MARCH 4th, '86. THIS IS ZERO. ARE THOSE 13 DAYS STILL CLEAR IN YOUR MIND?

Those 13 days are probably more clear in my mind than any other period during the entire Kennedy administration... Probably more clear than any 13-day period in my life. It was a unique period in my lifetime, as it was in the lifetime of this planet. A nuclear confrontation, a President hovering on the brink between peace and war, a responsibility thrust upon, a need to try to advise that President as to how we could avoid a nuclear holocaust... those were memorable days.

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR ROLE IN THE EXCOMM MEETINGS?

The interesting thing about the EXCOMM meetings was that we all became equal. I spoke out much more freely and vigorously than I normally did at Executive Committee, Cabinet, or National Security Council meetings. Rank...and experience...and titles made very little difference when the nation was on the brink of a nuclear war

YOU WERE THE YOUNGEST PERSON THERE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?

I'm not sure I can say anything different from what I just said — it's really the same point, but... I'll say it again if you wish.

JUST MAKE THE POINT ABOUT YOUR AGE AND YOUR...

All right.... Normally the fact that I was... 34 years old and considerably junior in both age and... experience, particularly foreign policy experience, to everyone else in the room, would have inhibited me. But as our sessions ground on, day and night after day and night, I found myself too concerned with the welfare of the President and country to... be inhibited. Rank and experience and title made very little difference when the country was faced with a unique situation and the survival of the country was at stake.

WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST FEELINGS ABOUT WHAT SHOULD BE DONE, WHEN YOU HEARD THE NEWS AND SAW THE PHOTOS?

Virtually everyone's first reaction was one of astonishment that the Soviets would take so bold and reckless an action to put nuclear weapons outside their territory for the first time; anger that the Soviets had deliberately deceived and misled us because many of us, included me, had received specific assurances from the Soviet officials that no offensive weapons were being placed in Cuba; and finally, determination that something had to be done, that it was going to be a very difficult... time, that if we reacted too strongly, we might plunge the world into a nuclear war, but if we acted too weakly we might permit the erosion of all the security and alliances that the US had built up...

DID YOU, DURING THIS PERIOD, FIND YOURSELF CHANGING YOUR MIND, AS THE ARGUMENTS WENT ON; DID YOU FIND IT A PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT SORT OF DECISION TO MAKE?

Surely I never tangled with a more difficult decision during my years in the White House or probably in my years of existence. All of us changed our minds from time to time, as new alternatives, arguments, and issues arose. Most of us at one time or another liked the idea of a surgical air strike... to eliminate the missiles, cleanly and quickly, till we discovered that wasn't quite as easily done as said. Some of us from time to time considered the notion of doing nothing at all, of reminding ourselves and the world that we were a superpower with superior nuclear power, that we already lived under the nuclear bull's-eye of the Soviet Union, as did our allies, and that there was no need to get overly excited by more missiles in Cuba. And... most of us from time to time tried to find some purely diplomatic response — a warning, a note, a high-level emissary, to Mr. Khrushchev. Each of those avenues was explored and found wanting.

I UNDERSTAND THAT AT ONE TIME IT WAS YOUR CHARGE TO GO OFF AND WRITE SOMETHING, A DIPLOMATIC NOTE. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT, AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT IDEA?

The air strike option... was debated back and forth between those who said we could not do it without a diplomatic warning in advance — otherwise it would be Pearl Harbor in reverse — and those who said that any diplomatic warning would undermine the whole approach, because it would... give the Russians an opportunity to attack, to equivocate, to delay and so, I was given the responsibility of drafting such a diplomatic note, warning Khrushchev that there would be an air strike unless the missiles were withdrawn. And I... tussled with it for some time, and finally reached the conclusion that there was no such note, no matter how carefully I worded it, no matter how many references I put in to... summit meetings and peaceful negotiations and all the rest, that would not either be an unacceptable ultimatum, that would put us in a very awkward position and incite Khrushchev to respond, or else, without that ultimatum be, simply fodder for his propaganda machine, that he could manipulate while the missiles went ahead.

AS A WRITER, WAS THIS A PARTICULARLY FRUSTRATING PROCESS FOR YOU, TRYING TO WRITE SOMETHING AND REALIZING THAT IT COULDN'T BE PUT INTO WORDS?

I suppose that generals believe in military solutions to most problems, and economists believe in economic solutions, diplomats in diplomatic solutions; I thought as a lawyer and writer that it ought to be possible to come up with a legal solution through the written word. I had done that many times before. This time, unfortunately, I could not.

IN YOUR BOOK, YOU MENTION A PARTICULAR ARGUMENT OF ACHESON'S WHICH I'D LIKE YOU TO RELATE AGAIN.

I have related that on TV before, but that's... well, that doesn't that's no reason to rule it out here, I suppose... Dean Acheson came into one of our meetings over in the State Department the President was not present, but the rest of the EXCOMM was, he was called in as an outside consultant, an expert on US-Soviet relations. He had already been thoroughly briefed on the factual situation, and he came out in favor of the air strike by the US against the missiles in Cuba. He was then asked, "What would the Soviets do in response?" "Oh," he said, "I know the Soviets pretty well. I believe they would feel obligated to respond by knocking out... U. S. missiles in Turkey." "Well," someone said, "What would we do in response to that?" "Oh," he said, "Under the NATO treaty, we'd be obligated to respond by attacking Soviet missiles inside the Soviet Union." "Well, then what would they do?" he was asked. "Well," he said, "By then we hope that cooler heads would prevail and we'd all sit down and talk." I can assure you it was not too cool in our meeting room at that time!

DID ACHESON LOSE SOME CREDIBILITY WITH THAT ARGUMENT?

Acheson lost more credibility some years later, when he... publicly attributed Kennedy's success in the Cuban missile crisis to "dumb luck." Asked about that, I said, "Yes, we were lucky. We were lucky we didn't take Dean Acheson's advice."

I UNDERSTAND ACHESON WAS PARTICULARLY UPSET WHEN KENNEDY MADE THIS REFERENCE TO TOJO AND PEARL HARBOR.

It was Robert Kennedy, I believe, rather than John F. Kennedy, who said that for us to undertake a surprise air attack on the Soviet missile sites in Cuba without any notice, without any opportunity to do, for the Soviets to withdraw would be a Pearl Harbor in reverse, and that he would feel like Tojo. Acheson, who was fond of quoting historical analogies himself when they served his purposes, such as Munich scoffed at that kind of historical allusion.

WHAT WAS THE PROCESS OF YOUR CHANGE OF ATTITUDE? YOU SAID INITIALLY THAT YOU FELT A "SURGICAL AIR STRIKE" WOULD GET THE THING OVER WITH QUICKLY.

I doubt that I could retrace all of the many steps my mental processes took before I ended up favoring the blockade approach; but the air strike proved fallible on at least two major grounds. One was that there was no such thing as a surgical air strike. They couldn't be sure, the Air Force said, that they would get all of the missiles out, and that one of them wouldn't be fired against the United States with its nuclear weapons in the mean time. To be certain, they would have to knock out all of the, SAMs, the surface-to-air missiles that would otherwise knock some of our planes down in the process; then to be safe they would have to knock out Castro's air force, and any Soviet MIGs that were in the area, and any support systems as well... They assured us that there was no way of saving the lives of the Soviet technicians and military personnel at those sites, and the general chaos that would undoubtedly ensue most of them said would probably require a follow-up invasion of Cuba with enormous loss of life and risk of World War III. Second, there was no way...of... launching that air strike with warning, with notice, with opportunity to the Soviets to withdraw, and it was a feeling among many of us that to launch such a strike without warning, without first attempting to persuade the Soviets that this military confrontation was unnecessary, and that they should withdraw the missiles, would be a belligerent act by the United States against Cuba that would undermine our influence in the Western Hemisphere permanently.

WHAT WAS THE PROCESS OF WRITING THE OCTOBER 22ND SPEECH, AND HOW DID THAT PROCESS CONTRIBUTE TO THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS?

I was given the assignment... on the... Friday of the... of the first week, of providing a draft presidential declaration to the country, of the blockade or quarantine approach, and a second, separate speech of the air strike approach. Those two seemed to be emerging from our group as the two most likely... choices. I found as I sat down to write the blockade approach, that I had more questions than I did clauses for a speech. ...That How were we to relate the blockade to the work on the missiles? How were we to relate a blockade to the danger of a Soviet missile attack upon the United States and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere? And I returned to the meeting without a speech, but with a list of questions. And we had an intense discussion of those, and... fought our way through the answers to those questions, and I returned to my office in the White House, not to write two speeches, but to write one speech, the blockade speech, which would be combined with increased surveillance, a warning to the Soviet Union against the use of those missiles, and the other kinds of the measures that were ultimately included in the President's statement on October 22. And I believe that session helped, many of us resolve our doubts about the blockade approach, and it emerged as the majority position to be recommended to the President.

I BROUGHT ALONG THAT FIRST DRAFT. I'M KIND OF CURIOUS ABOUT THE WHOLE PROCESS. WHAT IS THIS DRAFT AND WHAT ARE THESE SQUIGGLES, AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

After the Saturday afternoon meeting, in which the President made the final decision to proceed with the blockade approach, sensibly called a... "quarantine," and... a brief chat with the President... alone, I returned to my office in the White House to draft the speech. I already had the basic materials that had been prepared for the Friday meeting. I also had the various comments that the President and others had made... in the course of the afternoon sessions. As was my usual custom I wrote in longhand on a yellow pad, in pen... And my secretary, who put in extremely long hours during that crisis, was one of the few people in the United States who knew about the crisis, typed it up, and this was the this was that first draft. Then, as was my custom, I took that first draft, and began to rewrite further. At which stage I took the drafts in to the President I do not now remember. But I am relatively certain that he and I then discussed further revisions in that draft, and continued in that process until Monday evening.

CAN YOU READ THE FIRST COUPLE OF SENTENCES FROM YOUR FIRST DRAFT, AND NOTE THE MINOR CHANGES?

My first draft originally said... "Within the last week, unmistakable evidence has been gathered by this government.... establishing the fact that a series of offensive nuclear missile bases is now under intensive preparation on the Communist island of Cuba." The handwriting then changes that to read, "This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Communist military buildup on the island of Cuba. Only within the last week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive nuclear missile bases is now under intensive preparation on that unhappy island."

FOR EXAMPLE, THE "COMMUNIST" CHANGED TO "UNHAPPY" — IS THAT SOMETHING YOU WOULD HAVE DONE, OR THE PRESIDENT MIGHT HAVE ADDED, OR IS THIS FAR TOO LONG AGO TO REMEMBER?

There's no way I can remember, and it's possible that these were changes growing out of my conversation with him... but perhaps it also reflects something that he had urged during that Saturday afternoon meeting — that this was not a confrontation between the United States and Cuba; that this was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

AND HOW IS THAT REFLECTED IN...

And so... the reference to Cuba as an "unhappy" island... people who were captives, so to speak, of the of the Soviet bloc, rather than the Communist island of Cuba, as though that were our adversary.

THIS SENTENCE, "THAT STATEMENT WAS FALSE," OUTLINING THE VARIOUS...

He inserted those, yeah, those are not in this draft.

UH-HUH. CAN YOU TELL ME THAT STORY THEN? ...

In many ways, the... most important justification that the United States had, was the deception which had been practiced by the Soviet Union. Had the Soviet Union announced at a summit meeting between Castro and Khrushchev that a new military-assistance agreement had been signed, and that in a very public and deliberate fashion, the Soviets were going to put certain weapons in Cuba, it would have been much more ... difficult for the United States to arouse world opinion on its side. But instead the Soviet Union undertook to put these missiles in secretly, surreptitiously, very quickly, and without any not only without any advance notice, or notice of any kind to the UN, the US, or the world at large, but deliberately telling the United States the opposite. So, the President felt that it was important that I put in this speech, a list of the assurances that we had received from various Soviet officials that there no were no offensive military weapons being placed in Cuba, in the buildup then going on including the assurances he had received that very week in his meeting with Soviet foreign minister Gromyko. So, I have a list of those in this first draft. When the President, reviewed the draft, he inserted after each one of those quotations from Soviet officials, "That statement was false."

CAN YOU JUST READ THE PART ALOUD FOR US WHERE HE ANNOUNCES THE BLOCKADE?

After the a description of the situation, the President then would have stated under this draft, "Acting therefore in the defense of our own security and that of the entire Western Hemisphere, and with the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution, as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately. First: To halt this offensive buildup there is to be initiated a full blockade on all offensive weapons under shipment to Cuba, including any materiel, such as petroleum, which is essential to the operations of those weapons. Such a blockade can clearly be authorized both by the requirements of U. S. self-defense, and by the organ of consultation of the organization of the American states, acting under articles 6 and 8 of the Rio treaty and this year's Pana de Osta resolution."

I CAN SEE A CENTRAL PART OF THAT WAS CHANGED WAS THIS BUSINESS OF CALLING A "QUARANTINE".

Two important changes from... just those few sentences... One was that we change the name from a "blockade" to a "quarantine." "Blockade" is an act of war; "quarantine" had a certain historical precedent. Second We decided not to include petroleum among the materiel that would be excluded. Petroleum and lubricants, and gasoline are essential to the functioning of any modern-day economy. It would have brought Cuba to its knees, and it would have required us to stop every tanker on the high seas. So clearly as a first measure, we decided that was not necessary.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT SPEECH, LOOKING BACK AT IT NOW? WAS THAT ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL SPEECHES YOU WROTE, OR WAS IT ONE OF THE ONES THAT WENT OVER THE MOST?

I'm thinking... Of course it was one of the most speeches — one of the most important speeches on which I ever worked. No other speech was conveying such a serious message? no other speech was going to be studied so attentively by our adversaries, by our allies, by the American public; no other speech would affect the balance between peace and war the way this one did.

WHAT SORT OF RESEARCH DID YOU DO IN PREPARING THIS?

It was not a speech on which research was required in the sense that I needed to dig out facts figures, or, historical precedents from the books — those were all present in the deliberations that we'd been having all week, in the sentiments that the President himself had expressed, and in the decisions that he had made and which this speech was to convey. To get some feel for the atmosphere in which such a serious speech had to be written, I looked at the speech that Roosevelt delivered after Pearl Harbor, perhaps the...I don't recall...the speech that Woodrow Wilson delivered in declaring World War I... but not because I regarded this as a declaration of war, but because I felt that this was the greatest crisis the United States had faced since those great wars.

HOW DID IT FEEL WATCHING KENNEDY DELIVER THAT SPEECH?

I always felt that as a boy from Nebraska I had been given unequalled opportunity to participate in the life of our country, and to have some voice in shaping the kind of country we would be and the kind of world in which we would live, and I knew as President Kennedy delivered this speech that, for better or for worse this was decision-making of the highest order, and I was naturally pleased and proud that the President had found my contribution useful, but the gravity of the situation so far outweighed any pride or pleasure, that they were secondary by a considerable extent.

THAT MUST BE ONE OF THE KEY THINGS FOR A WRITER TO GET — THE CADENCE, TO STRIKE THE NOTE — YOU MUST HAVE GOTTEN VERY CLOSE TO PRESIDENT KENNEDY, IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND HOW HE SPOKE.

...By the end of October, 1962, I had been working with John F. Kennedy for nearly ten years. And I'd been working on his speeches for nearly all of that time. And our styles and standards had become one? we had grown up in the area of speaking and speech writing together. So I think I had some feel for what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.

HOW CONCERNED WERE YOU ABOUT THE PROSPECT, THE POSSIBILITY OF NUCLEAR WAR? CAN YOU TELL US WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAID?

Well, I've forgotten: Did he say one in three?

HOW DID THAT RELATE TO HOW YOU WERE FEELING?

The President said to me at one point that he thought the chances of nuclear war actually resulting from this crisis were somewhere between one in three, and even. Personally, I think it's impossible to put any kind of a qualification on that probability. Had you asked us on Saturday night of the first week we probably would have said that they are better than even, because the Soviets seemed intent on pressing their situation, and the hawks in our group seemed intent on responding with an air strike and invasion. Other times during the week, we, I would have said, considerably less than one third, because I was confident that the President, who had always said nuclear war would represent an utter failure of everything he stood for was in command of the situation, in control of the situation, and going to remain that way. So my own thoughts and fears varied accordingly, depending upon the events of each day, but there was there was never a day when the danger of nuclear war was not absent from our minds — was not present in our minds.

YOU SPOKE IN THE PREFACE OF YOUR BOOK OF A PARTICULAR TALK YOU HAD WITH THE PRESIDENT. COULD YOU RELATE THAT SCENE?

After the Saturday afternoon meeting the President, and Bobby and I went out on the back porch of the second floor of the residential part of the White House—the so-called "Truman Back Porch" that looks over the... greens and the Washington Monument. And the President was in an unusually reflective mood; he talked about what a terrible tragedy it would be if war came tragedy particularly to children, and he wasn't talking only about his children, he was talking about all the children of the world, who had the most to lose and yet who had no responsibility for getting us into that mess, he said. He also joked a little: He said, "Imagine Homer Capehart as the Winston Churchill of our time" (Capehart having been one of the Republican senators who had claimed there were missiles in Cuba long before there were missiles in Cuba). And we talked a little bit about the... many steps that the State Department and others had to take to, follow up on the plans that the President had led-, laid out at that meeting, and... then he joked again... when we, when the talk turned very serious, and said "You know there's not room in that White House bomb shelter for all of us." I told him I was on the list.

CAN YOU TELL ME AGAIN THAT BUSINESS ABOUT HIS FEELINGS ABOUT THE CHILDREN? IS THAT A VERY CLEAR MEMORY?

Well... I mean, the conversation was quite clear; I can, I can still see us standing there talking. The, the details, the actual words are not that clear, no.

TELL ME AGAIN ABOUT THE CHILDREN PART OF IT.

The President was in an unusually reflective mood, talking about the... tragedy that would ensue if nuclear war should break out; particularly, he said, the... tragedy to the children of the world. Children... who had their whole life to look forward to, even unborn children, he said, children who had no responsibility for the mess in which the world had put itself, but who would suffer the most.

HOW URGENT, FOR KENNEDY, WAS THE QUESTION OF CONTROL OF THE MILITARY SITUATION AS IT DEVELOPED?

As a student of history, as a former naval officer,...and as someone who had unsatisfactory experiences with the military, Kennedy worried throughout his presidency that the command and control of the American military system, under the President as Commander-in-Chief, was inadequate, and that war could be accidentally started, or...a serious incident could occur, because of some miscalculation, some miscommunication, someone down the line not getting the word, or acting on his own, well, that could not be tolerated in the Cuban missile crisis. And because naval communications are first-rate, and because this was taking place in our backyard, so to speak, and in the same time zone, direct communication between the President of the United States and the quarantined fleet was possible. And the President and Secretary of Defense and Mr. Bundy in the White House made certain that kind of direct communication and control was maintained at all times.

THAT MUST HAVE UPSET THE MILITARY.

I think some members of the military were upset by that; the chief of naval operations was perhaps more upset than most, particularly when he wanted to take it upon himself to go out and challenge... Soviet ships, and contrast with the President's position that the United States should be as non-provocative as possible and wait until those ships entered the quarantine zone.

YOU TOLD ME ABOUT A CONVERSATION YOU HAD WITH THE PRESIDENT FOLLOWING A FRIDAY MEETING, WHERE HE WAS ABOUT TO FLY OFF TO CHICAGO, OR...

The midwest, yes. The President met on Friday morning with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and when he emerged, he met with me in the hall outside of his office, in a very frustrated... almost angry mood.... He felt time was running out. The missiles would soon be operational. The secret of our knowledge would soon be leaked. We had to make a decision and he had to make a public announcement, and yet, he said the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not agree with the quarantine approach; some of those who had previously been for the quarantine approach were now saying, perhaps we should simply live with these missiles, and he said with, in a somewhat irritated voice we had to reach a decision and would Bobby and I, he said, "Would you and Bobby, you know, take it upon yourselves to get this group to come together; and then call me, have Bobby call me and I'll fly back here as soon as you're ready to make a recommendation."

WHAT DO YOU FEEL WAS THE MOST CRITICAL MOMENT IN THIS WHOLE TWO-WEEK PERIOD?

The most critical moment, clearly, in the entire 13 days was the Saturday before it all ended. ...The news was mostly bad. After receiving the previous night a letter from Khrushchev that seemed to hold out the germs of a negotiated solution, we'd received a second letter which upped the ante by saying that in exchange for the missiles being taken out of Cuba, the United States would have to take, missiles out of Turkey. Publicly sacrificing an ally's security with because we had a gun at our heads. One of our, low flying surveillance planes had been shot... at. There were reports that the Soviet ships that had been dead in the water were once again moving toward Cuba accompanied by submarines. Work on the missile sites was preceding full steam and more missiles would soon be operational, ready for firing at this country. And worst of all, one of our high flying, U-2 aerial intelligence planes had been shot down and the pilot killed, and we had earlier said in the week that any interference with that, surveillance would bring prompt retaliation. And now the hawks in our group were in the ascendancy. The quarantine hadn't worked, they were saying. The Vice President said as he sensed, support in the group, "When I was a boy in Texas, when we walked along a road, if a rattlesnake stuck his head up, you took a stick and struck him, before he could strike you." And I felt that if we did not quickly find a peaceful resolution to the crisis, then there would be a military resolution, and... there was no telling where that would end.

DID YOU PLAY ANY ROLE IN WRITING THE FINAL DEAL THAT ROBERT KENNEDY TOOK TO DOBRYNIN THAT SATURDAY NIGHT?

First there was the letter that was sent to Khrushchev, and... after a good deal of wrangling in the EXCOMM about what should be in that letter, the President asked Robert Kennedy and me to draft it. And that letter took the best elements...out of Khrushchev's letter and transformed it into a satisfactory... compromise. And... with a minimum amount of discussion and clearance, the President approved that letter and sent it off to Khrushchev. Then a small group of us met with the President in the...Oval Office, after the EXCOMM had been adjourned. And the President Bobby, Dean Rusk, Bob McNamara, and their deputies...and Mac Bundy and myself, talked about Bob Kennedy taking that letter to the Soviet ambassador Dobrynin. And emphasizing how important it was that a peaceful resolution...be reached now, given the rising temperature in the EXCOMM meeting that had just adjourned. And the President authorized Bobby to... convey to the Soviet Union, to Dobrynin, but in total confidence, the fact that the President had decided long ago, to remove our missiles from Turkey, that we could not do it now publicly at the point of a gun, that would undermine the alliance. But that they had his assurance... that those missiles in Turkey would be removed. He didn't add, of course, that they were outmoded missiles, and they were going to be replaced by missile carrying Polaris submarines in the Mediterranean. But nevertheless that face-saving little tidbit was offered in that private session that night by Robert Kennedy.

DO YOU THINK THE MISSILE CRISIS CHANGED THE PRESIDENT?

I believe both President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev, and indeed both countries, were changed by the... Cuban missile crisis. There is no experience like gazing down the nuclear gun barrel at the other side and realizing that everything you stand for and have dreamed of and have hoped for could be blown up. I believe that both men decided they had to find better answers than combat to settle their differences, that they had to keep in closer communication to avoid the kind of miscalculation that put those missiles in Cuba in the first place, and that they had better try to take some steps to slow down the nuclear arms race.

WHOSE IDEA WAS THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SPEECH?

The American University speech in many ways grew out of the experience of the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy realized that it was time for the United States to re-examine the premises of the cold war, and seek a new approach to living in the same world with the Soviet Union... Norman Cousins, then editor of the Saturday Review reported to me after a trip to the Soviet Union, that, key meetings of Soviet leaders would be taking place in 1963, at which they had to decide which course they would follow, and he felt it was an opportune time for the United States to strike out in a, new direction... The President felt as a result of some of the diplomatic probes that he had conducted and that British Prime Minister Macmillan had conducted, that there was a possibility of a nuclear test ban treaty being signed, after all the years that it had been sought... So for all those reasons we talked off and on during the early months of 1963, about what we called "the peace speech." ...Never anything very much more specific than that, except I began to gather a little material, a few ideas, a few notes, and finally when the President found that he was delivering a commencement address at American University in June of 1963, he said "Let's make that the occasion for the 'peace speech' we've been talking about."

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT SPEECH NOW? WAS THAT YOUR FAVORITE?

No, I re, I regard the American University speech as the best speech that President Kennedy ever delivered, and the most important speech he ever delivered. Of course, the Cuban missile crisis speech the declaration of our position was very grave and serious in its potential consequences his inauguration his inaugural address was, a... very stirring and eloquent summation of his principals, but the American University speech reflected for the first time a willingness by the President of the United States to avoid a war with the Soviet Union, to... There was a sense that war was not inevitable, that these two superpowers could live in the same world, and then he made it concrete by... announcing in that speech a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

HOW RISKY WAS THAT SPEECH POLITICALLY, DOMESTICALLY?

That speech was a great risk in terms of domestic American politics. The poll at the time, the polls at the time showed that a majority of Americans did not favor a nuclear test ban treaty; they didn't trust the Soviets for any kind of agreement.... If the Soviets reacting in their traditional way, had proceeded to test their nuclear weapons and rejected the olive branch being held out by President Kennedy, then he would have opened himself up to the kind of attack from the right wing, which was growing in strength every day, saying that Kennedy had a "no-win" foreign policy.

WERE YOU THERE? CAN YOU REMEMBER THE DELIVERY OF THAT SPEECH?

I was at the, I was, I... We had just flown back overnight from the governors' conference, or mayors' conference — mayors' conference, I believe in Honolulu doing a little revision of the speech on the way, and if I recall correctly, the— both the President and I barely had time to return to our respective homes shower, shave put on some clean clothes, and get over to American University! It was a bright sunny day,...the speech was outdoors, and the President having studied the speech and knowing it thoroughly delivered it exceedingly well.

IT'S EXTRAORDINARY, WATCHING THAT SPEECH, HOW KENNEDY ALMOST SEEMS TO HAVE MEMORIZED IT. IT LOOKS LIKE HE HARDLY EVEN LOOKS AT HIS NOTES. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THAT PROCESS?

Yes... I was standing behind him, so I have no idea

WAS THIS A SPEECH THAT WAS PARTICULARLY CLOSE TO HIS HEART?

... Well, that's a little harder to say. Certainly as a speech it was very close to his heart. It was a speech that he'd wanted to give for a very long time. And it was a speech that he felt had the possibility of opening up a new era in American foreign policy and in... US-Soviet relations. It was a speech because of its importance, that he had weighed in his mind for some time, and had concentrated on his trip back from Honolulu. So he knew that speech very well.

WHAT DO YOU FEEL ARE THE CRITICAL LESSONS TO LEARN FROM ALL THIS?

There are several key lessons in the Cuban missile crisis. One is the importance, even during a military confrontation, of keeping the channels of communication open, of maintaining a dialogue of...Seems to me there are several key lessons in the Cuban missile crisis. One is the importance of diplomacy even in the moment of military confrontation, keeping the channels of communication open, maintaining a dialogue, putting yourself in the other man's shoes, trying to see... how a non-military solution might be achieved. Second is the importance of friends and allies, of getting the backing of, the OAS and the Western allies in this situation, in particular. A third, and perhaps the most important, is the importance of taking limited, not unlimited, steps, of not driving your adversary into a position where he's cornered and has a choice only between surrender and all-out nuclear escalation. Of not... shooting your entire wad the first time out. So that you have some options remaining. Of not taking a step that forces a counter measure and only one counter-measure, but of taking an action such as a blockade, which left the other side with any number of options, and which did not require a single shot to be fired or a single soldier to be killed.

DO YOU THINK THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF THE MISSILE CRISIS HAVE BEEN LEARNED, OR ARE REMEMBERED?

I think some people have already forgotten the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis. They think it demonstrated the importance of American nuclear superiority, when it demonstrated no such thing. They think that it demonstrated that all you have to do is, stand up and face the Soviets down with military might, and they will back away, and it demonstrated no such thing. On the other hand, I'm confident that there are... plenty of people in government in academia, and in private and public life, both in this country and the Soviet Union, who will remember those important lessons of the Cuban missile crisis, and who are determined not to have it happen again.

YOU SPEAK OF SOMETHING CALLED THE "CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS SYNDROME" IN YOUR BOOK.

Remind me.

THIS IS KHRUSHCHEV'S FIRST LETTER. IF YOU COULD JUST READ ME . . .

You mean, the Friday night letter.

YES.

That's actually about his fourth letter,

BUT IT'S THE FIRST ONE IN TERMS OF A "KNOT OF WAR."

Yeah.

AND I ASSUME IT WAS READ OUT LOUD. COULD YOU READ THIS PART ALOUD?

Khrushchev wrote, "If you did this" that is, go on the attack "as the first... If you did this as the first step towards the unleashing of war, well, then, it is evident that nothing else is left to us but to accept this challenge of yours. If, however, you have not lost your self-control, and sensibly conceive what this might lead to, then, Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly... what terrible forces our countries dispose. Consequently, if there is no intention to tighten that knot, and thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope; let us take measures to untie that knot. We are ready for this."

DO YOU RECALL THE REACTION TO THAT WHEN IT CAME THROUGH? SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID IT WAS KIND OF A RAMBLING, INCOHERENT, EMOTIONAL SPEECH...

The letter as a whole is not one that should be judged by... American literary or cultural standards; I believe it was a deep-felt, personal message from Khrushchev, written in Russian vernacular. What was important about the letter was not the language or where he tried to put the blame, but the fact that the letter contained the basic elements of a, of a possible solution by which this knot could be untied.

I'M THINKING OF USING, AT THE VERY END OF THIS FILM, THE SPEECH FOR THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE U. S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, WHERE HE TALKS ABOUT THE TYPE OF MILITARY WE NEED IN THE NUCLEAR AGE, AND HE REFERS TO LAST OCTOBER'S CARIBBEAN CRISIS. THAT DIDN'T SEEM TO YOU, WHEN WE DISCUSSED IT, TO BE A PARTICULARLY CRITICAL SPEECH.

I'd forgotten it then, and... to tell you the truth, I've forgotten it all over again.

DO YOU THINK, THOUGH, THAT KENNEDY CHANGED HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE MILITARY AS A RESULT OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?

I think John Kennedy gradually changed his ideas about the military throughout his years in the Presidency. He'd come into office almost overawed, as a former junior grade lieutenant commander in the Navy, by the big military brass, and then he found in the Bay of Pigs that they were fallible also. He... received reports from each of his chiefs of staff on... the situation in Indochina and found that their reports, when delivered to him in writing individually,... varied tremendously, both in recommendations and in the quality of the report. In the Cuban missile crisis, he found that, uh. Admiral Anderson was a man who did not have the same views of civilian control as John F. Kennedy did, whereas he found the people in the tactical air command, whom he quizzed about the possibilities of a surgical air strike, to be very honest and very precise in their reports to him. John F. Kennedy never doubted the necessity of a strong American military... in times like the Cuban missile crisis, had we not had that conventional force ready and strong we might never have been in a position to bargain for a peaceful solution. But at the same time, he knew that the military, like any other profession had both its strong and weak points.

WHAT WAS OF MORE CONCERN TO HIM — A "BOLT FROM THE BLUE" KIND OF ATTACK, OR KHRUSHCHEV MAKING A DECISION, OR MORE AN ACCIDENT, OF SOMETHING GETTING OUT OF CONTROL?

The President was much more concerned about a miscalculation, a miscommunication, a misjudgment starting a nuclear war, than a deliberate nuclear attack. He was convinced that, Khrushchev, on the basis of their meeting in Vienna, and their long private correspondence, understood as well as he did that there were no winners in a nuclear war, and no one who was sane could adopt as a deliberate policy the launching of a nuclear war.