Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup (left) and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson (center) meeting with JFK in the Oval Office on October 29, 1962.
Photo by William J. Smith / AP
During their meeting with JFK in the Oval Office on October 29, Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson gave a rundown on what an invasion of Cuba would look like and reviewed interservice cooperation.
Shoup also raised the possibility of whether the Soviets might use tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba. After low-level surveillance flights photographed nuclear-capable short-range rockets in Cuba (known as FROGs in the West and as Luna to the Soviets), military commanders in charge of invasion planning requested authorization to plan for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara denied that request.
What Kennedy, Shoup, and Anderson did not know was that at the time of this conversation, the Soviets planned to hand the FROGs/Luna over to the Cubans, a move that would have made Cuba a nuclear power overnight. It was weeks after this conversation took place that Khrushchev decided to reverse that decision.{{1}}
Tape 43, Presidential Recordings Collection, President’s Office Files, John F. Kennedy Library. Excerpted from a transcript to published in David Coleman, ed., The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, volume 4 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013). An earlier version of this transcript appeared in Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
[[1]]Fursenko and Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”; and Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War.[[1]]
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