Concerns
The United States received reports from Cuban refugees and sources on the island that “missiles” were being introduced. However, when reports could be verified, they turned out to be surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles or politically motivated fiction. Although reports increased over summer 1962, no evidence emerged to suggest a shift from the status quo of sometimes heated rhetoric but caution regarding troops and weapons movements. In August, Kennedy convened a series of White House meetings to review the situation, emphasizing the particulars of Soviet involvement. The United States photographed every Soviet ship en route to Cuba and patrolled the island twice monthly with camera-equipped U-2s. Remarkably, the Kennedy administration remained more concerned about Berlin and Germany. Sorensen quotes Kennedy, “If we solve the Berlin problem without war, Cuba will look pretty small. And if there is a war, Cuba won’t matter much either.”19
On September 19, the Board of National Estimates met in Washington. CIA Director John McCone was convinced unfolding events could culminate in Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, Board Chairman General Marshall S. Carter and others felt McCone’s inexperience in intelligence was misleading him. Following the Bay of Pigs invasion, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., another Kennedy aide, contended that Moscow might take steps to protect Castro. He noted “No one in the intelligence community (with one exception; for the thought flickered through the mind of John McCone) supposed that the Soviet Union would conceivably go beyond defensive weapons.”20
On September 21, Washington received the first reliable report that more than just surface-to-air missiles were being unloaded on the Havana docks. An agent had seen long missile trailers moving down a highway. One night, Castro’s pilot publicly stated that Cuba no longer feared the Yankees and their nuclear weapons. He declared, “We will fight to the death, and perhaps we can win because we have everything, including atomic weapons.” On October 3, reports indicated strange activity “probably connected with missiles” in the
18. “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962,” Office of the Historian (website), n.d., https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d411.
19. Sorensen, Kennedy, 754.
20. Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 798.
Pinar del Rio region. These reports, transmitted through the CIA, failed to heighten Washington’s concern, at least at the top.21
U-2 flights over Cuba on September 5, 7, 26, and 29 and October 5 and 7 failed to reveal evidence of unusual hostile military buildup, beyond MIG fighter aircraft, or Komar torpedo boats armed with short-range missiles. Surprisingly, only the September 5 flight covered the western portion of Cuba, where the offensive Soviet missiles were eventually discovered. This restraint followed a September 10 meeting of the administration’s Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance, which made the self-limiting decision to dip in and out of Cuban airspace rather than conduct extensive and continuous flyovers. A principal reason was that a Taiwan-based U-2 was destroyed over mainland China the day before. US Secretary of State Dean Rusk urged shorter, more frequent flights as the new approach to avoid a similar incident. Along with the desire to protect pilots’ lives, there was anxiety any incident could provoke an international outcry and lead to curtailing flights indefinitely. The Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance never considered dropping flights entirely.22
Contrary to Schlesinger’s assertion, McCone consistently advocated that the Soviets and Cubans would install strategic missiles on the island. His sustained defense of this position proved crucial in pushing the Kennedy administration to discover the missile threat. When McCone returned to Washington following his honeymoon, he was appalled to find the U-2s had avoided western Cuba, where the surface-to-air missiles were concentrated for nearly a month. On October 4, McGeorge Bundy, the president’s special assistant for national security affairs, and his colleagues agreed that all of Cuba would be covered. Pentagon sources reported a new SAM site, laid out in a distinctive trapezoidal pattern, had been spotted near the village of San Cristóbal, and the decision was made to examine the area closely.23
The debate over alternative approaches to gathering this intelligence, plus reports of approaching bad weather, delayed the next flight until October 14. Developing and evaluating the resulting film took until late afternoon of the
21. Abel, Missile Crisis, 13.
22. Abel, Missile Crisis, 14, 25–26. Sorenson, Thousand Days, 672, differs somewhat from other authors on September flight dates.
23. Abel, Missile Crisis, 15–16.
following day. Analysts declared evidence of long-range missiles not “conclusive” but “compelling.” Bundy agreed.24