Page 185 - Gobierno ivisible

Date: 4/5/2011 Page: 185 of 237

missile part on a highway on September 12, but had experienced delay in getting his information out of Cuba.
Missile experts in Washington, who had rejected hundreds of prior reports by Cuban refugees, concluded that the
sub-agent's description checked out against the known features of Russian offensive missiles. In retrospect the
CIA decided the/missile part had arrived in a shipment of Soviet cargo on September 8.

McCone returned from his honeymoon on September 26, and on October 4 an urgent meeting of the United States
Intelligence Board was called. The members took a look at the "mosaic" -- a photographic panorama of the entire
island of Cuba pieced together from the latest U-2 pictures. There were still no photographic indications
of offensive missiles. But McCone noted that there had been no pictures of the western sector of the island since
September 5. He ordered that overflights be further stepped up and concentrated on that section of Cuba.

Until that time all U-2 flights had been made by civilian CIA pilots. Now, however, the risks would be greatly
increased by the expanded schedule of missions and by the presence of the anti-aircraft missiles. The CIA had
concluded that an SA-2 had downed Francis Gary Powers over the Soviet Union in 1960, and that another had
accounted for a Nationalist Chinese U-2 over Communist China on October 9, 1962. Rather than risk another U-2
incident involving the CIA, McCone agreed to McNamara's recommendation that the overflight operation be
transferred to the Strategic Air Command.

During this interval, on October 10, Senator Kenneth B. Keating, the New York Republican, announced that he
had confirmed reports of intermediate-range missile sites under construction in Cuba.

Four days later, early on the morning of October 14, SAC flew its first U-2 mission over Cuba and returned with
photographs of mobile medium-range ballistic missiles (MMRBM) at San Cristobal, 100 miles to the southwest
of Havana.

The pictures were analyzed by the photo-interpreters in Washington all the next day, and late in the afternoon the
findings were reported to General Carter, McCone's deputy (McCone had left Washington earlier in the afternoon
for Los Angeles to take the body of his stepson, Paul J. Pigott, who had been killed in a sports-car crash, to
Seattle).

General Carroll, the director of the DIA, was next to be informed. Then Carroll took two civilian photo-
interpreters to dinner at the home of General Maxwell Taylor. Joining them were Carter, and Roswell Gilpatric
and U. Alexis Johnson, both members of the Special Group. When the officials had been convinced that Soviet
missiles were in place in Cuba, McGeorge Bundy was notified at his home. He arranged for the photo-interpreters
to report to him at the White House the following morning.

Shortly before nine o'clock on the morning of October 16 Bundy took the pictures to President Kennedy, who was
in his bedroom in pajamas and robe, reading the newspapers. Kennedy quickly indicated those officials who were
to be called to the White House.

At 11:45 the group, which was later to be named the Executive Committee (Excomm) of the National Security
Council, gathered in the Cabinet Room for the first of a running series of meetings during the following two
weeks. Present were Kennedy, his brother Robert, Lyndon Johnson, Rusk, McNamara, Gilpatric, Bundy, Taylor,
Carter, Theodore C. Sorensen, the presidential adviser, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Under Secretary
of State George Ball and Edwin M. Martin, Assistant secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Adlai
Stevenson joined the group that afternoon. McCone was brought in immediately upon his return from the West
Coast. And two Truman Cabinet members were called in later in the week: Dean Acheson, former Secretary of
State, and Robert Lovett, former Secretary of Defense.