The Kennedy tapes: inside the White House during the Cuban missile crisis

Abstract

In October 1962 the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of war, each brandishing enough nuclear weapons to obliterate civilization in the Northern Hemisphere. For two weeks the inner circle of President Kennedy's National Security Council debated what to do, twice coming to the point of attacking Soviet military units in Cuba - units equipped for nuclear retaliation. All through the situation, unbeknown to many of the participants except the President himself, tape was rolling, capturing everything for posterity. This book presents the full authenticated transcripts of those recordings, showing the moment by moment decision-making. At the centre is President Kennedy, and in one segment the President alone speaks his thoughts to the machine. In the last meeting we hear him explaining and defending the formula that finally defused the crisis. With him throughout are his team from the State Department including Dean Rusk, George Ball, Llewellyn Thompson and the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. All are identified and put into their proper context by the editors, and an introduction aims to make sense of the drama within the history of the Cold War and the Kennedy administration.

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