JFK questioned Nuke Build-up!!!

[spectre]

www.jfklibrary.org/pr_tape_65.html

News Release

New Tapes: JFK Questioned Value of Nuclear Build-Up

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Further Information: Tom McNaught: [phone]

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Boston: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library today made public 240 minutes of newly declassified tape recordings of White House meetings and conversations that took place in the Cabinet Room on November 21, 27 and 29, and December 5, 1962.

Portions of the tapes may be heard by visiting the John F. Kennedy Library’s web page at www.jfklibrary.org.

The conversations between President John F. Kennedy and his advisors took place shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis and centered on U.S. policy toward Cuba, the accuracy of American press reports on matters of national security, the military budget, and the value of nuclear weapons, both as a deterrent and as a practical weapon.

Of particular interest are President Kennedy’s candid views of nuclear weapons, nuclear war and deterrence. At one point during the December 5 meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and other military advisors, President Kennedy questions the usefulness of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, stating:

"If the purpose of our strategic buildup is to deter the Russians, number one; number two, to attack them if it looks like they are about to attack us or be able to lessen the impact they would have on us in an attack…if our point really then is to deter them…we have an awful lot of megatonnage to put on the Soviets sufficient to deter them from ever using nuclear weapons. Otherwise what good are they? You can’t use them as a first weapon yourself, they are only good for deterring…I don’t see quite why we’re building as many as we’re building."

In discussing deterrence and the buildup of nuclear weapons, President Kennedy also states:

"Our big danger is the Soviet Union is going to get in a position where they are going to have so much on us, such nuclear capabilities to deliver on us and cause us so many casualties, that we will not initiate a nuclear attack on them. And that being true, then they will use their conventional force to take whatever they want, anyplace—well not in this hemisphere—but in Europe and in Asia. That is the danger we are going to face, that I’ll—or whoever is President—will not want to fire this weapon to stop this conventional attack."

Concerning the Soviet missile buildup, the President observes "What is it that will deter them?… Even what they had in Cuba alone would have been a substantial deterrent to me."

At the December 5 meeting, Secretary McNamara presented to the President a review of the Department of Defense’s $54.4 billion budget for FY 1964. Recommendations on funding, programs and forces for each of the service branches are also discussed in detail, and discussion and debate among all the attendees takes place during the program review.

During the meeting the President also speculates on a diminished US military presence in Europe and where a future war could possibly occur, the measuring of deterrence, an increased Civil Defense shelter program, and the usefulness of a military plan to attack specific targets in a nuclear exchange. Regarding this targeting plan, the President questions its usefulness, asking his military team, "What’s the sense of taking out a train center marshalling yard in Poland in a nuclear exchange?"

Later in the meeting Secretary McNamara discusses possible military complaints about some of the budget cuts. He is concerned that individuals within the Pentagon might create a myth of military weakness, similar to the wide-spread, and later disproved belief of the 1950’s and early 1960 that there existed a missile gap between the US and the USSR. McNamara states:

"There was created a myth in this country that did great harm to the nation. It was created by, I would say, emotionally guided but nonetheless patriotic individuals in the Pentagon. There are still people of that kind in the Pentagon. I wouldn’t give them any foundation for creating another myth."

The President initially responds by poking fun at himself, evoking laughter from his military staff, stating, "As one of those who put that myth around – a patriotic and misguided man…"

He then calls for an investigation into the beginnings of the missile gap theory:

…the fact of the matter is, if I may say so, the previous administration accepted (the missile gap)…it wasn’t just Generals at the Pentagon and the Democratic opposition, I think it was an administration decision – the missile gap – and I want some research on it….I think if we could dig up the record of the quotes that were made….Otherwise what it looks like is we, some of us, distorted the facts and created a myth of the gap that didn’t exist. The point I think that is really true is that from the top to the bottom they (the previous administration) really believed there would be."

Identified participants at the taped meeting are: President John F. Kennedy; Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense; Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor; George Ball, Under Secretary of State; and Jerome Weisner, Special Assistant to the President.

President Kennedy and the Press

Also included in today’s release of newly declassified tape recordings is the National Security Council meeting of November 29, 1962 during which the President and his advisors discuss the national security implications of published press accounts citing Cuban refugee reports that the Russians were hiding offensive missiles in Cuban caves, even after the U.S. had been assured of their removal. During the meeting. President Kennedy expresses his concern that the American people are "bound to think it’s true" if it appears in the press, and there is a danger that this could escalate the Cuban situation unnecessarily. The President asks CIA Director John McCone to take steps to verify the sources and disprove the information in these news accounts. Suggesting that staff have a talk with the CBS news department, the President states:

"It seems to me, before you print these things that involve the security of the United States…if what he (the reporter) says were true it could produce a major crisis and possibly a war, so if he’s got any evidence of that at least he ought to give it to us and give us a chance to say whether the stronger evidence is reasonable rather than committing one of their stringers in Havana to come out and make a flat statement that there are 82 missiles in Cuba. After we made the statement that they are all out of there makes us all look as either incompetent or liars."

The President asked for a system to be worked out to contact the news media and deal with the problem of incorrect information being portrayed as fact. He also asked his staff to pursue his request that the news media provide evidence of the alleged nuclear missile sites cited in the news articles in order to prove the stories correct, incorrect or unsubstantiated.

Regarding a CBS news report, the President says, "CBS News shouldn’t, ahh, we ought to make that fellow come over and give us the dope."

While the President is clearly irritated with the reporting of possibly inaccurate information, his staff argue that it is not a good idea for the White House to start refuting news stories by proving the negative. An additional problem for the staff is that parts of the information coming from the published reports are true – there were missiles remaining in Cuba. They were just not offensive nuclear missiles.

Other topics on the table at the meeting on Cuba were a detailed discussion of the Russian military presence in Cuba by both John McCone and Robert McNamara, the upcoming meeting between the President and USSR First Deputy Chairman Anastas Mikoyan, US overflights, and the non-invasion assurance.

The identified participants for the November 29, 1962 meeting are: President John F. Kennedy, CIA Director John McCone, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Under Secretary of State George Ball, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Maxwell Taylor, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Assistant Secretary of State Edwin Martin.

Other White House meetings included in today’s opening by the Kennedy Library were a 17 minute November 21, 1962 discussion between the President and several of his staff members regarding what information was to be passed on to Vasila Kuznetsov, Soviet First Deputy Foreign Minister, and a November 27, 1962 meeting between the President and the Belgian Foreign Minister, Paul Henri Spaak, in which the two discussed the agriculture policy of the Common Market, greater European trade and tariff measures.

Tape 65, Part I consists of 127 minutes of tape recordings from three White House meetings that took place on November 21, 27 and 29, 1962. Three excisions totaling 40 seconds of sound recording have been removed due to national security concerns.

Tape 65 part II consists 113 minutes of tape recordings from a White House military budget meeting that took place on December 5, 1962. Seven excisions totaling 70 seconds of sound recording have been removed due to national security concerns. The first 7 minutes of the tape is simply background noise.

The first items from the presidential recordings were opened to public research in June of 1983. Over the past eighteen years, the Library staff has reviewed and opened all of the telephone conversations and a large portion of the meeting tapes. The latter are predominantly meetings with President Kennedy in either the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room. While the recordings were deliberate in the sense that it required manual operation to start and stop the recording, it was not, based on the material recorded, used with daily regularity nor was there a set pattern for its operation.

The tapes represent raw historical material. The sound quality of the recordings varies widely. Although most of the recorded conversation is understandable, most tapes also include passages of extremely poor sound quality with considerable background noise and periods where the identity of the speakers is unclear.

Today’s release of White House meetings is in tape form without transcripts. The tapes are available for research use in the Library’s Research Room. The hours of operation are Monday – Friday from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm and appointments may be made by calling [phone]. The recordings and finding guide are available for purchase at the John F. Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, or by calling the Audiovisual Department [phone].


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The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.

Assignment and News Editors Please Note: The Kennedy Library and Museum will, on request, provide members of the media with a compact disk or cassette tape containing approximately 20 minutes of excerpts from today’s opening. Members of the media are cautioned against making historical conclusions based on the sound clips alone. It is provided as a professional courtesy to facilitate the reporting of the release of this presidential recording. Given the nature of the discussions, we recommend that media outlets review the full meeting tape for historical context, content and clarity.



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Page created February 5, 2002 / updated March 06, 2005

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