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time, i had recently given birth to my first child. i remember feeling a sense of relief that the peril of the cuban missile crisis fill in a distant history and gratitude that president kennedy had secured the treaty, his greatest contribution to the ideal of genuine peace, he spoke of a so movingly in his commencement address. relief and gratitude that my child's future was more secure for it. today, just one decade later, as we mark six years as the world teeter on the brink of civilization as we know it, we find ourselves faced with a threat of nuclear aggression. over the past few months, and especially weeks, it is been much debate of how relevant or not the cuban missile crisis's to the situation of russia and ukraine. and what consensus seems elusive, i think we can all agree that the lessons of the cuban missile crisis are more valuable than ever to understand today. i am now honored to introduce briefly this sessions distinguished speakers who will bring their wisdom and expertise to this topic. i'm delighted to extend a warm welcome to alexis albion, the curator for special projects of the international spy museum, she previously served as lead curator during the museum's move to a new location developing all new content for the permanent exhibits. she also served as assistant to the president of the world bankruptcy, are just in the office of the corner for counterterrorism and the u.s. state department, and director for policy for the 9/11 public discourse project, and a professional staff member of the 9/11 commission. it is also a pleasure to welcome shane w. harris to the library, a staff writer with the washington post covering intelligence and u.s. national security. he was part of the team that won the 2021 pulitzer prize for public airbus, for stories of the january 6th attack on the capitol in efforts to overturn the presidential election. as most recent book is, at war, the rise of the military internet complex. also a co-host of the weekly podcast host, chatter. i'm also delighted to welcome tom nichols back to the library, a staff writer at the atlantic and author of the atlantic daily news letter. he recently completed 25 years of teaching at the u.s. naval college. his most recent work is their own worst enemy, the assault from within a modern democracy. i am also glad to welcome timothy naftali back to the library and the stage, with more friends onstage this time. a clinical associate professor of public service in a clinical associate professor of history and why you, as well as the cnn presidential historian, he writes on national security and intelligence policy. international history in presidential history as well. previously served as the founding director of the rich and nixon presidential library museum in california. thank you for serving as panelist and moderator for the set shun. thank you for all of your contributions to put together today's conversation. please join me all of you for welcoming our special guests, thank you. >> thank you for coming. thank you, rachel. it is a pleasure to be here. thank you to the jfk library, thank you to the jfk foundation. and thank you to my three fellow panelists. and for tree. this is all about secrecy, learning about secrecy, and how secrecy matters or doesn't matter in good ways and bad. we're gonna be talking about the cuban missile crisis, the market pivot to talking about today. to set the stage for the element of secrecy, i want you to listen to ted sorenson, who was a close adviser to president kennedy, and his most important speech writer, talk about how the president wanted to be able to make his decision as to how to respond to the fact but there are nuclear missiles in cuba, how he wanted to be able to have that period of discussion be kept a secret in washington, d.c.. here is textbook how the president sought to achieve it and what ted thought about the outcome. let's go to the first clip please. >> president kennedy wisely, in my opinion, told bob and me and all the others gathering around the ex calm table on the first morning of the 13 days that he did not want limousine piling up in front of the way house, he did not want people canceling their dinners, speaking engagement, he did not want washington to know that there were crisis meetings going on, because on the soviets would know that we knew about their muscles. and he felt that if we had time to formulate and answer before panic and pressure from the public in the congress poured in on us or the soviets took some preemptive act, that would be much better off. >> secrecy defensive again in this crisis. but the soviets are the first to engage in secrecy. alexis, please help us on their stand soviet approach to disinformation and deception at the beginning of this crisis. >> thank you very much, tim. -- yes, i think we often talk about intelligence on the cuban missile crisis. of course, you know, any film, any documentary on the crisis it always starts out with the flights, imagery intelligence on the american side. you know, the soviets had a major intelligence operations as well. let's just think about it for a moment, back in the spring of 1962 khrushchev has this idea about bringing strategic missiles to cuba. what does that involve? first of all, he's like, let's bring strategic missiles, in oh, they're gonna have the medium-range, long range, you know, 25 of this, 16 invite, whatever. in order to support that, in need infantry, right? we know now that challenge of being over 40,000 russian soldiers. now, you've actually got to support and protect the soldiers as well. that starts to involve anti-aircraft, for example. then you have artillery, then you have tanks, well, then you have to have, let's see, bombers to support them, what if there is a land war, right? you have bombers, we have helicopters, and then you are depriving as well, as we know, short range missiles as well, these tactical missiles. and then nuclear submarines as well. now, it has become this giant operation to bring all these men, weapons, materials, equipment thousands of miles from the soviet union to cuba. what do you need for that? a giant operation, by the way, we're gonna do it on secret. that is a major intelligence operation. the soviets not do that very well. this is a great example of something the soviets have done well for a long time, in the business we call it dandy, denial and deception operation. the russians call it [speaking non-english] , right? i am very bad at my russian. but [speaking non-english] , i hope these gentlemen will be talking about today. to give you a few elements, this operation, which is called operation in an idea. i had all the elements of this deception operation. let's talk about the name of the operation itself, operation -- that was deliberately given, all these operations go with cohn names. it's the name of a river that goes into the baron sea in russia, that area around it, it's way up in the northeast. now, of course, you give your operation a name that has nothing to do it with the actual substance of that operation. that was deliberate, to put off in a body that they would think this operation when he had something to do with, you know, up in the northeast. in fact, you go further, the soldiers who were told they were part of this operation, they were even actually equipped with cold weather gear, skis, that's, fleece lined jackets. again, to emphasize this idea that their operation was going to go on in a cold place. i wonder what they did with those in tropical cuba if they got that far? that was one very basic element of deception, so, people who are part of the plan, certainly spies or anyone trying to find out information, they'd be off on the wrong track just to begin with. the whole operation was very very close held, compartmented, very very few people knew about it at the very top. of course, communications of any kind work stream lease and sieve and so much so that they actually, everything, all communications did this operation happen in person. there was to be no risk of any interception of signals, signals intelligence from phone calls, -- and so on. the easiest way to do that is for things to be written on paper, handwritten. in fact, the plan that was presented to khrushchev in the summer of 1962 was handwritten. they did not want to rely on secretaries for typewriting. they were relying on a colonel who was known to have very very good penmanship. he handled all the plans to do with the operation. actually getting all of these people and equipment across the atlantic, that to be done secret as well. it involved secretly moving everything and everybody on trains in the middle of the night two different ports in russia. and also loading them onto freighters, cargo chips, again, secretly in the dead of night. camouflage was involved as well, nobody would know it was on the ships in case of surveillance imagery intelligence. so, they actually went so far, everything that was on top of the ship was, it had some kind of an explanation. the cover story, of course, was that they were shipping equipment to cuba for agricultural reasons. soviet union and cuba did have agreements, they were going to help cuba economically. they were shipping agricultural machinery, fertilizer, and so on. and all equipment that would be visible, fitting in with that cover story. but below deck was everything else. now, some things have to go on top. and in that case, they might be, they would build structures, so, they could be seen, they would put metal plates on top of some structures that wouldn't be able to be surveyed by infrared as well. so, you could tell is underneath there. it is a whole lot of camouflage those going on as well. now, one of my favorite parts of the deception is that the captains of the ships were not told where they were going. they were given big envelope and inside there were told there was coordinates in the atlantic ocean where they should go. and at that point, they could open the envelope, there was a smaller envelope inside that told them where they could go. when i told the story to my husband, he said, it is just like red october, the hunt for red october, which i had not noticed before, but, you know, fact a stranger than fiction. of course, on board each of these ships, there would be files with information about many many different countries, and when the captain finally found out where they were going, the cuba file, we can pull that one. but there was no hint before that as to which location they were going to. so, lots of secrecy, and camouflage going on. of course, the soldiers didn't know, they had to stay below deck, they were allowed to come up again at night, only for a small amount of time, it was an absolutely horrible voyage for these people. it was summertime, it is incredibly hot. they were below duck, i believe the temperatures were something like over 100 degrees. i like to think they were wearing their fleece lined car goes, i'm guessing they were dumped back in the soviet union. when they arrived, of course, lots of other deception and similar measures were taken in order to conceal what was arriving, what was being loaded in the ports, and so on. so, all of these measures were being taken. i would love to talk about some of the disinformation, maybe we can talk about that later. or i can continue. >> let's save that, alexis, for a little bit later. thank you. i want to talk about the problems of secrecy at home. and if you and we are of course experiencing the 60th anniversary, and if you go 62 years ago, it is 1960, and in 1960, the united states had a census, we always deal, every ten years, and after a census, what happens? we have redistricting. 1962 is a maternal action. president kennedy had had a hard time getting his legislative agenda passed, even though the democrats were the majority in both houses, he did not have a working majority. conservatives had a working majority, that is where southern conservatives, many of whom or segregationists, and conservative republicans where a majority. it made it very hard for president kennedy. 1962 is a key here for him, he needed more of his kind of democrat to be elected. the republicans were looking for an issue, and cuba it was a very good issue for the republicans. there were rumors that the soviets were going to put nuclear missiles and cuba. it is very hard to keep secret the fact that the soviets had mounted that some are the largest -- of military assistance to cuba in the history of the relationship with cuba. the soviets knew that could not be hidden, there were all these merchant ships out there. but what they were carrying was going to be a secret. at the end of august, 1962, an american u2 spy plane photographed surfaced air missiles. surfaced air missiles are conventional missile, just in their name, you get a sense of what they're supposed to do, they're supposed to hit something in the air, they're used against aircrafts, the soviets, after the u.s. developed you two were able to develop surface air missiles that could hit the u2 spy plane, the u2 spy plane through at 72,000 feet. a missiles of missiles and missile, sort of. at the same time that the u.s., the president learned that these missiles wearing cuba, i am talking about conventional defensive surface air missiles, there was talking congress, particularly by and new york senator named kenneth keating, that the soviet union was putting soviet missiles in cuba. making cuba and even more important issue in the midterm election. the president was convinced that nikita khrushchev would not be so stupid as to threaten the united states from the caribbean. he was worried, however, that these reports, which were coming in from cuba, low level reports, they were being used politically by his adversaries and congress, to undermine his party's ability to do well in the midterm election of 1962, and so, he ordered a clampdown on the distribution of material about missiles in cuba by the intelligence community, unless it could be cooperated. president kennedy did not know the unintended consequences of this decision, the intelligence community was getting human intelligence, that is spies, reporting from cuba, in september, the appearance of long missiles, not these surfaced air missiles which are shorter, but longer missiles, they were reporting that sections of the country were being sealed off and that europeans, likely soviets, people not speaking spanish, we're controlling these areas, the president put a clamp down on this information, he did not realize that the intelligence community would interpret this as a way of not publishing it for him, so, the unintended consequence of john kennedy saying, i don't want intelligence flowing around the intelligence community about missiles in cuba meant that he didn't get it. john kennedy did not receive these raw materials about missiles in cuba in his, what was called then the presidential checklist, it is not called the presidents daily brief. the cia figure this out later, and histories have been declassified quite recently actually. it showed that the cia realized they had actually denied the president the kind of material he needed. now, why does this matter? it matters because something else had happened in the world, one of the joys of studying international politics is that nothing, it is always a multi platform or a multi scene story. while all of this is going on in cuba, a u.s. u2, u.s. spy plane has crossed into soviet airspace by mistake. the soviets do not shoot it down, but they complain about it, meanwhile, from taiwan, a u.s. u2 piloted by taiwanese pilots gets shot down over china. the state department is worried about u2s flying over cuba, the president is worried, he does not want a international crisis over cuba in the middle of a midterm election. so, he says to the intelligence community, no more overflights of cuba. now, that decision would have been very difficult and very different for him if he had known that there were intelligence coming from cuba, there might be missiles, but he was not getting that intelligence, he thought that what he was doing was preventing a crisis in cuba, which is so politically sense of two americans, he did not expect one, he expected a crisis in germany. so, the unintended consequence of president kennedy's approach to secrecy in a midterm election was that the bureaucracy had to fight for you to flight. this incredible effort by people in the pentagon and people in the cia at lower levels who did have access to the rematerialize saying that we have got to fly over cuba, we have to change the presidents mind, they put together this packet in formation, they go to something called a special group, the group that would propose and approve on behalf of the president, covert operations, and u2s were considered covert operations. they put this together and they made the pitch and they made the pitch to robert kennedy who was the president, i mean, they were all the president's advisers and representatives, but it is robert kennedy -- they made the pitch, you've got to convince your brother, the president, to take a risk of flying a plane over cuba, even though, with a surfaced air missiles, that plane might be shot down. it's the most incredible story of a bull's-eye. to take a chance at hadbecause it turns out thate area, and if you look at the map of where they flew, the area that they were going to take a chance at over flying was exactly one of the areas where the soviets threw missiles. so, the story, which begins about, if you will, and misuse of intelligence, it turns into one of a classic case of the correct use of intelligence. so, you see, secrecy in the case of the cuban missile crisis, which mr. sorensen recalled, i think, rightly, was helpful to decision-making, in the early part of the story, it actually delayed the time at which john kennedy was faced with this great challenge. he might have learned earlier about the missiles in cuba had the system worked better, and had he not made the decision and the call he made about how raw materials regarding missiles and cuba would be used in the intelligence community in late august and early to late september in 1962. i wanted to tell that story, to throw it in as we contemplate the use of intelligence these days and how the biden administration and others have used it. so, jane, please. >> that is such a great setup, tim, to compare the extraordinary restrictions on intelligence that exist within the kennedy administration to the point where the president himself is not even seeing the tactical information that he needs, to the example of ukraine and the run up to the russian invasion in ukraine, where in so many respects, big and small, the situation is the opposite, it is the inverse of that. i've been a journalist covering the intell