That's from the top of the Grand Teton.

Really? That's beautiful.

My wife and -- I climbed it maybe five times, but she climbed it in 1963.

Are the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis still quite clear to you? Did...

Twenty-three years have elapsed, uh, so the answer is no. But certain of the events are burned into my mind and will uh, never leave me.

Would you think in many ways it was the most delicate time, or the most...what adjective would you use?

I would use the most dangerous time of the, uh, seven years I served as Secretary of Defense. And I say that because, uh, it was a period of great tension, uh, confrontation between East and West. And confrontation in the nuclear age carries with it risks that the world has never faced before. And that's what led to the tension. I think it was fortunate that we had a President who understood that the nuclear age uh, introduced totally different dimension into political reactions to uh, crises such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. And uh, not only was it the most dangerous uh, period in my seven years as Secretary of Defense, but I think it was also the most expertly handled.

Let's go back to the sort of pre-missile crisis time for a minute, did you, did you think -- if you can try to take your mind back there -- that there was any chance that the Soviets would put missiles in Cuba?

Uh, certainly I didn't think it was a probability. I don't want to say I didn't believe there was any chance. But I didn't think it was a probability. Before the uh, photographs became available in approximately October 15th or 16th, 1962, we had had for two or three months reports that the Soviets were engaged in some additional activity in Cuba. Uh, additional military personnel, Soviet ships, uh, apparently landing military equipment in Cuba. We uh, were fairly certain that they were introducing uh, some form of missiles, presumably uh, anti-aircraft missiles or something of that kind. We had no indication that uh, they were uh, nuclear-tipped uh, surface-to-surface missiles capable of striking at intermediate range the West-- the East Coast of the United States. And as a matter of fact, when we had querried uh, the Soviet Union on the possibility that they were introducing offensive weapons into Cuba, uh, they indicated that was not the case. They made categorical statements that they-- there were no offensive weapons being introduced into Cuba, and there would be none?

And you believed them?

We believed the statements, uh, in the sense that uh, we saw no evidence at that point of uh, contrary action. But we continued to maintain very heavy reconnaissance of what was going on. And it was through that reconnaissance, uh, carried out, uh, on uh, Sunday the 14th of October, that we obtained photographs of the missiles being introduced into Cuba.

Before we get into the photographs, you had no-- I mean, despite their pronouncements that they weren't doing it and, I mean, did you ever have any feeling that that's something that they might do? I mean, psychologically?

I, myself, didn't think it a likelihood. Because it seemed to me that, a) it would not change the military balance, uh, I can go into the reasons for that later if you wish, and b) it would carry with it very very serious political risks which might actually lead to some form of uh military confrontation. And therefore I thought they would be sufficiently wise to, to avoid those risks and they would not introduce the weapons. But, I recognized before -- this isn't just with hindsight -- I recognized before the possibility that they would, and it was absolutely essential that we carry out the reconnaissance that would keep us informed of whether they were introducing offensive weapons.

Do you remember when you first heard about the photographs? Where you were and what the situation was?

Uh, I don't recall when I first heard about the photographs. It was, I believe, uh, uh...

It was the night of the-

...early Tuesday morning or Monday evening. Uh, the photographs were taken on a Sunday, they were uh, developed and rushed up to Washington on Monday. Uh, I believe the President was informed very early Tuesday morning, 8 or 9 o'clock. I don't recall whether I had been informed uh, late Monday evening or not.

But-

In any event, by, by Tuesday morning, uh, 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, both the President and I knew.

What was your first reaction when you saw them? What did you think of them? Could you, could you see anything on them yourself?

Well, they were interpretted for me by photo-interpreters, and once the uh, photo-interpreters interpreted them properly, it was very obvious uh that offensive weapons had, had been introduced, both aircraft and, and missiles. And it was clear that it was essential we immediately organize ourselves to decide how to react. And that was, of course, the President's conclusion. And right on the spot, uh, very early Tuesday morning he formed what came to be known as the executive committee, uh, a very small group of high level officials whom he charged with uh considering how to react and whom he instructed to tell no one, other than a very limited number of people, of the evidence we had of the introduction of offensive weapons into Cuba.

There's one of the uh, I don't know if that rings a bell for you or...

Well, sure, it's a picture of a missile site. I don't recall whether this was one we-

That's one of the first ones.

--had on, on that Tuesday morning.

That's one of the first ones.

Well, you can see very clearly the missiles. You don't have to be a photo-interpreter to see it. What you don't see on here are the nuclear warheads. And uh, it's my recollection that we never had any photographic evidence of the existence of nuclear warheads on this soil of Cuba, even up to the time when uh, Khrushchev said that he would withdraw the missiles. There was a high probability that the nuclear warheads were there. Why would they put the launcers there if they didnt have warheads? But I think it's interesting that there are no warheads visible on this photograph, nor were there on any other photographs that I'm aware of that we had throughout the entire period.

Can you remember just when you first saw those photos, and they were interpretted for you by Art Lundau and the people in the meeting, what your immediate sort of reaction was?

Well, my immediate reaction was one of concern, because uh, this, this uh, at a minimum, carried very high uh political implications. Uh, it was clear that uh, we could not tolerate, uh, introduction of Soviet offensive weapons into this hemisphere. And in some way we would have to accomplish their removal. I didn't believe that the introduction of the weapons shown here or shown on the other uh, photographs would change the military balance between East and West. But I did believe, then, and I do believe now, that it was a politically unacceptable move. We could not allow this hemisphere to become a base for offensive uh Soviet forces. And this was the first step in that direction. It had to be turned back.

You've said, you know, now there are these ExComm tapes that have been released and that sort of thing, and one of the quotes from you is "a missile is a missile, and it doesn't really matter whether it's..."

That's a very important statment.

Say it again, and tell me what it means.

My first reaction when I saw the photographs, uh, which I expressed in one of the early ExComm meetings -- I think I expressed Tuesday morning as a matter of fact -- was that the movement of those missiles into Cuba, uh, the introduction of those offensive weapons, and they are offensive weapons, into the Western Hemisphere, did not change the military balance between East and West or between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Now why did I say that? Because at that time, we had on the order of uh, six thousand strategic nuclear warheads, mostly bombs, some missiles. The Soviets had on the order of uh, 300, mostly bombs. We were so far superior in numbers, you might have thought that we had uh, military superiority in nuclear arms. That was not the case. Our numerical superiority, great as it was, on the order of 20 to 1, could not be translated into usable military power. Before the missiles were put in Cuba! Now why? Because we knew, having studied the possibility, that there was no way we could use our six thousand warheads, if we launched first, against the Soviet Union. There was no way we could destroy such a high percentage of their 300 as to leave them with a number so small that it could not inflict unacceptable damage on the U.S. Even a few of those 300, if launched on target in the U.S., would kill millions of Americans. And no responsible President and no responsible Secretary of Defense -- and certainly Kennedy was responsible, and I hope I was -- would expose his nation to that. And therefore we knew there was no way that we could utilize, in a military fashion, this tremendous military superiority- numerical superiority.

So why do anything about it?

Well, the important point I want to come to is that that conclusion we held before the missiles were put on the soil of Cuba. Now after they were on the soilof Cuba, they didn't strengthen the Soviet capability, uh, because the Soviets didn't have a usable nuclear power against us before they were put there, and they didn't have a usable power in the sense of a first-strike capability against us after they were put there. So the military balance didn't change. But politically it was a different day, a different world. The Soviets had introduced offensive weapons into the western hemisphere. There was a strong possibility if we tolerated that they would expand their offensive forces. This was a political shift that would affect the behavior of our allies, the behavior of the Latin countries. They would be fearful. They would change their attitudes, uh, their political programs, their political platforms. We couldn't tolerate that. So it was absolutely essential that the missiles be withdrawn, but they should be withdrawn with the lowest possible cost, and the lowest possible risk that the actions leading to the withdrawal would lead to a military confrontation between East and West. And that was the initial conclusion I put forward Tuesday morning, it was the conclusion of the President. It w-- it was the problem we grappled [with] the remainder of that week. Because there were two totally different points of view amongst us. One group felt that at any cost, including military cost, those missiles must be driven out of Cuba. The other group felt we should avoid the use of military force, except as a last resort, and should use all forms of political persuasion to remove them, and included in political persuasion I would include the use of a quanrantine, uh, which we eventually put in place.

What was the tone in the meetings? What was the style of the meetings?

Well, it's very interesting, because the President uh, made quite clear in the first uh hours of the uh crisis that uh, he wanted this group of high level officials -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, uh, the National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Director of CIA, and th-- and their immediate associates -- to calmly and quietly and continuously and secretly consider the problem, consider what options he had open to him, and not talk to anybody until they were prepared to expose the options to him, give him a chance to thoughtfully consider them, and allow him to make their deci-- make his decision. And he did not want us to feel under excessive time pressure uh, during those considerations. And therefore the mood was one of tenseness, but it was not one of uh, irrational response to a crisis. And I, I think that it's very important to understand that uh, in the nuclear age, uh, war games rarely lead to one side or the other initiating the use of nuclear weapons. And the reason is that in a non-crisis atmosphere, uh, the burden of responsibility to an init-- to an order initiating the use of nuclear weapons, is so clear in your mind that uh, as I suggest, uh, rational people, operating calmly, uh, in a period, a quiet atmosphere, do not, in war games, except under the greatest of stimulus, initiate the use of nuclear weapons. But, the danger is that in a period of confrontation, such as we had, you're not in a quiet atmosphere, you begin to act uh, emotionally rather than rationally, you have inadequate information, misinformation, emotion. And these act in multiplication. They're not additive. And they multiply each other's force, and you very quickly in a period of crisis -and I've seen this many many times -- you very period-- in a period-- in a crisis, uh, make misjudgments. And you, as illustrated by the Soviet misjudgment when they shot down the Korean aircraft. I felt at the time no Politburo member issued the order to shoot down the Korean aircraft. The military commander who shot it down didn't believe he was shooting down a civilian aircraft with 269 civilians on it. It was a catastrophe. It would be a tragedy if one made the same misjudgment in a period of crisis, because of lack of information, because of misinformation, because of emotion, but instead of shooting down one civilian airplane, you launched a nuclear attack that destroyed your civilization. That's the danger. And the President almost intuitively realized that danger, and he established an atmosphere of quiet contemplation insofar as you can think of quiet contemplation, uh, recognizing the crisis we faced. But it was a, a rational debate. And it was a true debate, that went on for several days.

But you did have a time constraint. I mean they were building these things up.

Well, they were building them up, but we concerned about, uh, the buildup that would occur in, say, another 24 hours if we were to use an additional 24 hours for, for uh, debate, as I was that we would lose the opportunity for quiet debate because of a leak of the information. And we knew that once this information be-- became known to the world, we would have to act. We would have to act within minutes after it became known. Preferrably we should make it known after we had decided how we were going to act. And therefore, there was that time constraint. it for long.But while we held it, the President insisted that we consider the problem in a contemplative way, and we did.

One of the, one of the quotes that one sees in reading about this debate is Robert Kennedy's comparison with Tojo and Pearl Harbor. do you recall that?

Well I don't-- what Robert Kennedy said in, in partial response to those who were proposing uh, uh, what was called a surgical air strike, designed to strike the missile sites, destroy them, but which the advocates of it were hon- honest enough to uh, to uh, note would have to be followed almost surely by a land invasion. And what Robert Kennedy said was it was ill becoming of a great power to uh, to launch an all-out uh, attack on a small nation such as Cuba. And it was ill becoming, it was in a very real sense, I think he used the word, immoral. And he didn't want to see a chapter in history read by his great grandchildren a hundred years from now that indicated that this great nation had that level m-- of morality.