40. Editorial Note

President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Secretaries McNamara and Rusk, Special Assistant McGeorge Bundy, and Under Secretary George Ball met on October 22, 1962, at 11 a.m. to discuss Cuba. A tape recording of the conversation is available, but is of poor quality and is punctuated by long periods when apparently material was being read and/or drafted. The discussion was on the President’s upcoming speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis; consideration of a proposal for removal of nuclear weapons from all non-nuclear nations—Turkey, Italy, and Cuba; and the handling of the press and other briefings before the speech. The tape, which lasts for 40 minutes and 40 seconds, ends before the meeting does. (Kennedy Library, President’s Office Files, Presidential Records, No. 32.1)

At 11:45 p.m. the group met again and discussed instructions to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in anticipation of possible actions and confrontation. The President stressed the need to inform personnel at missile sites in Turkey not to fire if and when they came under Soviet attack. The group [Page 152] also discussed making clear to Allies that commitments in Berlin would not be compromised, and that the United States needed to protect U.S. credibility and to maintain the strategic balance. The group finished with a discussion of the timing of the President’s public announcement of the discovery of the missiles. The tape lasts for 11 minutes and 18 seconds and covers the entire meeting. (Ibid., No. 32.2)