Michael Dobbs - One Minute to Midnight

“turned around when confronted”: McAuliffe, 297. McCone’s information was incorrect. JFK noted at the ExComm meeting that an intercept attempt would be made between 10:30 and 11:00.

only “a few miles” apart: RFK, 68-72; see also Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 537, which draws on RFK’s account.

“en route to the Baltic”: CIA report, October 25, 1962, CREST.

The naval staff suspected: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 391. Some of the reported positions for Soviet ships, including the Aleksandrovsk and the Poltava, were clearly false. For accuracy of direction fixes, see JFK3, 238.

He had visited Flag Plot: CNO, Report on the Naval Quarantine of Cuba, USNHC.

Communications circuits were overloaded: CNO Office logs, October 24, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

That afternoon, NSA received: Message from director, NSA, October 24, 1962, NSA Cryptotologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

“in a position to reach”: JFK3, 41.

“surprise attacks”: Anderson message 230003Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

“I give you my word”: Kohler cable to State Department, 979, October 16, 1962, SDX.

“the appearance of”: CINCLANT (Dennison) message to JCS 312250Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

“Initial class probable sub”: U.S. Navy messages 241610Z and 250533Z, CNO Cuba, USNHC, also available through “The Submarines of October,” Electronic Briefing Book 75, NSAW. The submarine was located at 25deg25’N, 63deg40’W. It was dubbed “ C-18 ” by the Navy.

What had started off: See Gary E. Weir and Walter J. Boyne, Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 79-98, for an account of the B-130 journey, based on interviews with Capt. Nikolai Shumkov.

“special camps are being prepared”: Savranskaya, “New Sources on the Role of Soviet Submarines in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Journal of Strategic Studies (April 2005).

Shumkov understood the power: Weir and Boyne, 79-80; Aleksandr Mozgovoi, Kubinskaya Samba Kvarteta Fokstrotov (Moscow: Voenni bibliography Entryd, 2002), 69.

“If they slap you”: Savranskaya, “New Sources.” See this article also for conflicting evidence over whether Soviet submarine captains had the authority to use nuclear torpedoes if attacked.

The information on the overhead screens: SAC historians jotted down the daily totals and recorded them in Strategic Air Command Operations in the Cuban Crisis of 1962, SAC Historical Study No. 90, Vol. 1, NSA. Photographs of the SAC control room are in Vol. 2, FOIA.

By the time SAC reached: SAC Historical Study No. 90, Vol. 1, 58.

“high priority Task 1 targets”: William Kaufmann memo, Cuba and the Strategic Threat, October 25, 1962, OSD.

At 11:10 a.m.: Cuba crisis records, 389th Strategic Missile Wing, FOIA.

“This is General Power speaking”: SAC Historical Study No. 90, Vol. 1, vii.

It was received loud and clear: G. M. Kornienko, Kholodnaya Voina (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnie Otnesheniya, 1994), 96. It is unclear whether the Soviets intercepted the DEFCON-2 order, in addition to Power’s message. The DEF CON-2 order was classified top secret; Power’s address was unclassified. See Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 62.

tried as “a war criminal”: Quoted in Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 21.

“SAC bases and SAC targets”: Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, 262-5.

“They’re smart”: Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 265.

“mean,” “cruel”: Gen. Horace M. Wade OH, AFHRA.

“The whole idea”: Kaplan, 246.

Using maps and charts: Kaufmann memo, Cuba and the Strategic Threat, OSD.

Just to move the 1st Armored Division: USCONARC Participation in the Cuban Crisis 1962, NSAW, 79-88, 119-21. USCONARC briefing to House Appropriations Committee, January 21, 1963.

“Soon military police”: Dino Brugioni, “The Invasion of Cuba,” in Robert Cowley, ed., The Cold War (New York: Random House, 2006), 214-15.

The British consul in Miami: British Archives on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (London: Archival Publications, 2001), 278; “Air Force Response to the Cuban Crisis,” 6-9, NSAW; NYT, WP, and LAT reports from Key West, October 1962.

Military shipments did not always: USCONARC, 117.

Fidel Castro had spent the night: Author’s interview with Rafael Del Pino, former Cuban air force aide to Castro, September 2005. Unpublished MS by Del Pino.

“Our greatest problem”: Notes on meeting between Castro and Cuban military chiefs, October 24, 1962, released by the Cuban government, Documentos de los Archivos Cubanos, Havana 2002.

This stretch of coastline: Szulc, 474-6.

A thirty-minute drive: Author’s visit to Tarara beach and SAM site, March 2006. Both the SAM site and the antimissile site are still visible on Google Earth at 23deg09’ 28.08’’N, 82deg13’ 38.87’’W.

As he drove back to Havana: Acosta, 165. For Castro’s thoughts, see Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 211. Photographs of Castro’s visit to the AA unit are available on Cuban Web sites.

“Fidel gets his kicks”: Franqui, 189.

A few months earlier: Estimate by Soviet defense minister Malinovsky; Blight and Welch, On the Brink, 327.

The Marine regiment selected: Marine Corps records, October 1962, JFKARC.

“Where are we gonna go?”: Author’s interview with Maj. Gregory J. Cizek, operations officer, 2nd Marine Regiment, April 2005.

who “spent his time”: Author’s interview with Don Fulham, assistant operations officer, 2nd Marine Regiment, May 2005.

Whatever happened, casualties: CINCLANT message, November 2, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

“diversionary replies”: CNO Office logs, October 24, 1962, CNO Cuba, USNHC.

“purposeful and completely unruffled”: Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, 69.

He quickly agreed: Statsenko report.

“A force that remains”: Szulc, 179.

“You don’t want to celebrate”: Beschloss, 501.

“You’ll be interested”: Ibid., 502.

Had Kennedy known: Yesin interviews, July 2004 and May 2006. See also Yesin et al., Strategicheskaya Operatsiya Anadyr’, 154.

The targeting cards: Author’s interview with Maj. Nikolai Oblizin, deputy head ballistic division, July 2004.

Launching the missiles successfully: For description of the sequence of firing an R-12 missile, I am indebted to Col. Gen. Yesin, former chief of staff of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, who served with Sidorov’s regiment as a lieutenant engineer.

The regiment of Colonel Nikolai Bandilovsky: The sites in western Cuba were designated San Cristobal 1, 2, 3, and 4 by the CIA, from west to east. The first two sites (Bandilovsky) were actually sixteen and thirteen miles west of San Cristobal. The other two (Solovyev) were about six miles west and seven miles northeast.

He ordered Sidorov and Bandilovsky: Statsenko report.

“The Americans have”: Presidium protocol No. 61. Fursenko, Prezidium Ts. K. KPSS, 620-2.

Nikita “shit in his pants”: Attributed to Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly Kuznetsov, in Kornienko, 96.

“That’s it”: Semichastny, 279.

“You don’t have to worry”: Testimony of Emilio Aragones in Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink, 351.

The two men sent by the CIA: Vera interview.

The lack of power would also: CIA report, August 29, 1962, Mongoose memo, JFKARC.