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?
Eisenhower: Oh, I don't believe that they will.
President Kennedy: You don't think they will?
Eisenhower: No.
President Kennedy: In other words you would take that risk if thesituation seemed desirable?
Eisenhower: Well, as a matter of fact, what can you do?
President Kennedy: Yeah.
Eisenhower: If this thing is such a serious thing, here on our flank,that we're going to be uneasy and we know what thing is happeningnow. All right, you've got to use something.
President Kennedy: Yeah.
Eisenhower: Something may make these people [the Soviets] shootthem [their nuclear missiles] off. I just don't believe this will.
President Kennedy: Yeah, right. [Chuckles resignedly.]
Eisenhower: In any event, of course, I'll say this: I'd want to keep myown people very alert.
President Kennedy: Yeah. [Chuckles some more.] Well, we'll hang ontight.
Eisenhower: [also chuckling a bit] Yes, sir.
President Kennedy: Thanks a lot, General.
Eisenhower: All right. Thank you.
(The two men had the same difference of opinion on 22 April 1961, after the failure of the U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy privately told Eisenhower that he had minimized U.S. military backing for the invasion because he feared Soviet retaliation against Berlin. Eisenhower then answered, as he recorded in his diary at the time: "Mr.President, that is exactly the opposite of what would really happen. The Soviets follow their own plans, and if they see us show any weakness that is when they press us the hardest. The second they see us show strength and do something on our own, that is when they are very cagey" [from Eisenhower's notes of the meeting in his Post-Presidential Papers, Box 11, at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, which are also reproduced in the FRUS Microfiche Supplement on Cuba 1961-1963. The conversation is described in Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pp. 102-3].)
Wednesday, October 24, 1962
CIA Director John McCone: Dean, I don't know at the moment.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara: Most of these ships [in Cuban waters] are outboundfrom Cuba to the Soviet Union. There are several, and I presume thatthat's what that refers to. There are only-
President Kennedy: [interrupting] Why don't we find out whetherthey're talking about the ships leaving Cuba or the ones coming in?
McCone: I'll find out what this guy [unclear]. [He leaves the room.]
Secretary of State Dean Rusk: [drily] Makes some difference. [A few people laugh.]
National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy: It sure does.
McNamara: There were a number of ships so close to the harbors inCuba this morning that we anticipate their entering the harbors at thepresent time, inbound from the Soviet Union. There were a number ofships outbound also relatively close to the harbors.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric: There is one other ship, a tanker, which is now passingthrough one of the straits, one of the channels through the islands, atanker… .
President Kennedy: If this submarine should sink our destroyer, thenwhat is our proposed reply?
Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Maxwell Taylor: Well, our destroyer, first, will be moving around all the timeand the submarine is going to be covered by our antisubmarine warfarepatrols. Now, we have a signaling arrangement with that submarine tosurface, which has been communicated I am told by… to-
Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Alexis Johnson: I sent it [to the Soviets] last night, yes.
Unidentified: But is that…
Taylor: Could you describe this, I just
Alexis Johnson: I sent the identification procedures for a submarine. I sent a message to Moscow last night saying that, in accordance with thePresident's proclamation, the Secretary of Defense has issued the followingprocedures for identification of submarines, and asked the embassy tocommunicate this to the Soviet government, and said this is also beingcommunicated to other governments, this would be a general regulation.Whether they… I have not got acknowledgment of receipt of that.As far as our proclamation is concerned, it was delivered to theSoviet foreign office last night and very promptly returned.
Rusk: I presume they took a look at it.
Alexis Johnson: It was also delivered to the embassy here last night.We have not yet received it back. But these identification proceduresshould be in their hands. They are standard… . I understand they are an addition to standard international practice accepted by the Soviets?
McNamara: No. This is a new procedure I asked them to set up yesterday, Alex.
Alexis Johnson: It is a new procedure.
McNamara: Here is the exact situation. We have depth charges thathave such a small charge that they can be dropped and they can actuallyhit the submarine, without damaging the submarine.
Taylor: They're practice depth charges.
McNamara: Practice depth charges. We propose to use those as warningdepth charges. The message that Alex is talking about states that,when our forces come upon an unidentified submarine we will ask it tocome to the surface for inspection by transmitting the following signals,using a depth charge of this type and also using certain sonar signalswhich they may not be able to accept and interpret. Therefore, it is thedepth charge that is the warning notice and the instruction to surface.
((It was after McNamara made this point in the discussion, RobertKennedy jotted down later that day, that he thought "these few minuteswere the time of greatest worry by the President. His hand went up tohis face & covered his mouth and he closed his fist. His eyes were tense,almost gray, and we just stared at each other across the table."))
Taylor: I believe it's the second step, Mr. Secretary, as [AdmiralGeorge] Anderson described it.
McNamara: Yes.
Taylor: First the signals and then after-
McNamara: Right. The sonar signal very probably will not accomplishits purpose.
Alexis Johnson: The time element being what it has been, I am notsure that we could assume …
McNamara: I think it's almost certain they didn't. [Unclear] didn'tsee ours, but you and I were working on it at 1:30 [unclear]. I'm surethat it got to the Soviet Union back to the submarine. Now-
Alexis Johnson: That's what I mean. Yes.
McNamara: I neglected to mention one thing about the submarine,however.
(Nineteen seconds in this section of tapes were excised as classified information.)
President Kennedy: Kenny?
Special Assistant to the President, Kenneth O'Donnell: What if he doesn't surface, then it gets hot?
President Kennedy: If he doesn't surface or if he takes some action-takes some action to assist the merchant ship, are we just going to attackhim anyway? At what point are we going to attack him?I think we ought to wait on that today. We don't want to have thefirst thing we attack as a Soviet submarine. I'd much rather have a mer-chantship.
Taylor: Well, we won't get to that unless the submarine is really in aposition to attack our ship in the course of an intercept. This is not pur-suing[unclear] on the high seas.
McNamara: I think it would be extremely dangerous, Mr. President,to try to defer attack on this submarine in the situation we're in. Wecould easily lose an American ship by that means. The range of oursonar in relation to the range of his torpedo, and the inaccuracy, as youwell know, of antisubmarine warfare is such that I don't have any-
President Kennedy: [Unclear] imagine it would.
McNamara: great confidence that we can push him away from ourships and make the intercept securely. Particularly, I don't have confi-dencewe could do that if we restrict the commander on the site in anyway. I've looked into this in great detail last night because of your inter-estin the question.
Rusk: Can you interpose the Soviet merchant vessel between the sub-marineand yourself ? Or does he have torpedoes that can go around andcome in from the other side?
Taylor: He can maneuver anyway he wants to.Rusk: I know. But I mean, suppose that you have air observation, youkeep the Soviet ship…
Unidentified: Right underneath.
Unidentified: I don't think…
McNamara: What the plan is, Dean, is to send antisubmarine heli-coptersout to harass the submarine. And they have weapons and devicesthat can damage the submarine. And the plan, therefore, is to put pres-sureon the submarine, move it out of the area by that pressure, by thepressure of potential destruction, and then make the intercept. But thisis only a plan and there are many, many uncertainties.
Rusk: Yeah.
President Kennedy: OK. Let's proceed.
Transcripts from the tapes were researched and transcribed by a team of 12 historians and scholars in the fields of politics, military history, and foreign affairs. They were edited by Philip Zelikow University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, Timothy Naftali, the director of the Presidential Recordings Project, and Harvard historian Ernest May. The volumes, organized in chronological order, cover a wide range of issues, from meetings on the nuclear test ban and budget and tax-cut proposals, to crises in foreign nations and trade policy.
© W. W. Norton & Company; 2001