchev 's accusation that the United States is trying to complicate the Cuban situation. The IL-28 s are not "minor things" for the United States, Kennedy writes, asserting that the weapons are definitely capable of carrying out "offensive" missions. The president raises the issue of the four reinforced Soviet troop regiments in Cuba for the first time. He also expresses concern over possible Soviet submarine facilities, telling Khrushchev that he attaches "the greatest importance to the personal assurances you have given that submarine bases will not be established in Cuba." (President Kennedy 's Letter to Khrushchev Stressing the Importance of Removing the IL-28 s and Obtaining Verification, 11/6/62)
11/6/1962 Midterm elections saw Republicans gain several House seats, Democrats gained 3 Senate seats. 47% voter turnout. In Alabama the GOP came close to winning a Senate seat. Ted White noted in 1965, "There was a Southern strategy to be shaped - if the Republican Party did indeed want to court the South." (Making of the President 1964) Democrats benefited from the missile crisis. Newcomers in the Senate included Birch Bayh, Ted Kennedy, George McGovern. Donald Rumsfeld is a newly elected congressman (R-Illinois). Right-wing stalwarts such as Senator Capehart and Rep. Walter H. Judd were defeated.
11/6/1962 Nixon lost the governor's race in California, and then gave a press conference in which he seemed on the verge of a breakdown: "Now that...all the members of the press are so delighted that I have lost...I believe Governor Brown has a heart, even though he believes I do not...you've had a lot of - a lot of fun - that you've had an opportunity to attack me, and I think I've given as good as I've taken...But as I leave you I want you to know - just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference..." RFK recalled in a 1964 oral history interview that JFK didn't think Nixon's political career was really over at this point.
11/6/1962 In San Francisco, voters approved the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) bond issue.
11/6 or 11/1962 De Mohrenschildt arrived at the apartment to get Marina's and June's belongings, but Oswald told him: "By God, you are not going to do it. I will tear all her dresses and I will break all the baby things." (H 9 232) After an argument, Oswald gave in. Later, De Mohrenschildt defended Oswald: "Having had many wives, I could see his point of view. She was annoying him all the time - 'Why don't you make some money?,' why don't they have a car, why don't they have more dresses, look at everybody else living so well, and they are just miserable flunkies. She was annoying him all the time. Poor guy was going out of his mind." (H 9 233) Posner says that De Mohrenschildt was abusive to his first wife, and Marina told Posner in an interview that she never nagged at Lee. (Posner 94)
11/6/1962 The Republicans bitterly accused the administration of delaying the missile crisis for maximum voter impact. Rep. Bob Wilson (R-Calif.), chairman of the GOP Congressional Committee, charged that the administration knew about the missiles in September. Then Castro refused to allow on-site UN inspections; the GOP charged that the Russian buildup was continuing.
11/7/1962 4:02P.M.: A cable from U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Foy Kohler reports, "there seems to me no doubt that events of [the] past ten days have really shaken [the] Soviet leadership." One Soviet military official, Kohler recounts, "told my wife he was now willing to believe in God." Kohler reports seeing no evidence of any split within the ruling elite at a Kremlin reception held during the evening, and he states that Premier Khrushchev has privately discouraged an immediate summit with President Kennedy , saying that the two sides should not "rush" into such a meeting. (Some Footnotes to Kremlin Reception, 11/7/62)
5:00P.M.: After being informed that the Soviet missiles withdrawal was continuing, President Kennedy tells the ExComm that the United States "wouldn't invade with the Soviet missiles out of Cuba." Kennedy suggests that a formal non-invasion commitment might be issued once the Soviet Union remove the IL-28 bombers and the U.S. receives "assurances that there will be no reintroduction of strategic missiles." Apparently, some uncertainty still exists on how to handle the IL-28 s, for Kennedy requests that the ExComm reconvene the next day to "decide whether we should go to the mat on the IL-28 bombers or whether we should say that the Soviets have now completed their agreement to remove the missiles and move on to other problems." (Document 65, Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting, November 5, 1962, 11/5/62; Washington Embassy Reports Re Events in Cuba, ca. 11/5/62)
9:32P.M.: In a cable to Adlai Stevenson , Secretary of State Rusk advises, "our primary purpose is to get the MRBMs and IL-28 bombers out [of Cuba], and we would go far in reducing our list of offensive weapons in order to achieve this purpose." The United States eventually drops its demands for the removal of Komar-class missile boats in order to focus on the IL-28 bombers. (Instructions for Negotiations Using a Minimum List of Offensive Weapons, 11/7/62)
11/7/1962 Billy Sol Estes was sentenced to eight years in prison for swindling a Texas farmer.
11/7/1962 Forrestal sent a memo to RFK: "I became concerned about the kind of information you seem to be getting on South Vietnam. Both Averell and I feel that the war is not going as well out there as one might be led to believe..."
11/8/1962 4:30P.M.: The ExComm discusses the ways in which the United States can pressure Cuba into removing the IL-28 bombers. According to minutes of the meeting, President Kennedy "was inclined not to reimpose the quarantine, but he did favor pressure on our allies to keep their ships out of Cuba." Various other ideas are offered, including tightening the quarantine, initiating new covert action against Castro, and launching air attacks on the IL-28 aircraft. (Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 23, November 8, 1962, 4:30P.M., 11/8/62; Notes on 4:30P.M. ExComm Meeting, 11/8/62)
11/8/1962 A six-man CIA sabotage team dispatched as part of Task Force W blows up a Cuban industrial facility (see entry for October 30, 1962). The incident is never raised in U.S.-Soviet talks and remains unknown to most if not all members of the ExComm . (Garthoff 1, p. 122)
11/8/1962 The Defense Department announces that "all known" MRBM and IRBM Soviet missile bases in Cuba have been dismantled, and that a "substantial" number of missiles have been loaded aboard Soviet ships or are being moved to port areas. (Defense Department Statement on Evidence That All MRBM and IRBM Bases Have Been Dismantled, 11/8/62)
11/8/1962 U Thant offers a new on-site inspection proposal in which five ambassadors to Cuba from Asian, African, European and Latin American countries would verify the withdrawal of the missiles. Cuba rejects this proposal, as it does all other unilateral inspection formulas, on November 11. (Discussion of Draft Letter from U Thant to Castro on Verification by Latin American Ambassadors, 11/9/62; U Thant's Proposal for On-Site Verification by a Group of Ambassadors in Havana-Includes Revised Copy, 11/8/62)
11/8/1962 The SWP politely turns down Oswald's request for membership because there are no other members in the Dallas area, and they don't want to start a branch for one person. (H 19 518) Probably on this day Lee met with Marina at De Mohrenschildt's house to discuss their problems. They came to no agreement. (H 1 11)
11/9/1962 The last of the ships removing Soviet MRBM missiles from Cuba leave the island. Six vessels, the Bratsk, Dvinogorsk, I. Polzunov, Labinsk, M. Anosov and Volgoles, have left Mariel since November 5, and two ships, the F. Kurchatov and the L. Komsomol depart from Casilda during this period. During the day, five of the ships are inspected at sea, with the Soviet ships pulling canvas covers off the missile transporters to allow U.S. ships to observe and photograph their contents. Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Sylvester later tells reporters that the "responsible people of this government are satisfied" that the ships are in fact carrying missiles. (Department of Defense Press Conference of Robert McNamara , 2/28/63, p. M-1; The Missiles Leave Cuba, ca. 12/62; NYT, 11/10/62)
11/9/1962 JFK and Warren were seen by reporters on Air Force One laughing over news stories of Nixon's defeat. (Chief Justice 398)
11/9/1962 Enver Hoxha of Albania criticized Khrushchev for losing the Cuban Missile Crisis showdown.
11/11/1962 Press reports that Soviets ship captains were not letting inspectors see all of the missiles they supposedly have on board.
11/12/1962 11:00A.M.: Adlai Stevenson reports to the ExComm that negotiations in New York on the IL-28 issue are deadlocked. At President Kennedy 's prompting, the group discusses various ways in which the United States might strike a deal with the Soviet Union over the bomber issue. The possibility of offering further non-invasion assurances, ending the quarantine, and lifting on-site inspection demands are raised as possible inducements, but the meeting ends without a firm decision on how to proceed in the negotiations. President Kennedy decides not to lower SAC alert levels at the time, with Robert McNamara noting that such a decision could send the wrong "signals" to the Soviet Union. (Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 24, November 12, 1962, 11:00A.M., 11/12/62)
11/12/1962 Premier Khrushchev sends President Kennedy a message confirming the removal of the missiles. The letter adopts a friendly tone, commenting on the outcome of the November 6, 1962 elections in the United States: "You managed to pin your political rival, Mr. Nixon, to the mat," the letter comments on the fact that Nixon lost his bid to become governor of California. "This did not draw tears from our eyes either." (Document 69, Premier Khrushchev 's Letter to President Kennedy , 11/12/62)
11/12/1962 night: President Kennedy instructs his brother Robert to inform Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin that Khrushchev 's "word" on the IL-28 s will "suffice" and the U.S. will not insist on an immediate withdrawal of the bomber planes. Robert Kennedy tells the Soviet Ambassador that the U.S would hope the planes are removed "within, say, 30 days." (Document 70, President Kennedy 's Oral Message to Premier Khrushchev , On the Subject of the IL-28 Aircraft, 11/12/62)
11/12/1962 FBI Los Angeles memo to Hoover about Edward Becker.
11/12/1962 George Bouhe moves Marina and June from the Mellers' apartment to the home of Katya Ford.
11/13/1962 morning: ExComm members continue to discuss the IL-28 issue. The group's recommendations, incorporated into a paper by U. Alexis Johnson , include a proposed sequence of actions designed to end the deadlock. To begin with, the group recommends a "last chance" private message to Premier Khrushchev , warning that further actions could be taken shortly. If the message fails to produce the desired outcome, the group suggests tightening the blockade, arranging for other countries in Latin America and elsewhere to apply diplomatic pressure on Fidel Castro , and using intense low-altitude reconnaissance as a form of psychological warfare. The ExComm also notes that one other option exists but recommends that it only be used as a last-ditch measure: "provoking" an attack on U.S. reconnaissance planes and responding by striking a variety of Cuban targets, including the IL-28 bombers. (Cuban Contingency Paper: Next Steps on the IL-28 's, 11/14/62)
11/13/1962 The Socialist Labor Party in NY receives a request from Oswald for literature. This party advocated non-violent, democratic socialism.
11/14/1962 Premier Khrushchev sends another message to President Kennedy on the IL-28 issue. Khrushchev hedges on when the Soviet Union will remove the bombers, but states that "it can be done in 2-3 months." He also complains that the U.S. is "not carrying out its commitments [sic]" to end overflights and quarantine, nor has it agreed to "register" the non-invasion pledge. (Document 71, Premier Khrushchev 's Letter to President Kennedy Regarding Removal of the IL-28 Aircraft, 11/14/62)
11/14/1962 President Kennedy discusses the Cuban situation with Harold MacMillan over the telephone. Kennedy admits that no firm strategy for ironing out the remaining issues has been decided upon: "We do not want to crank up the quarantine again over the bombers. The only question is whether we should do that or take some other action. For example, we might say the whole deal is off and withdraw our no invasion pledge and harass them generally." (MacMillan, p. 215)
11/15/1962 7:00P.M.: In a five-page letter to U Thant, Fidel Castro warns that Cuba will fire on U.S. reconnaissance planes: any aircraft flying over Cuban airspace, he says, do so "at the risk of being destroyed." Noting that the United States has already inspected Soviet ships at sea, he also declares that Cuba will continue to reject "unilateral inspection by any body, national or international, on Cuban territory." U.S. intelligence has reported during the day that Soviet control of the Cuban air defense system has tightened sharply. Cuban fighter aircraft are detected practicing low-level flight tactics in the Havana area. (Summary of Items of Significant Interest Period 160701-170700 November 1962, 11/17/62)
11/15/1962 President Kennedy writes to Premier Khrushchev on the continuing IL-28 issue. His letter complains that the "three major parts of the undertakings on your side--the removal of the IL-28 's, the arrangements for verification, and safeguards against introduction--have not yet been carried out." During the day, Anatoly Dobrynin is informed that the IL-28 issue has "reached a turning point," and that unless the matter is resolved, the United States and Soviet Union will "soon find ourselves back in a position of increasing tension." (Document 72, President Kennedy 's Letter to Premier Krushchev, 11/15/62; Status of the Negotiations on Removal of IL-28 's, 11/16/62)
11/15/1962 RFK compiles notes about the Cuban Missile Crisis. About LBJ he writes, "â€¦After the meetings were finished, he would circulate and whine and complain about our being weak, but he never madeâ€¦any suggestions or recommendations." (RFK and His Times)
11/16/1962 7:00A.M.: The largest amphibious landing since World War II begins as part of an exercise at Onslow Beach, North Carolina. The two-day exercise, a full-scale rehearsal for an invasion of Cuba, includes six Marine battalion landing teams, four by assault boats and two by helicopter assault carriers. ( CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis, 4/29/63, p. 151; Summary of Items of Significant Interest Period 090701-100700 November 1962, 11/10/62)
11/16-18/1962 Johnny Rosselli takes a trip: he buys a ticket -- in his own name -- to Phoenix, booked reservations at a Mountain Shadows resort (with two female guests) also in his own name. The FBI then finds out Rosselli is on his way to Washington DC to see a congressman so feeling he is developing an alibi, they tail him. (Mahoney p284)
11/16/1962 4:05P.M.: The JCS meets with President Kennedy to report on the readiness status of forces that would be involved in any military action against Cuba. U.S. forces massed for a Cuban invasion have reached their peak strength, the JCS reports: some 100,000 Army troops, 40,000 Marines and 14,500 paratroopers stand ready, with 550 combat aircraft and over 180 ships available to support an invasion. Kennedy is advised that this advanced state of readiness can be maintained for about thirty days. The talking paper prepared for Maxwell Taylor for this meeting spells out the JCS position on the IL-28 deadlock: they recommend that the United States continue to press the Soviet Union to remove the bombers, suggesting that the quarantine be extended to POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants) if no progress is made. If the quarantine does not succeed in having the aircraft removed, the Joint Chiefs warn that the United States "should be prepared to take them out by air attack." (Document 73, Talking Paper for General Maxwell Taylor 's Meeting with President Kennedy , 11/16/62; Department of Defense Operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2/12/63, pp. 8, 12-14; Summary of Items of Significant Interest Period 180701-190700 November 1962, 11/19/62)
11/16/1962 LBJ sends a get-well card to J. Edgar Hoover, who is in the hospital at George Washington University. The nature of his illness remains unknown to this day. (LBJ presidential library)
11/17/1962 James Baldwin's "Letter from a Region in My Heart" is published in The New Yorker; it will later be published in book form as The Fire Next Time.
11/17/1962 Marina and June are moved to the house of Valentina Ray.
11/18/1962 John McCloy and Adlai Stevenson have a long meeting with Vasily Kuznetsov and Valerian Zorin to try to force the dispute over the IL-28 s to a head. McCloy repeatedly warns Kuznetsov that President Kennedy is scheduling a press conference for 6:00P.M. on November 20, and that the United States must have a pledge that the bombers will be removed by that time. McCloy also continues to raise U.S. concerns over the lack of on-site verification, the possibility that new "offensive weapons" might be introduced into Cuba and the continued presence of four reinforced Soviet troop regiments in Cuba. Stevenson reports to the ExComm that the negotiations ended with "no indication from Kuznetsov that they would give way in regard to [the] IL-28 's." (Cuba-Meeting between McCloy and Kuznetsov, Sunday, November 18, 1962, 11/19/62)
11/18/1962 Marina and Lee Oswald decide to get back together again. Lee also got into an argument with Frank Ray about economics.
11/18/1962 Press reports that three pro-Castro Cubans have been arrested by the FBI in alleged conspiracy to plant explosives in NY and New Jersey.
11/19/1962 10:00A.M.: At a morning ExComm session, President Kennedy authorizes high-level reconnaissance flights but again suspends low-level sorties. Robert Kennedy scrawls notes on the back of an envelope during the meeting: "President reluctant to send in low-level flights...How far can we push K[hrushchev?]." During the day, the attorney general meets with Georgi Bolshakov and warns him that low-level reconnaissance will begin again unless the Soviet Union promises to remove the bombers. Robert Kennedy states that he needs a response to the IL-28 issue before the president's press conference the next day. (NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November 19, 1962, 10:00A.M., Meeting No. 27, 11/19/62; Schlesinger, p. 526)
8:25P.M.: Letters from President Kennedy to Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, and Harold Macmillan are transmitted by the State Department. Kennedy warns the European leaders that if the IL-28 s are not withdrawn, further U.S. action might result, including the extension of the quarantine to include POL and the possibility of an air attack against Cuba in response to attacks on U.S. reconnaissance planes. Although the overall situation is said to be "somewhat less dangerous than it was in October," Kennedy warns that getting Premier Khrushchev to back down again in some ways might be more difficult than it was during the missile crisis. Similar messages for Latin American heads of state are also sent during the evening. (Text of Personal Message from President Kennedy to Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer and Harold Macmillan on the IL-28 Situation, 11/19/62)
11/19/1962 Fidel Castro informs U Thant that the Cuban government will not object if the Soviet Union removes the IL-28 s from Cuba, thereby ending the crisis over the Soviet bombers. In a letter announcing his new position, Castro renounces any claim to the aircraft, stating that the IL-28 aircraft are "the property of the Soviet Government." However, the letter warns again that any "warplane invading Cuban airspace could do so only at the risk of being destroyed" and again rejects any unilateral inspection of Cuban territory. The Cuban government apparently had been persuaded to allow the bombers to be removed by the signing of a new Cuban-Soviet agreement under which the Soviet Union would leave an instruction center on the island where Cuban troops could be trained in the use of Soviet military equipment. (Document 75, Prime Minister Castro's Letter to Secretary General U Thant, Withdrawing Opposition to Removal of IL-28 Aircraft, 11/19/62; Alekseyev, p. 26)
11/19/1962 Time magazine commented (in "California: Career's End"): "Barring a miracleâ€¦[Nixon's] political career ended last week." Newsweek called Nixon a "political has-been at 49."
11/19/1962 OSWALD pays $10.00 (postal money order) against travel loan from State Dept. Posted 11/20/62 from Box 2915, Dallas. (CE1120)
11/20/1962 President Kennedy directs an oral message through the Soviet ambassador for Chairman Khrushchev stating that he will announce a lower state of alert for U.S. forces at his press conference.
11/20/1962 Premier Khrushchev formally agrees to remove the IL-28 s from Cuba in a fourteen-page letter to President Kennedy . In his letter, Khrushchev complains that during their exchange of correspondence in October, Kennedy had not made "a single mention of bomber planes...I informed you that the IL-28 planes are twelve years old and by their combat characteristics they at present cannot be classified as offensive types of weapons." Nonetheless, he added that "we intend to remove them within a month." In a separate transmission, Khrushchev urges that Kennedy refrain from "hurting the national feelings of the Cubans" during his upcoming press conference. (Document 76, Premier Khrushchev 's Letter to President Kennedy , Announcing Withdrawl of IL-28 Aircraft from Cuba, 11/20/62; Khrushchev Transmission, 11/20/62)
3:30P.M.: After discussing Premier Khrushchev 's letter agreeing to remove the IL-28 s, the ExComm agrees to lift the quarantine. In addition, the SAC alert is ordered canceled and no low-altitude flights are authorized for November 21. U-2 missions are scheduled to verify the dismantling and withdrawal of the bomber aircraft. (Document 77, Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee, November 20, 1962, 3:30P.M., Meeting No. 28, 11/20/62)
6:00P.M.: President Kennedy announces at a press conference, "I have today been informed by Chairman Khrushchev that all of the IL-28 bombers in Cuba will be withdrawn in thirty days...I have this afternoon instructed the Secretary of Defense to lift our naval quarantine." Kennedy suggests that because no on-site inspection has occurred, the preconditions for a U.S. non-invasion guarantee has not been met. Nonetheless, he states, "If all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and kept out of the hemisphere in the future...and if Cuba is not used for the export of aggressive Communist purposes, there will be peace in the Caribbean." (The President's News Conference of November 20, 1962, 11/20/62)
11:21P.M.: The JCS orders SAC to return to its normal airborne alert status, effective immediately. During the day, SAC forces lower their alert status from DEFCON 2, and other U.S. military commands reduced their alert status from DEFCON 3 to DEFCON 4. (Summary of Items of Significant Interest Period 200701-210700 November 1962, 11/21/62; Sagan 2, p. 101)
11/20/1962 JFK tells the press that Castro will let the Russians take back their bombers, and the quarantine of Cuba will be lifted. In a less intense sense the crisis continued until November 2 0 , when President Kennedy announced at a press conference that two outstanding issues had been resolved: In addition to its nuclear missiles, the Soviet Union had agreed to remove from Cuba its IL-28 bombers, which the U.S. regarded as offensive weapons. Although there would be no UN inspections because Premier Fidel Castro would not cooperate in a process verifying the missiles' and bombers' removal, the Soviets agreed to leave the weapons on the decks of their departing ships for observation by the United States.
11/20/1962 Hoover sends a memo to RFK, refering to a hospital stay and his health. (Powers, Secrecy & Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover)
11/20/1962 By executive order, JFK barred racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
11/21/1962 9:49P.M.: In a cable to Adlai Stevenson and John McCloy , Dean Rusk summarizes the status of crisis following the IL-28 agreement: The loose ends still remaining unfulfilled...are these: On [the] Soviet side, on-site U.N.-supervised verification of removal of offensive weapons, and longer-term safeguards against their reintroduction. On our side, formal assurances against invasion of Cuba. Rusk notes that the United States favors settling the issue by having the U.S. and Soviet Union issue parallel declarations before the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. declaration, he writes, will state "our non-invasion assurances, contingent on Cuban behavior." (Next Steps in New York Negotiations, 11/21/62)
11/21/1962 President Kennedy sends a brief letter to Premier Khrushchev welcoming the Soviet leader's decision to remove the IL-28 s. Kennedy writes, "I have been glad to get your letter of November 20, which arrived in good time yesterday. As you will have seen, I was able to announce the lifting of our quarantine promptly at my press conference, on the basis of your welcome assurance that the IL-28 bombers will be removed within a month." Kennedy also reassures Khrushchev that "there need be no fear of any invasion of Cuba while matters take their present favorable course." (Message for Chairman Khrushchev , 11/21/62) The president officially lifts the naval quarantine of Cuba, and measures are taken promptly by the U.S. Navy to return to a normal readiness posture. Secretary McNamara authorizes the secretary of the Air Force to release 14,200 air reservists, and the Defense Department removes involuntary extensions for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Almost simultaneously, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations announce the cancellation of the special military preparedness measures that had been put into effect on October 23. ( Khrushchev 's Cuban Venture in Retrospect, 12/7/62; Department of Defense Operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2/12/63, pp. 14, 19; Garthoff 1, p. 114)
11/21/1962 Edward Becker was referred to in an FBI report which dealt with an alleged counterfeiting ring and a Dallas lawyer who reportedly had knowledge of it. This report noted that Becker was being used as an "informant" by a private investigator (Blodgett) in the investigation. (HSCA vol 9)
11/21/1962 The only document at the Pentagon that supported awarding the TFX contract to General Dynamics was a five-page memo of justification, dated today, signed by McNamara, Eugene Zuckert (Sec of the Air Force) and Fred Korth. The memo was filled with inaccuracies about the cost of the project and the performance claims for the GD plane. (Mollenhoff)
11/22/1962 Premier Khrushchev sends a five page letter to Kennedy regarding the Soviet leader's views on Cuba and opinions on Fidel Castro . Cuban leaders, he observes, are "young, expansive people--Spaniards in a word, to use it far from the pejorative sense." Given nationalist sensitivities in Cuba, Khrushchev asks Kennedy to avoid steps "capable of causing scratches to national pride and prestige" of the Cuban leadership. (Premier Khrushchev 's Letter to President Kennedy , 11/22/62)
11/22/1962 Press reports that 14,000 Air Reservists will be demobilized.
11/22/19623 Press reports that Gen. Walker has been found mentally competent to stand trial. Dr. Stubblefield found that Walker had a "superior level of intelligence."
11/22/1962 On this Thanksgiving Day, the Oswalds go by bus to Robert's house in Fort Worth. John Pic is there, but not Marguerite. This is the first time in ten years Lee has seen his half-brother. They refrain from discussing politics or his defection; John will never see Lee again, and Robert won't see him again until the assassination weekend.
11/24/1962 The Pentagon announced that the TFX contract would be awarded to General Dynamics. Henry M. Jackson was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Government Operations Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He learned that: "Boeing's bid was substantially lower than its competitor's. Reports indicated Boeing's bid was $100 million lower on an initial development contract and that the cost difference might run as high as $400 million on the total $6.5 billion procurement."
11/25/1962 Anastas Mikoyan pledges to Cuba that USSR is still their "friend and protector." Privately, Castro is very disappointed in Khrushchev.
11/26/1962 Mikoyan in NY tells the press that the agreement between JFK and Khrushchev "opens up the possibility" of better relations between the US and USSR.
11/26/1962 Stars and Stripes story: "Prof Says Beings From Outer Space Visited Earth." A 28-year-old assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard, Dr. Carl Sagan, told members of the American Rocket Society that it was a mathematical probability that intelligent beings existed elsewhere in the universe, and may have visited Earth sometime in its past.
11/26/1962 Havana announces it will permit UN on-site inspection only if the US allows similar inspection of the dismantling of camps and bases from which attacks on Cuba have been launched.
11/29/1962 10:00A.M.: The ExComm meets with President Kennedy to discuss intelligence and diplomatic reports on Cuba, U.S. declaratory policy on the IL-28 issue, the future of OPERATION MONGOOSE and "post mortems of Oct. 15-28." Kennedy directs the State Department to prepare a long-range plan to "keep pressure on Castro." (NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November 29, 1962, 10:00A.M., Meeting No. 31, 11/29/62; Executive Committee Meeting, November 29, 1962, 10A.M. Agenda, 11/28/62)
11/29/1962 Kennedy: "...I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit." Closed-circuit television broadcast on behalf of the National Cultural Center from the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C.
11/29/1962 4:30P.M.: In a three-hour meeting with President Kennedy and Secretary of State Rusk , Anastas Mikoyan repeatedly presses for a clarification and a confirmation of a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba. Kennedy reassures Mikoyan that the United States has no intention of invading Cuba, but he backs away from the idea of issuing further formal guarantees, stressing that other conditions set out in his exchange of letters with Nikita Khrushchev have not been met (in particular, international on-site verification and safeguards on the reintroduction of strategic weapons into Cuba). However, Kennedy does state that if the Soviet Union abides by the exchange of correspondence, the United States will as well. (U.S. Policy toward Cuba and Related Events 1 November 1961- 15 March 1963, ca. 3/16/63, pt. 3, p. 11; Garthoff 1, pp. 126-27)
11/29/1962 Hoover responded to a get-well note from JFK: "I am happy to say that I am feeling fine and expect to be back at my desk before too long." (JFK presidential library) It is not known whether Hoover was still in the hospital at this point, or what his illness was.

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