WHAT DID YOU ARGUE SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT THE MISSILE WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD THE NEWS AND THOSE FIRST MEETINGS?

I first heard the news of the Cu--the fact that we had photographs which confirmed that the Soviets had--were putting missiles into Cuba on a Sunday night, when I was having dinner with Dean Rusk and a whole group of Germans, and I'd just been talking to one of those Germans about my suspicion that the Russians were about to create a double crisis and response for their political defeat with respect to Berlin. That double crisis might include Cuba. And at that moment there was a knock on the door and Roger Hillsman asked to see Dean Rusk and he took him outside and told him that there were photographs indicating that the Cuba-- the missiles were there, which McCone--John McCone of the CIA had thought was probably true, and I had also thought was probably true. We didn't have confirmation of it. So then immediately thereafter Rusk took me out on the terrace of the State Department on the eighth floor and told me what Hillsman had told him and said what do you think we ought to do next? And I said, well this seem to me to be a very serious development and that clearly the President should be immediately informed but that I--my--myself didn't have an immediate answer as to what I thought should be done. And the next day I had to go out to make a speech out at--in Knoxville and but on the plane coming back I wrote out a memorandum as to what I thought. And Soviet maximum objectives and minimum objectives and what our objectives should be in connection with this crisis. And then after that the meetings went on, day and night for several days before we really got the situation more or less thought through in an orderly fashion.

WHAT WAS YOUR POSITION? WHAT DID YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO?

Well, I think everybody changed their positions at various times during the debate. But I-I thought that we began to get some clarity as to the problem, when Alexis Johnson and I went off to his office and wrote and dictated a scenario as to how to handle this issue. And which began with--he did all the political parts of it. And I did all the military parts of it. And when I was proposing in that scenario was that we start with a quarantine. That then if that worked, why then the crisis would be over. If that did--if that did not work, then we had to be prepared to take out the air defenses on the island. And if we could get those air defenses out then we should destroy the missile sites. And if that worked, by then, we were through with the crisis. If that did not work, then we had to be prepared to engage in a--in a landing--an invasion of the island. So that what it turned out in my mind was that it was not a choice between one or another, what one wanted to do was to use the minimum force necessary in order to achieve the result. And the result we wanted was the elimination, to get those missiles out of there. And that's--I think everybody finally came to that conclusion. And the key date, the key of this scenario that we developed was that the President at some time, would have to make a speech to the American public and to the world. We needed a draft of that speech in order to make us--give our scenarios some degree of concreteness. And we asked Ted Sorenson to write that draft and he did a brilliant job. He did it over night and it was a first-class job.

...IN THE INITIAL REACTION TO IT, THAT YOU FAVORED AN AIR STRIKE?

I think that was probably my--I don't quite remember but I--I've favored one thing or another as we went through it, trying to think through the logic of the case. And as I say, I think we finally did find the logic of the case when we worked out this scenario with the minimum use of force necessary to achieve the objective. But being prepared to do whatever was necessary in order to achieve that objective.

I MEAN THE INITIAL REACTION THAT SOME OF THE PEOPLE HAD--THE INITIAL SORT OF CAMPS THAT FORMED...WHERE DID YOU STAND IN THAT SENSE...IN THE END ALMOST EVERYONE CAME AROUND TO THE IDEA OF WHAT EVENTUALLY WAS..?

Well I stood, as I remember it more with the harder line camp, rather than the softer line camp during the initial phase. I sided with Dean Acheson, with respect to the quarantine. There'd been some argument by the lawyers involved that a blockade was illegal under the circumstances, 'cause we hadn't declared war. We were not at war with Cuba--with Cuba and we didn't want to declare war. And Dean Acheson came up with the idea well, you know international law's is a matter of precedent. Then we'll create a precedent. And we'll-- if you object to the word blockade, we'll call it a quarantine. And so that I was behind that when he suggested that.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO SECRETARY MCNAMARA'S ASSERTION THAT THE MISSILES DIDN'T CHANGE THE STRATEGIC BALANCE.

I thought he was quite wrong. Totally wrong.

CAN YOU PUT THAT IN A SENTENCE FOR ME. THAT YOU THOUGHT...

Uh, when McNamara suggested that the--the presence of these medium-range and intermediate-range missile in Cuba, would not in any way change the strategic balance, I thought he was quite wrong about that. His view was on the one hand, that we were quite vulnerable in any case to the intercontinental-ballistic missiles and the heavy bombers that the Soviet Union had. And that this would not appreciably increase the danger to the United States. And I think he also rather felt that there was a--was a better chance of getting along with the Soviets if there was a greater degree of equality between the nuclear capabilities of the two sides. I thought that the presence of these missiles in--in Cuba with their much shorter time of flight than ICBMs would in fact give the Soviets union, not just equality. It would help them along the road toward having superiority and I thought that this--that whoever had a clear superiority would thereby gain political advantages, which we could ill afford to give to the Soviet Union. So I disagreed with McNamara on that right from the beginning in the arguments of the EXCOMM.

DID YOU FEEL THAT YOU WON THE DAY IN TERMS OF THAT ARGUMENT, THAT STRATEGIC BALANCE ARGUMENT?

I think I did.

WAS IT A TOUGH ARGUMENT, WAS IT A BITTER--I MEAN YOU'RE BOTH STRONG, YOU'RE BOTH KIND OF STRONG, ARTICULATE INDIVIDUALS, I WOULD THINK THAT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE A--AN INTERESTING...

Oh no, there were lots of tough arguments between lots of different people in the EXCOMM during those--those days. The view of one or another person was very passionate at any given time and then we changed their viewpoints. We were seeking to argue these things out and argue--arguing them out, this was a serious matter. And therefore you don't do that timidly, you do that by honestly putting forward what your views are, arguing it out and seeing whether you can't come to a consensus and we eventually did come to a consensus.

SOME OF WHAT YOU CALL THE HARD LINERS WERE UPSET I THINK BY THE BLOCKADE DECISION. I'M THINKING OR ACHESON PERHAPS...

I don't believe that Acheson was upset. No, I don't remember that he was upset, because after all, here if you could get the job done through a quarantine, why not? There was some additional risk, that the Soviets might have missiles that, warheads there. And that they might use those before the quarantine really could take effect. And there were some that argued that this was you know more rapid and certain, but on the other hand, some of the military agreed that you couldn't be certain you'd get all--get them all out in an initial strike. And therefore, it was a certain, another way of looking at it, so that the risk perhaps was greater if you carried out an air strike first, and a strike against the-the missile installation. So it was--it was of--you had to have a balanced judgment after you knew all the facts. And the facts kept coming in, so we knew more and more about it day after day.

HOW DID YOU FEEL THE SOVIETS MOVE IN CUBA RELATED TO OTHER SITUATIONS IN THE WORLD?

I think it did relate to Berlin. I think that. Wait a minute. I did--I did believe that the Mr. Khrushchev's decision to try this rather hazardous experiment in Cuba was related to the fact that he'd had to back away from his ultimatum that he'd given the preceding year with respect to Berlin. We won that one on Berlin and he felt that this was an opportunity to reverse the... (a) to reverse the correlation of strategic nuclear forces which had caused him to back down in Berlin, by putting these missiles in Cuba, it would change the strategic relationship; and (b) could then exploit that politically in order to gain a political victory which would compensate for our having out faced him in the Berlin situation. Now subsequently you know when they fired Khrushchev they--they called this a hare-brain scheme, the odd after deploying this as the Soviets who fired him, calling it a hare-brain scheme to deploy these missiles in Cuba.

I MEAN HOW CLOSE DO YOU THINK WE CAME TO NUCLEAR WAR DURING THE CUBAN...

I thought during the time that we were not coming very close to it. We had clear cut conventional superiority around Cuba and we found the 4 or 5 submarines that they had and made them surface, so they were not a threat. We could have carried out whatever we wanted to with respect to Cuba. We could invade, we could capture the island, we could have done all those things, but we also had really effective strategic superiority at that time. At that time the effect of Mr. Eisenhower's very great emphasis in the latter years of his presidency have been the nuclear part of our defense had paid off. So we were beginning to get into the--at sea--the Polaris submarines and the--and the intercontinental missiles et cetera ...and the heavy bombers. So we weren't in better shape than they were with respect to the nuclear situation at that time, the strategic nuclear. And the combination of being in a posi--superior position both locally in the conventional and in the strategic seemed to me to reduce the risks not to zero. You never could tell what somebody might do out of anger or irrationally. But it was my feeling that the Russians are very careful, conservative and very rational people, who believe in having a greater fire power per mile of front. And that's what they-that's the basis of their military thinking.

YOU DIDN'T FEEL, I MEAN THIS WAS KIND OF IRRATIONAL ACT...CERTAINLY A MISCALCULATION BY KHRUSHCHEV. KENNEDY WAS QUOTED AS SAYING WELL THE CHANCES WERE BETWEEN ONE AND THREE AND EVEN OR SOMETHING. OTHER PEOPLE, LIKE MCNAMARA HAS SAID HE WONDERED IF HE WAS GOING TO WAKE UP AND SEE ANOTHER SUNRISE... YOU DIDN'T FEEL THAT THIS WAS AN IRRATIONAL ACT THAT CHANGED THE BALL GAME, THAT YOU COULDN'T SORT OF LOGICALLY FIGURE OUT WHAT THE SOVIETS MIGHT DO?

I thought it was, the probability was very high that they would not wish to get themselves involved in a war with us at that time, about Cuba where they were in a--in poor shape, that they--it was not impossible that they might react. I thought that if they did react, they might very well react against our--our missiles in Turkey and in Italy, or perhaps by reinstituting the Berlin blockade. I thought it would be unlikely that they would even do that.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS WE SHOULD LEARN FROM THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS TODAY, TO HELP US TODAY IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND...

That it's a--that if you have clear cut conventional superiority backed by nuclear superiority you're in very good shape. If you don't have it you're not in as good shape.

DO YOU THINK THIS--CAN YOU STATE THAT AGAIN AS A KIND OF A LESSON OF THE--YOU FEEL IS THE LESSON OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?

In my feeling there's, that's--the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated that when you have conventional superiority on the point of--at the point of conflict, confrontation, plus superiority in nuclear weapons, you're in very good shape. There's very little that the other side can rationally do about it. Now, they might do something irrational, but if they do something irrational, they'll get it much worse than we would get it, so they're not apt to do that. Now, it isn't that easy to have the combination conventional superiority. Plus being backed up with nuclear super--superiority. We don't have it today. And there are many parts of the world where we don't have, where we have, where we're faced with gross conventional inferiority because of the geographic position favors the Soviet Union. And we don't have nuclear superiority either, nor do I think we have even nuclear equality. So we're in a much more dangerous position today than we were. But we still, I think have a sufficient nuclear capability, so we don't have to panic at all, because I don't believe as I said earlier I think that the Soviets are conservative, therefore I don't think that they will do--push that hard where there is a real danger of war. You can't be certain of it. And we certain, certainly shouldn't let our guard down. But we've got--if we do the intelligent things we'll be alright.

DO YOU THINK THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CHANGED THE WORLD IN ANY WAY? DO YOU THINK IT CHANGED THE THINKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, FOR EXAMPLE THE UTILITY OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS PERHAPS?

I think not. Because there are many in the United States, many who were--who worked with us in the--during the EXCOMM, like Mac Bundy who evaluate the situation quite differently than I do. He thinks the nuclear weapons had nothing to do with it and he so says. He thinks all you need is a minimum --nuclear deterrent, I think he's quite wrong, totally wrong. But all I'm saying is it didn't settle these arguments.

CAN YOU PUT THAT DIRECT COUNTER TO WHAT BUNDY HAS SAID IN OUR INTERVIEW, ACTUALLY, HE SAID, IN A TIGHT SENTENCE FOR ME, THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS...

It seemed to me that the role of nuclear weapons was crucial, not the only thing that was crucial. Our conventional superiority at the point of confrontation was equally crucial, both were crucial. I think the lesson is that if you have both conventional superiority and that it's backed up by nuclear superiority then you're in very good shape. You're not, it isn't riskless, but the risks are clearly risks that you can take with confidence. If you're in the reverse of that situation where you have both conventional inferiority and you--and it is not backed up by nuclear superiority but you have nuclear inferiority, still the power to retaliate, you got a much more dangerous situation.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE GREATEST MOMENT OF DANGER DURING THOSE 13 DAYS?

You ask what it--what was the greatest moment of danger. My feeling was that the--I was most concerned during the period when we couldn't make up our mind what to do. But once we made up our minds what to do and we'd adopted this policy really, of using the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve the objective, but still stage by stage being prepared to use, whatever force was necessary in order to achieve the objective of getting those missiles out of there, I felt confident after we arrived at that decision.

YOU DON'T RECALL THAT MOMENT, THAT DAY ON THE HIGH SEAS WHEN THE SOVIET SHIP WAS APPROACHING THE LINE AND EVERYONE WAS SITTING AROUND?

I remember it very well indeed.

CAN YOU TELL WHAT YOU REMEMBER?

It was McNamara, and Ros Gilpatric and I went down to flag plot which was in the in the navy part of the Pentagon, and with General, I mean Admiral what's his name,...

ADMIRAL ANDERSON...

Yes, at the time when the Soviet Ships were approaching our quarantine line McNamara and Ros Gilpatric who was deputy secretary of defense and I went down to flag plot to go over with Admiral Anderson the exact location of all the ships and to discuss what was going to be done next. And during that conversation McNamara insisted that he be kept informed minute by minute as to what was going on. And how the situation was evolving on the spot, so that he could inform the President and he and the President could be sure that all the political consequences of whatever was done had been thoroughly taken into account. And Admiral Anderson was of the view that this was quite an improper procedure. That the history of naval doctrine had in--had always been based upon the fact that the person on the spot was the only person who could take into account all the factors which bore upon, what--what was happening on the spot. That he should be given correct--general instructions but he should be given a great deal of leeway as to how to carry out those general instructions. He ought to be--his instructions ought to be specific as to what the purpose was, but not in detail as to what he was to do. And that this--this procedure that McNamara was suggesting a master minding of McNamara and the President, master minding what was said and done minute by minute seemed to be--to him to be a total violation of that doctrine, and quite improper.

WHAT WAS YOUR FEELING ABOUT THAT RELATIONSHIP, I MEAN DID YOU FEEL THAT THIS WAS A...

I thought on this that McNamara was right, I thoroughly sympathized with--with the Admiral's viewpoint as to what the--history had been. But under these circumstances it--it seemed to me that the political considerations outweighed the immediate military considerations on the spot and this was partially due to the fact that I was sure that we had naval superiority at that spot and no great disaster could come from some improper action on our part.

YOU GAVE ME A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WAY YOU FEEL THE LESSONS OF THE MISSILE CRISIS WERE, DO YOU THINK THESE LESSONS ARE UNDERSTOOD OR APPRECIATED TODAY BY THE ADMINISTRATION AND BY THE POPULACE?

I think they're understood by the administration I do not believe that they're understood by the populace.

BUT INSTEAD OF SAYING THEY, IF YOU COULD SAY...

I think the lessons of the--of the Cuban crisis are understood today by the administration. I doubt that they are understood by a large segment of the populace.