The morning of October 16, 1962, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy showed up at the White House and was taken upstairs to meet with President Kennedy in his bedroom. This was highly unusual.
It wasn’t until later that I learned the reason for Bundy’s early morning visit: a U-2 spy plane had taken aerial photographs of Cuban military bases, which showed nuclear missiles installed on launchpads, and there was evidence the intermediate-range missiles were being brought to Cuba on Soviet ships. Premier Khrushchev had just turned up the heat in the Cold War, ninety miles from the coast of Florida, and the ramifications were terrifying.
Upon learning of the missile sites, President Kennedy immediately organized a high-level, confidential group of advisors that consisted of the regular National Security Council members as well as several other men whom he believed could add valuable insight into the decision-making process—including his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Designated the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, the group came to be known simply as “ExComm.” Not wanting to incite fear in the American public, nor let the Soviets know we were aware of the missiles in Cuba, it was decided that the president should maintain his schedule as if everything were normal. He would continue to make public appearances, travel, and attend social functions, while the ExComm met in the Cabinet Room of the White House. The president would attend the meetings and be briefed in between his previously scheduled events.
The Secret Service had well-established plans to protect the president, his family, and key members of the government in the event of an emergency or a major catastrophe. Whether we would go to the bomb shelter on site at the White House or relocate to an undisclosed site outside the metropolitan area would be determined by the threat and our location at the time.
During the next few days the situation was very tense. The president continued to try to maintain his previously scheduled trips and appointments to make everything appear normal, while quietly popping into and out of the Cabinet Room where the ExComm was secretly meeting.
On Saturday, October 20, I was in Middleburg with Mrs. Kennedy and the children when Mrs. Kennedy came to me and said, “Mr. Hill, the president just called and he is on his way back from Chicago. He wants the children and me to return to the White House. Will you arrange for a helicopter?”
Additional photos and analysis had concluded that the Soviets were readying fighter jets and bombers and assembling cruise missile launchers. Additionally, there was evidence that SS-5 missiles were being assembled, which were capable of reaching anywhere in the continental United States. President Kennedy decided it was time to alert the American public that we were facing a chilling crisis, and he had to make a final decision on military options.
I was at the White House when, on the evening of Monday, October 22, President Kennedy addressed the nation from the Oval Office and somberly laid out the indisputable evidence that had been gathered over the past six days. In the seventeen-minute address, he gave Khrushchev an ultimatum to “halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations,” or the United States would, justifiably, take military action.
Looking directly into the cameras, the president stated, “I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned in continuing this threat will be recognized.”
He outlined the immediate steps the United States was taking, including a strict “quarantine”—essentially a blockade—on all ships containing cargoes of offensive weapons, as well as a request for an emergency meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations.
In closing, he said, “My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out . . . but the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are—but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high—and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose is the path of surrender or submission.
“Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right—not peace at the expense of freedom but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.”
THE EXCOMM WAS meeting daily, sometimes twice a day, and the president was in and out of the Situation Room for immediate updates. At the same time, the Secret Service was on heightened alert for whatever might happen. We were braced for an evacuation of key personnel by helicopter and knew exactly who would go in which helicopters. We all knew that in the event a nuclear attack was imminent, there would be people scrambling to get aboard the helicopters. If people who were not authorized tried to get on, as an absolute last resort, we would have no choice but to shoot them. It was a sickening thought, but this was the reality of the situation we faced.
On the following Friday, October 26, word came that Khrushchev had agreed to keep his ships out of the quarantine zone for forty-eight hours. That morning, Mrs. Kennedy decided to take Caroline and John to Glen Ora, and advised me that the president would be joining them the following day.
As it turned out, the president did not come to Glen Ora on Saturday, and I was about as tense as I’d ever been. All of the agents were on high alert, fully expecting that at any moment the word would come for us to evacuate immediately. You didn’t want to think about what might happen, but you had to go over every possible scenario in your mind to be prepared. It was excruciating. The worst part for all the agents was that we could not discuss the situation with our own families, and if something happened—if there were a nuclear attack—we would go with the president and his family to an underground facility, and our families would most likely perish. It was truly unthinkable.
On Sunday morning, President Kennedy arrived in Glen Ora, and when I saw him step out of the helicopter smiling broadly, I knew everything was going to be all right. Khrushchev had agreed to dismantle the missiles in Cuba, and the Russian ships carrying nuclear materials had turned around. President Kennedy had redeemed himself after the Bay of Pigs disaster and was in high spirits. But most important, he had won Khrushchev’s respect, and the two of them had averted nuclear war.
ONE IMPORTANT PIECE of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the quiet negotiations for the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. President Kennedy had vowed that the United States would not invade the island of Cuba, and in return Fidel Castro had agreed to release the 1,113 men who had been held captive in Cuba since the failed invasion twenty months earlier, for the ransom of $53 million in food and medical supplies.
On December 29, 1962, we flew to the Orange Bowl in Miami so that President and Mrs. Kennedy could publicly honor all the Bay of Pigs survivors who had just been freed. Forty thousand people filled the Orange Bowl stadium to welcome home the brave freedom fighters, all of whom were dressed in their khaki uniforms—many of them missing arms and/or legs. The ceremony was fraught with emotion as President Kennedy was presented with the brigade’s war-torn flag, which had flown during the three-day battle at the Bay of Pigs.
As he graciously accepted the flag, President Kennedy stepped up to the microphone and boldly proclaimed, “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.”
The stadium erupted into a thunderous roar.
Then Mrs. Kennedy stepped to the microphone and spoke, without notes, in fluent Spanish. There was barely a dry eye in the arena as she concluded her brief remarks, and again the audience roared with applause. At the conclusion of the program, President and Mrs. Kennedy got into a white convertible, and as the car slowly drove out of the stadium, they stood and waved to the exuberant crowd. Finally, the president could put the failed invasion behind him and move forward with a renewed sense of purpose as he entered the third year of his presidency.