JFK's Presidential Recordings
— -- John F. Kennedy provided an extraordinary window into the daily drama of a president facing his toughest decisions. The president recorded his meetings and telephone conversations during key moments in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In July 1962 President Kennedy began an unprecedented program of secretly taping White House meetings and other conversations.
These tapes, recently made public, reveal not only what Kennedy said during these discussions, but also what he heard from his advisers, cabinet members, and congressional leaders.
The first of several volumes containing the complete transcriptions of President Kennedy's recently declassified secret recordings have just been published. They cover the period from July to October 1962.
Read the following excerpts from the tapes, which have been transcribed, edited, and annotated at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Monday, October 22, 1962
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Well, I thank you for telling me. And I will, I personally,I think you're really making the only move you can.
President Kennedy: Yeah. It's tough to… As I say, we will, I don'tknow, we may get into the invasion business before many days are out.
Eisenhower: Yeah.
President Kennedy: But…
Eisenhower: Of course, from the military standpoint that's the clean-cutthing to do, now.
President Kennedy: That's right. That's right.
Eisenhower: Because you've made up your mind you've got to get ridof this thing.
President Kennedy: Right.
Eisenhower: The only real way to get rid of it, of course, is the otherthing [military attack]. But, having to be concerned with world opinionand…
President Kennedy: And Berlin.
Eisenhower: of others, why you've got to do it a little slower.
President Kennedy: Well, Berlin is the … I suppose, that may be the… what they're going to try to trade off.
Eisenhower: Well, they might. But I, personally, I just don't quitego along, you know, with that thinking, Mr. President. My idea is this:The damn Soviets will do whatever they want, what they figure isgood for them.
President Kennedy: Yeah.
Eisenhower: And I don't believe they relate one situation withanother.
President Kennedy: Uh-huh.
Eisenhower: Just what they find out they can do here and there andthe other place.
President Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.
Eisenhower: And, we're already standing as a unit with NATO, thatif they go into Berlin, that's all of it.
President Kennedy: Right.
Eisenhower: That means they've got to look out that they don't get aterrific blow to themselves.
President Kennedy: Right. Right.
Eisenhower: And I don't… It might be, I could be all wrong. But my own conviction is that you will not find a great deal of relationshipbetween the two.
((President Kennedy's reference made sense to Eisenhower because Kennedy had just mentioned McCloy in a portion of the conversation that was not recorded.))
President Kennedy: Let me ask…
Eisenhower: They'll try to make it that way.
President Kennedy: Yeah.General, what about if the Soviet Union-Khrushchev-announcestomorrow, which I think he will, that if we attack Cuba that it's going tobe nuclear war? And what's your judgment as to the chances they'll firethese things off if we invade Cuba?
