Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962

405. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kaysen) to President Kennedy⁰

Washington, September 1, 1962.

Mr. President:

1. Attached is a memorandum on Rules of Engagement for Aircraft in the area of Cuba. It comes from the Joint Staff via Max Taylorʼs office.

2. The other review you asked for of all our reconnaissance operations in the neighborhood of Cuba is proceeding. Ros Gilpatric will see that we donʼt do anything this weekend that might lead to another incident. The whole schedule will be available to you for review on Tuesday.¹ The salient facts are these. All the aircraft we run on regular reconnaissance missions are unarmed. The nature of their equipment and the kind of aircraft involved makes it useless to arm them. However, they are all carefully watched by radar. Fighters are on the alert at Key West and Guantanamo ready to be scrambled if there is any indication of hostile fighter action against the reconnaissance planes. All the flights are well without the range of antiaircraft capability. One mission is possibly within the range of Cuban based missiles. This is now operating at the margin of its capability. If it is moved further out, the mission, an electronic intelligence one, might as well be abandoned. The next flights are scheduled on September 4th. They have both been carefully reviewed and neither of them presents any hazard.

3. In addition to these flights, which are directed by the Joint Chiefs, there are the routine patrol missions run by commands subordinate to CINCLANT. The flight that was shot at Thursday² was one of those. From everything we have been able to find out the pilot behaved properly and according to his orders. A low level reconnaissance of shipping is a routine part of antisubmarine operations, and does not contravene accepted international law. We have been looking over Russian trawlers in this way for some time without any shooting incidents. We are now in process of examining the orders under which such flights operate in considering the extent to which they are useful and should be run in similar aircraft.

Carl

Attachment

Memorandum for President Kennedy

SUBJECT

• Rules of Engagement

In General Taylorʼs absence and at Mr. Bundyʼs request, I am forwarding a paper on Rules of Engagement, particularly in the vicinity of Cuba, which has been furnished to us by the Joint Staff.³

The paper, which is quite clear, can be summarized as follows:

a. Reconnaissance or other flights near Cuba will be conducted in a non-provocative manner, which is interpreted as generally flying parallel to the coast. In the event that it is necessary to close in on a ship or aircraft to effect identification, this will be done carefully. Such ships or aircraft will not be harassed.

b. In the event that one of our craft is harassed or attacked, unarmed U.S. craft will take evasive action. Armed craft may counter attack if they have actually been fired upon.

c. Hot pursuit into Cuban air space is authorized, but it may not be prolonged. (This is clearly authorized by international law.) However, commanders will not organize a pursuing force.

d. In the event of harassment by Cuban aircraft, U.S. armed craft will attempt to shoulder them off and shepherd them back into Cuban air space or waters.

These Rules of Engagement, which were extracted from an NSC paper,⁴ seem to be quite carefully balanced while still reserving the fundamental right of self-defense.

Julian J. Ewell
Colonel, USA
Executive Assistant to the Military Representative of the President

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, NSAM 181, Cuba (B). Top Secret; Sensitive. A covering note from Kaysen to Clifton reads: “The attached is a partial response to some questions the President asked Gilpatric, Shepard and me before leaving yesterday.” Kaysen added a handwritten postscript indicating he was also attaching a copy of CINCLANT telegram 10152Z to JCS, September 1, which confirmed that CINCLANTFLT had issued instructions to conform with the new rules of engagement. (Ibid.)
1. September 4.
2. August 30.
3. Not found.
4. The reference is unclear.