07-12-2013, 07:57 PM
In 1961, the U.S. was far ahead in the arms race. Yet the military continued to press for a rapid build-up of strategic missiles. Curtis LeMay had asked for at least 2,400 Minutemen; Gen. Thomas Power of the Strategic Air Command had asked for 10,000. All were to be unleashed in a single paroxysm of mass annihilation, known as SIOP, the Single Integrated Operational Plan. SIOP was a recipe for blowing up the world, whether in a first or a second strike. Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara eventually imposed a limit of 1,000 Minuteman missiles, angering the Chiefs. Kennedy also launched efforts to gain operational control of the nuclear force, then far from being securely concentrated in the President's hands.
"At a Georgetown dinner party recently, the wife of a leading senator sat next to Gen. Curtis LeMay, chief of staff of the Air Force. He told her a nuclear war was inevitable. It would begin in December and be all over by the first of the year. In that interval, every major American city -- Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles -- would be reduced to rubble. Similarly, the principal cities of the Soviet Union would be destroyed. The lady, as she tells it, asked if there were any place where she could take her children and grandchildren to safety; the general would, of course, at the first alert be inside the top-secret underground hideout near Washington from which the retaliatory strike would be directed. He told her that certain unpopulated areas in the far west would be safest." --Marquis Childs, nationally syndicated columnist, Washington Post, 19 July 1961
7/20/1961 At a National Security Council Meeting, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer and CIA director Allen Dulles present a plan for a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union "in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions." President Kennedy walks out of the meeting, saying to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "And we call ourselves the human race." (Brothers, Talbot)
Spring 1962: the Pentagon draws up "Operation Northwoods," a plan to create false flag attacks and other phony pretexts to justify a US military invasion of Cuba. Although "Northwoods" had been blocked by the President, General Lemnitzer kept pushing on behalf of the Joint Chiefs for a preemptive invasion of Cuba. In an April 10, 1962, memorandum to McNamara, he stated: " The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near future . . . they believe that military intervention by the United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime . . .They also believe that the intervention can be accomplished rapidly enough to minimize communist opportunities for solicitation of UN action. " (Bamford, Body of Secrets)
Summer 1962: The president's friend Paul Fay, Jr., told of an incident that showed JFK was keenly conscious of the peril of a military coup d'etat. One summer weekend in 1962 while out sailing with friends, Kennedy was asked what he thought of Seven Days in May, a best-selling novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II that described a military takeover in the United States. JFK said he would read the book. He did so that night. The next day Kennedy discussed with his friends the possibility of their seeing such a coup in the United States. Consider that he said these words after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and before the Cuban Missile Crisis: "It's possible. It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, 'Is he too young and inexperienced? ' The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment. "Pausing a moment, he went on, "Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen." Waiting again until his listeners absorbed his meaning, he concluded with an old Navy phrase, "But it won't happen on my watch." (Fay, The Pleasure of His Company p190)
12/5/1962 JFK met with McNamara, Max Taylor, and science adviser Jerome Wiesner. JFK asks why they are building so many nuclear weapons, and wonders if they have enough right now to deter the USSR. McNamara warns that the Pentagon will give them trouble if they try to reduce the number of nukes. Taylor is also opposed to the idea. ("Camelot's Nuclear Conscience," The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 2006)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us
President John F. Kennedy: . . . If our point really then is to deter them [the Soviet Union], it seems to me that we are getting an awful lot ofI mean, with the Polaris submarines, with the planes we have, the navy's strategic force, and with the missiles we have, we have an awful lot of megatonnage to put on the Soviets [that is] sufficient to deter them from ever using nuclear weapons. . . . Otherwise, what good are they? I don'tyou can't use them as a first weapon yourself, so they're only good for deterring. . . . I don't see quite why we're building as many as we're building...
Gen. Maxwell Taylor, commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: I think there's always a question whether we've got too much or not. As you know, in the past I've always said we probably have too much, and I think if we were starting from scratch I would still take that position. Right now, but sir, I would recommend staying with the program essentially as it is. There are too many imponderables for us to back away and go back to a very small force, which is invulnerable, which may be our eventual objective. . . .
Kennedy: I mean, we're just trying to think: What is it that will deter them? And [French President Charles] de Gaulle thinks what he's got is going to be a big deterrent. And even what they had in Cuba alone would have been a substantial
deterrent to me. . . .
Taylor explains that with large enough nuclear forces, they could destroy all of the Soviet military forces and prevent them from retaliating. "But everybody agrees that can't be done," Kennedy said.
"We can now. We can now," General Taylor responded.
"Well, yeah," said Kennedy, "but by '63 can you do that?"
The recording source for this conversation is censored for twenty-seven seconds at this point for "national security" reasons. (The War State, 2013 Michael Swanson, p360)
5/17/1963 TIME magazine: "The dirty work fell to Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric. On Sunday afternoon he drove to the official quarters, atop Observatory Hill in northwest Washington, of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. There he informed Admiral George W. Anderson Jr. that he would not be reappointed when his present two-year term is up in August. Anderson was stunned. So was most of the Navy. "A military man has really got to bow to this Kennedy crowd,'' said an admiral who is close to Anderson. ''Guys who get in their way get knocked off." And Anderson had been getting in the way...
June 1963: The announcement this month that Adm. George W. Anderson would not be reappointed as chief of naval operations, and Curtis LeMay would be reappointed for a single year only, prompted legislation in Congress to fix a four-year term for all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Previously, members of the Joint Chiefs were appointed to two-year terms by the President, except for the Commandant of the Marine Corps, whose term is fixed by law at four years. Anderson and LeMay were thought to have displeased McNamara when they expressed their views before a Senate committee investigating the awarding of a contract for a new tactical aircraft (TFX). (1964 Collier's Encyclopedia Yearbook)
2/27/1965 RFK records an oral history interview with Art Schlesinger: "They just wanted to go in and drop bombs on people. Even after the Cuban missile crisis, two of the Chiefs of Staff were really mad. One of them suggested that we go and bomb them anyway on Monday, and the other one said, 'We've been sold out.'....LeMay and Anderson. That's really the reason why the President got rid of Anderson."
President Kennedy pointed out to Norman Cousins that he and Khrushchev had come to have more in common with each other than either had with his own military establishment: "One of the ironic things about this entire situation is that Mr. Khrushchev and I occupy approximately the same political positions inside our governments. He would like to prevent a nuclear war but is under severe pressure from his hard-line crowd, which interprets every move in that direction as appeasement. I've got similar problems. " (Cousins, Improbable Triumvirate, pp. 113-14)
Writings of Lee Harvey Oswald, fall 1963: "Americans are apt to scoff at the idea, that a military coup in the US., as so often happens in Latin American countries, could ever replace our government. But that is an idea that has grounds for consideration....our two countries [US and USSR] have too much to offer to each other to be tearing at each others throats in an endless cold war."
9/12/1963 At a National Security Council meeting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff again present a report evaluating a projected nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union, in a time scheme of 1964 through 1968. President Kennedy turns the discussion to his conclusion: " Preemption is not possible for us. " He passes over without comment the report's implication that the remaining months of 1963 are still the most advantageous time for the United States to launch a preemptive strike. But this time, rather than stalking out of the meeting, Kennedy engaged his military in order to get a more exact idea of what they were up to. At least Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was on his side. Here are some of the relevant excerpts from a summary of the meeting (See Summary Record of the 517th Meeting of the NSC):
PRES. KENNEDY: De Gaulle believes even the small nuclear force he is planning will be big enough to cause unacceptable damage to the USSR… Why do we need to have as much defense as we have if, as it appears, the strategy is based on the assumption that even if we strike first we cannot protect the security of the U.S. in nuclear warfare?
GEN LEON W. JOHNSON: No matter what we do we can't get below 51 million casualties (to the United States) in the event of a nuclear exchange. We can, however, bring down this number by undertaking additional weapons programs.
PRES. KENNEDY: Doesn't that get us into the overkill business?
GEN. LEON JOHNSON: No, sir. We can cut down U.S. losses if we knock out more Soviet missiles by having more U.S. missiles and more accurate U.S. missiles. The more Soviet missiles we can destroy the less the loss to us…Each of the strategies (recommended in the report) used against the USSR results in at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR. Our problem is how to catch more of the Soviet missiles before they are launched and how to destroy more of the missiles in the air over the U.S….
SEC. MCNAMARA: There is no way of launching a no-alert attack against the USSR which would be acceptable. No such attack… could be carried out without 30 million U.S. fatalities an obviously unacceptable number… The President deserves an answer to his question as to why we have to have so large a force….
PRES. KENNEDY: I understand… Preemption is not possible for us. This is a valuable conclusion growing out of an excellent report…
GEN. LEON JOHNSON: I would be very disturbed if the President considered this report indicated that we could reduce our forces and/or not continue to increase those programmed…I have concluded from the calculations that we could fight a limited war using nuclear weapons without fear that the Soviets would reply by going to all-out war.
PRES. KENNEDY: I have been told that if I ever released a nuclear weapon on the battlefield, I should start a pre-emptive attack on the Soviet Union as the use of nuclear weapons was bound to escalate and we might as well get the advantage by going first…
"At about the same time as Oswald's arrest and identification," according to FBI Agent James Hosty, "I learned after the assassination from two independent sources, fully armed warplanes were sent screaming toward Cuba. Just before they entered Cuban airspace, they were hastily called back. With the launching of warplanes, the entire U.S. military went on alaert. The Pentagon ordered us to Defense Condition 3...Def Con 3..." (Hosty, Assignment Oswald p219)
11/29/1963 Phone call between LBJ and Senator Russell:
Lyndon B. Johnson: "It has already been announced and you can serve with anybody for the good of America and this is a question that has a good many more ramifications than on the surface and we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and chuck us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour. And you would put on your uniform in a minute. Now the reason I've asked Warren is because he is the Chief Justice of this country and we've got to have the highest judicial people we can have. The reason I ask you is because you have that same kind of temperament and you can do anything for your country. And don't go to giving me that kind of stuff about you can't serve with anybody. You can do anything…You want me to tell you the truth? You know what happened? Bobby and them went up to see him today and he turned them down cold and said, "No." Two hours later, I called him and ordered him down here and he didn't want to come. I insisted he come. He came down here and told me no - twice. And I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I said, "Now I don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow - and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him and all I want you to do is look at the facts and bring in any other facts you want in here and determine who killed the President. And I think you put on your uniform in World War I, fat as you are, and would do anything you could to save one American life. And I'm surprised that you, the Chief Justice of the United States, would turn me down." And he started crying and he said, "I won't turn you down. I'll just do whatever you say." But he turned the Attorney General down!"
"Let us make the "fantastic" assumption that President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy know or believe that the murder was planned by a group of high-ranking officers who would stop at nothing to end American-Soviet negotiations. However strong their desire to avenge John F. Kennedy, what course would be open to them? To move against such formidable conspirators might start a disastrous chain of events. It could lead to American troops shooting at other American troops. It could lead to a direct take-over by a military clique. To avert such catastrophes, it might well be considered prudent to pretend utter ignorance, in the hope that the conspirators might be removed from power discreetly, at a later date, one by one…If indeed a few people in Washington know or believe such to be the background of the assassination, their knowledge or belief may suffice to render the political ends of the conspirators fulfilled. In such a case American global policies would henceforth be charted by people aware that further softening of the Cold war would be challenged by a well organized and powerful group. Thus the conspirators may cast their shadow over Washington and the world without openly appearing as a political force.
The Johnson Administration need not necessarily resent having to reckon with such a force, since "Mr. Johnson has never believed that the fundamental issues which divide Russia and the democratic nations can be settled by negotiation." (Max Freedman in the New York Post of December 1.) In fact, "the new president is close to the generals and the admirals. They have frequently bucked the peace policies of JFK and Secretary Rusk." (Drew Pearson in his syndicated column of November 26.) How significant this closeness to the generals and their political backers may prove is indicated by the fact that "one of the first reports he [President Johnson] received was from Walt Rostow, the State Dept. advisor who wanted to take us into war after the Kennedy-Khrushchev talks in Vienna. This week Mr. Rostow recommended that this is the time for a new hard line against Moscow. JFK used to smile at Mr. Rostow's belligerent advice. Will LBJ know how to evaluate it?" (Ib.) Thus it seems that at Arlington Cemetery were buried John F. Kennedy and whatever cautious Cold War stance he imposed upon American foreign policy." M.S. Arnoni, Who Killed Whom and Why? Dark Thoughts About Dark Events, The Minority of One, January 1964
A 1971 oral history with Curtis LeMay for the LBJ Library:
http://web2.millercenter.org/lbj/oralhis...1_0628.pdf
Frantz : Where were you at the time of the assassination?
LeMay : I was in Washington at the time--the Chief of Staff of the Air Force .
Frantz : You were at work on that particular day?
LeMay : No, I was off some place, at the actual time of the assassination, I was called back .
Frantz: Yes, what was the situation that you found when you got back to Washington? Was there a little bit of tenseness or was it pretty well decided that Lee Harvey Oswald was just after one man?
LeMay: Well there wasn't much of a flap . Everybody was a little concerned that they didn't know what made the attack, the assassination, so they wanted everybody present for duty . That's the reason they were called back… For several months before the President was assassinated they were rumors, and then they got to be a little more than rumors, Vice President Johnson was going to be dropped for the coming election . And all the Kennedy team was finally got to openly to giving to the Vice President to the back of their hands, and it was rather embarrassing for the country around Washington because it was so apparent . Then bang, all at once he is President .
Frantz : Yes.
LeMay : And I believe all of this hard feeling grew up around the flight from Fort Worth back was brought on by these people who had really been vulgar in my opinion and snubbing the Vice President who expected to be stepped on like the cockroaches they were, and he didn't do it . As a matter of fact quite the contrary . From all I got the President was extremely polite to Mrs . Kennedy and the family and bent over backwards to do everything he could to soften the blow if that is possible . It isn't, but he certainly was a Southern gentleman in every respect during this period . And I think this rather surprised these people because they expected the same kind of treatment that they had given him and he didn't give it to him . Why, I don't know : I really don't know because well I can understand in having to face an election and I can understand him being a smart enough politician to know if he threw out all of the Kennedy crowd and put his in, this might split the Democratic party at the time in the next election and so forth . So I can understand him keeping these people around until the election was over, but then he won the election--he won it with the greatest majority that any President has ever had, but he still kept these people around . The same people that had treated him so miserably during this period just before President Kennedy's assassination … I could never understand, never could figure it out yet . The only answer I could come up with is that knowing the vindictiveness of these people, knowing the moral standards of these people, how ruthless that they were, they must have had some threat over the President that he knew that they would carry out … These men believed that if we were equal in strength then there wouldn't be any war . Well this is an indication of how impractical these type of people are… He wouldn't admit it now, I am sure, but that was what it was aimed at, and I honestly believe that he thought about 1000 minuteman missiles would be enough for this .
"Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards! At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" --Thomas Power, commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command from 1957 to 1964, speaking to William Kaufmann of the RAND Corporation in 1960, cited by Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon. General Thomas Power was a protégé of LeMay's. LeMay himself was quoted as privately saying that Power was mentally "not stable" and a "sadist".
"Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get World War III started." --Curtis LeMay, speaking to RB-47 'Stratojet' crew member Hal Austin of the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, cited by Paul Lashmar, Washington Post, "Stranger than 'Strangelove': A General's Forays into the Nuclear Zone," 3 July 1994
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%...m%2013.pdf
"Looking back on that whole Cuban mess, one of the things that appalled me most was the lack of broad judgment by some of the heads of the military services. When you think of the long competitive selection process that they have to weather to end up the number one man of their particular service, it is certainly not unreasonable to expect that they would also be bright, with good broad judgment. For years I've been looking at those rows of ribbons and those four stars, and conceding a certain higher qualification not obtained in civilian life. Well, if [name withheld] and [name withheld] are the best the services can produce, a lot more attention is going to be given their advice in the future before any action is taken as a result of it." --President Kennedy, speaking to Assistant Navy Secretary Paul Fay, The Pleasure of His Company
"At a Georgetown dinner party recently, the wife of a leading senator sat next to Gen. Curtis LeMay, chief of staff of the Air Force. He told her a nuclear war was inevitable. It would begin in December and be all over by the first of the year. In that interval, every major American city -- Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles -- would be reduced to rubble. Similarly, the principal cities of the Soviet Union would be destroyed. The lady, as she tells it, asked if there were any place where she could take her children and grandchildren to safety; the general would, of course, at the first alert be inside the top-secret underground hideout near Washington from which the retaliatory strike would be directed. He told her that certain unpopulated areas in the far west would be safest." --Marquis Childs, nationally syndicated columnist, Washington Post, 19 July 1961
7/20/1961 At a National Security Council Meeting, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer and CIA director Allen Dulles present a plan for a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union "in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions." President Kennedy walks out of the meeting, saying to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "And we call ourselves the human race." (Brothers, Talbot)
Spring 1962: the Pentagon draws up "Operation Northwoods," a plan to create false flag attacks and other phony pretexts to justify a US military invasion of Cuba. Although "Northwoods" had been blocked by the President, General Lemnitzer kept pushing on behalf of the Joint Chiefs for a preemptive invasion of Cuba. In an April 10, 1962, memorandum to McNamara, he stated: " The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near future . . . they believe that military intervention by the United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime . . .They also believe that the intervention can be accomplished rapidly enough to minimize communist opportunities for solicitation of UN action. " (Bamford, Body of Secrets)
Summer 1962: The president's friend Paul Fay, Jr., told of an incident that showed JFK was keenly conscious of the peril of a military coup d'etat. One summer weekend in 1962 while out sailing with friends, Kennedy was asked what he thought of Seven Days in May, a best-selling novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II that described a military takeover in the United States. JFK said he would read the book. He did so that night. The next day Kennedy discussed with his friends the possibility of their seeing such a coup in the United States. Consider that he said these words after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and before the Cuban Missile Crisis: "It's possible. It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, 'Is he too young and inexperienced? ' The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment. "Pausing a moment, he went on, "Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen." Waiting again until his listeners absorbed his meaning, he concluded with an old Navy phrase, "But it won't happen on my watch." (Fay, The Pleasure of His Company p190)
12/5/1962 JFK met with McNamara, Max Taylor, and science adviser Jerome Wiesner. JFK asks why they are building so many nuclear weapons, and wonders if they have enough right now to deter the USSR. McNamara warns that the Pentagon will give them trouble if they try to reduce the number of nukes. Taylor is also opposed to the idea. ("Camelot's Nuclear Conscience," The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 2006)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us
President John F. Kennedy: . . . If our point really then is to deter them [the Soviet Union], it seems to me that we are getting an awful lot ofI mean, with the Polaris submarines, with the planes we have, the navy's strategic force, and with the missiles we have, we have an awful lot of megatonnage to put on the Soviets [that is] sufficient to deter them from ever using nuclear weapons. . . . Otherwise, what good are they? I don'tyou can't use them as a first weapon yourself, so they're only good for deterring. . . . I don't see quite why we're building as many as we're building...
Gen. Maxwell Taylor, commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: I think there's always a question whether we've got too much or not. As you know, in the past I've always said we probably have too much, and I think if we were starting from scratch I would still take that position. Right now, but sir, I would recommend staying with the program essentially as it is. There are too many imponderables for us to back away and go back to a very small force, which is invulnerable, which may be our eventual objective. . . .
Kennedy: I mean, we're just trying to think: What is it that will deter them? And [French President Charles] de Gaulle thinks what he's got is going to be a big deterrent. And even what they had in Cuba alone would have been a substantial
deterrent to me. . . .
Taylor explains that with large enough nuclear forces, they could destroy all of the Soviet military forces and prevent them from retaliating. "But everybody agrees that can't be done," Kennedy said.
"We can now. We can now," General Taylor responded.
"Well, yeah," said Kennedy, "but by '63 can you do that?"
The recording source for this conversation is censored for twenty-seven seconds at this point for "national security" reasons. (The War State, 2013 Michael Swanson, p360)
5/17/1963 TIME magazine: "The dirty work fell to Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric. On Sunday afternoon he drove to the official quarters, atop Observatory Hill in northwest Washington, of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. There he informed Admiral George W. Anderson Jr. that he would not be reappointed when his present two-year term is up in August. Anderson was stunned. So was most of the Navy. "A military man has really got to bow to this Kennedy crowd,'' said an admiral who is close to Anderson. ''Guys who get in their way get knocked off." And Anderson had been getting in the way...
June 1963: The announcement this month that Adm. George W. Anderson would not be reappointed as chief of naval operations, and Curtis LeMay would be reappointed for a single year only, prompted legislation in Congress to fix a four-year term for all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Previously, members of the Joint Chiefs were appointed to two-year terms by the President, except for the Commandant of the Marine Corps, whose term is fixed by law at four years. Anderson and LeMay were thought to have displeased McNamara when they expressed their views before a Senate committee investigating the awarding of a contract for a new tactical aircraft (TFX). (1964 Collier's Encyclopedia Yearbook)
2/27/1965 RFK records an oral history interview with Art Schlesinger: "They just wanted to go in and drop bombs on people. Even after the Cuban missile crisis, two of the Chiefs of Staff were really mad. One of them suggested that we go and bomb them anyway on Monday, and the other one said, 'We've been sold out.'....LeMay and Anderson. That's really the reason why the President got rid of Anderson."
President Kennedy pointed out to Norman Cousins that he and Khrushchev had come to have more in common with each other than either had with his own military establishment: "One of the ironic things about this entire situation is that Mr. Khrushchev and I occupy approximately the same political positions inside our governments. He would like to prevent a nuclear war but is under severe pressure from his hard-line crowd, which interprets every move in that direction as appeasement. I've got similar problems. " (Cousins, Improbable Triumvirate, pp. 113-14)
Writings of Lee Harvey Oswald, fall 1963: "Americans are apt to scoff at the idea, that a military coup in the US., as so often happens in Latin American countries, could ever replace our government. But that is an idea that has grounds for consideration....our two countries [US and USSR] have too much to offer to each other to be tearing at each others throats in an endless cold war."
9/12/1963 At a National Security Council meeting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff again present a report evaluating a projected nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union, in a time scheme of 1964 through 1968. President Kennedy turns the discussion to his conclusion: " Preemption is not possible for us. " He passes over without comment the report's implication that the remaining months of 1963 are still the most advantageous time for the United States to launch a preemptive strike. But this time, rather than stalking out of the meeting, Kennedy engaged his military in order to get a more exact idea of what they were up to. At least Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was on his side. Here are some of the relevant excerpts from a summary of the meeting (See Summary Record of the 517th Meeting of the NSC):
PRES. KENNEDY: De Gaulle believes even the small nuclear force he is planning will be big enough to cause unacceptable damage to the USSR… Why do we need to have as much defense as we have if, as it appears, the strategy is based on the assumption that even if we strike first we cannot protect the security of the U.S. in nuclear warfare?
GEN LEON W. JOHNSON: No matter what we do we can't get below 51 million casualties (to the United States) in the event of a nuclear exchange. We can, however, bring down this number by undertaking additional weapons programs.
PRES. KENNEDY: Doesn't that get us into the overkill business?
GEN. LEON JOHNSON: No, sir. We can cut down U.S. losses if we knock out more Soviet missiles by having more U.S. missiles and more accurate U.S. missiles. The more Soviet missiles we can destroy the less the loss to us…Each of the strategies (recommended in the report) used against the USSR results in at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR. Our problem is how to catch more of the Soviet missiles before they are launched and how to destroy more of the missiles in the air over the U.S….
SEC. MCNAMARA: There is no way of launching a no-alert attack against the USSR which would be acceptable. No such attack… could be carried out without 30 million U.S. fatalities an obviously unacceptable number… The President deserves an answer to his question as to why we have to have so large a force….
PRES. KENNEDY: I understand… Preemption is not possible for us. This is a valuable conclusion growing out of an excellent report…
GEN. LEON JOHNSON: I would be very disturbed if the President considered this report indicated that we could reduce our forces and/or not continue to increase those programmed…I have concluded from the calculations that we could fight a limited war using nuclear weapons without fear that the Soviets would reply by going to all-out war.
PRES. KENNEDY: I have been told that if I ever released a nuclear weapon on the battlefield, I should start a pre-emptive attack on the Soviet Union as the use of nuclear weapons was bound to escalate and we might as well get the advantage by going first…
"At about the same time as Oswald's arrest and identification," according to FBI Agent James Hosty, "I learned after the assassination from two independent sources, fully armed warplanes were sent screaming toward Cuba. Just before they entered Cuban airspace, they were hastily called back. With the launching of warplanes, the entire U.S. military went on alaert. The Pentagon ordered us to Defense Condition 3...Def Con 3..." (Hosty, Assignment Oswald p219)
11/29/1963 Phone call between LBJ and Senator Russell:
Lyndon B. Johnson: "It has already been announced and you can serve with anybody for the good of America and this is a question that has a good many more ramifications than on the surface and we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and chuck us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour. And you would put on your uniform in a minute. Now the reason I've asked Warren is because he is the Chief Justice of this country and we've got to have the highest judicial people we can have. The reason I ask you is because you have that same kind of temperament and you can do anything for your country. And don't go to giving me that kind of stuff about you can't serve with anybody. You can do anything…You want me to tell you the truth? You know what happened? Bobby and them went up to see him today and he turned them down cold and said, "No." Two hours later, I called him and ordered him down here and he didn't want to come. I insisted he come. He came down here and told me no - twice. And I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I said, "Now I don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow - and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him and all I want you to do is look at the facts and bring in any other facts you want in here and determine who killed the President. And I think you put on your uniform in World War I, fat as you are, and would do anything you could to save one American life. And I'm surprised that you, the Chief Justice of the United States, would turn me down." And he started crying and he said, "I won't turn you down. I'll just do whatever you say." But he turned the Attorney General down!"
"Let us make the "fantastic" assumption that President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy know or believe that the murder was planned by a group of high-ranking officers who would stop at nothing to end American-Soviet negotiations. However strong their desire to avenge John F. Kennedy, what course would be open to them? To move against such formidable conspirators might start a disastrous chain of events. It could lead to American troops shooting at other American troops. It could lead to a direct take-over by a military clique. To avert such catastrophes, it might well be considered prudent to pretend utter ignorance, in the hope that the conspirators might be removed from power discreetly, at a later date, one by one…If indeed a few people in Washington know or believe such to be the background of the assassination, their knowledge or belief may suffice to render the political ends of the conspirators fulfilled. In such a case American global policies would henceforth be charted by people aware that further softening of the Cold war would be challenged by a well organized and powerful group. Thus the conspirators may cast their shadow over Washington and the world without openly appearing as a political force.
The Johnson Administration need not necessarily resent having to reckon with such a force, since "Mr. Johnson has never believed that the fundamental issues which divide Russia and the democratic nations can be settled by negotiation." (Max Freedman in the New York Post of December 1.) In fact, "the new president is close to the generals and the admirals. They have frequently bucked the peace policies of JFK and Secretary Rusk." (Drew Pearson in his syndicated column of November 26.) How significant this closeness to the generals and their political backers may prove is indicated by the fact that "one of the first reports he [President Johnson] received was from Walt Rostow, the State Dept. advisor who wanted to take us into war after the Kennedy-Khrushchev talks in Vienna. This week Mr. Rostow recommended that this is the time for a new hard line against Moscow. JFK used to smile at Mr. Rostow's belligerent advice. Will LBJ know how to evaluate it?" (Ib.) Thus it seems that at Arlington Cemetery were buried John F. Kennedy and whatever cautious Cold War stance he imposed upon American foreign policy." M.S. Arnoni, Who Killed Whom and Why? Dark Thoughts About Dark Events, The Minority of One, January 1964
A 1971 oral history with Curtis LeMay for the LBJ Library:
http://web2.millercenter.org/lbj/oralhis...1_0628.pdf
Frantz : Where were you at the time of the assassination?
LeMay : I was in Washington at the time--the Chief of Staff of the Air Force .
Frantz : You were at work on that particular day?
LeMay : No, I was off some place, at the actual time of the assassination, I was called back .
Frantz: Yes, what was the situation that you found when you got back to Washington? Was there a little bit of tenseness or was it pretty well decided that Lee Harvey Oswald was just after one man?
LeMay: Well there wasn't much of a flap . Everybody was a little concerned that they didn't know what made the attack, the assassination, so they wanted everybody present for duty . That's the reason they were called back… For several months before the President was assassinated they were rumors, and then they got to be a little more than rumors, Vice President Johnson was going to be dropped for the coming election . And all the Kennedy team was finally got to openly to giving to the Vice President to the back of their hands, and it was rather embarrassing for the country around Washington because it was so apparent . Then bang, all at once he is President .
Frantz : Yes.
LeMay : And I believe all of this hard feeling grew up around the flight from Fort Worth back was brought on by these people who had really been vulgar in my opinion and snubbing the Vice President who expected to be stepped on like the cockroaches they were, and he didn't do it . As a matter of fact quite the contrary . From all I got the President was extremely polite to Mrs . Kennedy and the family and bent over backwards to do everything he could to soften the blow if that is possible . It isn't, but he certainly was a Southern gentleman in every respect during this period . And I think this rather surprised these people because they expected the same kind of treatment that they had given him and he didn't give it to him . Why, I don't know : I really don't know because well I can understand in having to face an election and I can understand him being a smart enough politician to know if he threw out all of the Kennedy crowd and put his in, this might split the Democratic party at the time in the next election and so forth . So I can understand him keeping these people around until the election was over, but then he won the election--he won it with the greatest majority that any President has ever had, but he still kept these people around . The same people that had treated him so miserably during this period just before President Kennedy's assassination … I could never understand, never could figure it out yet . The only answer I could come up with is that knowing the vindictiveness of these people, knowing the moral standards of these people, how ruthless that they were, they must have had some threat over the President that he knew that they would carry out … These men believed that if we were equal in strength then there wouldn't be any war . Well this is an indication of how impractical these type of people are… He wouldn't admit it now, I am sure, but that was what it was aimed at, and I honestly believe that he thought about 1000 minuteman missiles would be enough for this .
"Restraint! Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards! At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" --Thomas Power, commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command from 1957 to 1964, speaking to William Kaufmann of the RAND Corporation in 1960, cited by Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon. General Thomas Power was a protégé of LeMay's. LeMay himself was quoted as privately saying that Power was mentally "not stable" and a "sadist".
"Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get World War III started." --Curtis LeMay, speaking to RB-47 'Stratojet' crew member Hal Austin of the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, cited by Paul Lashmar, Washington Post, "Stranger than 'Strangelove': A General's Forays into the Nuclear Zone," 3 July 1994
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%...m%2013.pdf
"Looking back on that whole Cuban mess, one of the things that appalled me most was the lack of broad judgment by some of the heads of the military services. When you think of the long competitive selection process that they have to weather to end up the number one man of their particular service, it is certainly not unreasonable to expect that they would also be bright, with good broad judgment. For years I've been looking at those rows of ribbons and those four stars, and conceding a certain higher qualification not obtained in civilian life. Well, if [name withheld] and [name withheld] are the best the services can produce, a lot more attention is going to be given their advice in the future before any action is taken as a result of it." --President Kennedy, speaking to Assistant Navy Secretary Paul Fay, The Pleasure of His Company