The Secret Sentry (57 page)

84. National Indications Center,
The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of
Readiness Measures
, July 15, 1963, p. 10, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0001161983, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

85. Norman Klar,
Confessions of a Code Breaker (Tales From Decrypt)
(privately published, 2004), pp. 137–38; Zelikow and May,
Presidential Recordings
, vol. 3, p. 185.

86. Chief of Naval Operations,
The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962
, p. 49, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

87. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 24, 1962, pp. 3–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725840, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum,
The
Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 25, 1962, pp. 2–3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725841, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA,
Background Material for 24 October
, pp. 2–3, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010015-8, NA, CP; memorandum for the director,
Your Briefings of the NSC Executive Committee
, November 3, 1962, p. 1, RG-263, entry 25, box 2, folder 109, NA, CP; Chief of Naval Operations,
The Naval Quarantine of
Cuba, 1962
, pp. 49–50, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; Zelikow and May,
Presidential Recordings
, vol. 3, pp. 185, 187.

88. Chief of Naval Operations,
The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962
, pp. 49–50, Post ’46 Command File, box 10, Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

89. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 25, 1962, pp. 2–3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725841, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA,
Background Material
for 25 October
, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010016-7, NA, CP; memorandum for the file,
Executive Committee Meeting 10/25/62— 10:00 a.m.
, October 25, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100027-4, NA, CP; National Indications Center,
The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of
Readiness Changes
, July 15, 1963, p. 15, RG-263, entry 82, box 28, MORI DocID: 107300, NA, CP; Zelikow and May,
Presidential Recordings
, vol. 3, p. 235.

90. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 26, 1962, pp. 2–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725842, http://www.foia.cia.gov; Zelikow and
May,
Presidential
Recordings
, vol. 3, p. 287.

91. United Nations General Assembly, Document A/5266, October 22, 1962, p. 2; memorandum for the file,
Meeting of the NSC Executive Committee, 26 October 1962, 10:00 A.M.
, October 26, 1962, p. 2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100009-4, NA, CP.

92. Zelikow and May,
Presidential Recordings
, vol. 3, p. 290.

93. Chief of Naval Operations,
OPNAV 24 Hour Resume of Events, 300000 to 310000 Oct 62
, October 31, 1962, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; Commander Ser-vice Force U.S. Atlantic
Fleet,
Cuban Quarantine Operations
, December 31, 1962, p. 4, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; memorandum, OP-03 to CNO,
Compilation
of Lessons Learned/Deficiencies Noted as a Result of the Cuban Operation
, February 20, 1963, p. 12, National Security Archive, Washington, DC. See also Kennedy,
Thirteen Days
, p. 86; Raymond L. Garthoff,
Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1987), pp. 56–57n; Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds.,
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White
House During the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 444.

94. NSA OH-1982-20, oral history,
Interview with Harold L. Parish
, October 12, 1982, p. 6, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

95. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 27, 1962, pp. 3–5, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725843, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA,
Background Material
for 27 October
, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010026-6, NA, CP; Zelikow and May,
Presidential Recordings
, vol. 3, pp. 356–57.

96. Regarding the August 30 and September 8, 1962, U-2 incidents, see IDEA 0887, memorandum, McMahon to Cunningham,
Mission 127
, September 12, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP33-02415A000300150009-2, NA, CP; memorandum, Lehman to Director
of Central Intelligence,
CIA Handling of the Soviet Buildup in Cuba, 1 July–16 October 1962
, November 14, 1962, p. 12, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001700180076-4, NA, CP.

97. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 28, 1962, pp. I-1–I-2, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725844, http://www.foia.cia.gov; National
Indications Center,
The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Changes
, July 15, 1963, p. 15, RG-263, entry 82, box 28, MORI DocID: 107300, NA, CP; Brugioni,
Eyeball
to Eyeball
, pp. 460, 491. Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing on U-2 intercept from JCS Historical Division,
Notes Taken from Transcripts of Meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, October–November
1962, Dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis
, notes made in 1976 and typed in 1993, p. 22, National Security Archive, Washington, DC; Johnson,
American Cryptology
, bk. 2, p. 329.

98. NSA OH-1982-20, oral history,
Interview with Harold L. Parish
, October 12, 1982, p. 7, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD; Johnson,
American Cryptology
, bk. 2, p. 330. For another version of these events, see Seymour Hersh, “Was Castro out of Control in 1962?,”
Washington Post
, October 11, 1987.

99. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 31, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725847, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis:
USSR/Cuba
, annex: Evidence on Possibility Cubans May Be Manning SA-2 SAM Sites in Cuba, November 1, 1962, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading
Room, Document No. 0001161977, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum for the file,
NSC Executive Committee Record of Action, November
1, 1962, 10:00 AM Meeting No. 16
, November 1, 1962, p. 1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002600090022-3, NA, CP; CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, November 2, 1962, p. 2, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725850, http://www.foia.cia.gov; memorandum by
McGeorge Bundy,
NSC Executive Committee Record of Action,
November 2, 1962, 11:00 AM, Meeting No. 17
, November 2, 1962, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R002600090021-4, NA, CP; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
SC No. 08088/63-KH,
The 1962 Soviet Arms Build-Up in Cuba
, 1963, pp. 81–82, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP78T05439A000300130013-4, NA, CP; NSA OH-1982-20, oral history,
Interview with Harold L. Parish
, October 12, 1982, p. 6, declassified and on file at the library of the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD.

100.CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 28, 1962, pp. 3–4, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725844, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, DD/I
staff study,
The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba
, February 17, 1964, p. 109, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Caesar-Polo-Esau Papers, http://www.foia.cia.gov/ cpe.asp.

101. CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, October 29, 1962, p. IV-1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725845, http:// www.foia.cia.gov; CIA,
Background Material
for 29 October
, p. IV-1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010029-3, NA, CP; memorandum for the record, October 29, 1962,
CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001800010029-3, NA, CP; John A. McCone,
Memorandum of Meeting of Executive
Committee of the NSC, Tuesday, October 30, 1962, 10:00 a.m.
, October 30, 1962, pp. 1–2, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001900100009-4, NA, CP; CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, annex: Evidence of Cuban Instructions for
Demonstrations, Sabotage Operations
in Latin America
, November 1, 1962, p. 1, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725849, http://www.foia.cia.gov; CIA, memorandum,
The Crisis: USSR/Cuba
, November 2, 1962, p. 3, CIA Electronic FOIA Reading Room, Document No. 0000725850, http://www.foia.cia.gov.

102.Memorandum, Lehman to Director of Central Intelligence,
CIA Handling of the Soviet Buildup in
Cuba, 1 July–16 October 1962
, November 14, 1962, p. 1, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP80B01676R001700180076-4, NA, CP; confidential interview.
See also Director of Central Intelligence,
Report to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board on Intelligence Community
Activities Relating to the Cuban Arms Build-Up: 14 April Through 14 October 1962
, December 1962, p. 27, National Security Files: Countries: Cuba, box 61, JFKL, Boston, MA. Quote from SC No. 12160/62-KH,
untitled CIA report on the agency’s intelligence collection effort against Cuba, December 1962, p. 5, CREST Collection, Document
No. CIA-RDP66B00560R000100100176-0, NA, CP; Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office,
History of the Strategic Arms Competition:
1945–1972
, part 2, March 1981, p. 615, DoD FOIA Reading Room, Pentagon, Washington, DC.

103. Johnson,
American Cryptology
, bk. 2, p. 317.

6: Errors of Fact and Judgment

1. This argument is forcefully made in William B. Bader, “From Vietnam to Iraq: Pretext and Pre-cedent,”
International Herald Tribune
, August 27, 2004.

2. The tragic history of the CIA and the Pentagon’s efforts to insert agents and then commando teams into North Vietnam between
1958 and 1968 is detailed in Sedgwick D. Tourison Jr.,
Secret
Army, Secret War
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995); Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andradé,
Spies and Commandos
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000). McNamara quote from W. Thomas Johnson, “Notes of the President’s Meeting with
Senator Dirksen and Congressman Ford,” January 30, 1968, p. 8, Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, box 2, file January 30, 1968,
LBJL, Austin, TX.

3. Memorandum, Forrestal to President,
Vietnam
, December 11, 1963, p. 1, Top Secret, Douglas Pike Collection, Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; Tourison
Jr.,
Secret
Army, Secret War
, pp. 73–112; Richard H. Schultz Jr.,
The Secret War Against Hanoi
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), pp. 31–40; Conboy and Andradé,
Spies and Commandos
, pp. 81–100; Robert J. Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds and the Flying Fish: SIGINT and the Gulf of Tonkin Mystery,
2–4 August 1964,”
Cryptologic Quarterly
, vol. 19, no. 4–vol. 20, no. 1 (Winter 2000–Spring 2001): p. 8, November 2005 NSA Gulf of Tonkin document release.

4. NSA OH-17-93, oral history,
Interview of Milton S. Zaslow
, September 14, 1993, pp. 33–34, November 2005 NSA Gulf of Tonkin document release.

5. Memorandum, Tordella to Fubini, “[deleted] Operations,” November 23, 1964, p. 1, November 2005 NSA Gulf of Tonkin document
release; Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies,” p. 10.

6. USIB-S-34.1/9, memorandum, Carroll to Chairman, U.S. Intelligence Board,
Ad Hoc Committee
Report and Recommendations Relating to Disclosure of US SIGINT Successes Against
North Vietnam
, June 13, 1964, pp. 1–2, DDRS. For an example of the kind of SIGINT NSA was producing at the time about North Vietnam’s growing
military involvement in the insurgencies in South Vietnam and Laos, see National Indications Center, memorandum, Denny to
Watch Committee,
Recent Infiltration of PAVN Personnel into Northern South Vietnam
, July 24, 1964, p. 1, DDRS.

7. Memorandum for the record,
Briefing of CIA Subcommittee of House Armed Services Committee—
4 August 1964—9:00 a.m.
, August 18, 1964, p. 13, CREST Collection, Document No. CIA-RDP82R00025R000400160001-4, NA, CP.

8. For SIGINT on increasing resolve of North Vietnamesenavy, see Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies,” pp. 9–10; spot report, 2/O/VHN/R03-64,
Significant Increase in Activity of North Vietnamese Naval
Communications
, June 8, 1964, November 2005 NSA Gulf of Tonkin document release. For re-sults of OPLAN 34A raids, see Tourison Jr.,
Secret Army, Secret War
, pp. 114–28; Conboy and An-dradé,
Spies and Commandos
, pp. 101–15; Marolda and Fitzgerald,
United States Navy
, p. 397.

9. Edwin E. Moïse,
Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 51.

10.
Desoto
was actually an acronym based on the name of the first destroyer to conduct one of these patrols, the USS
DeHaven
, with
Desoto
standing for “DeHaven Special Operations Off Tsing-tao.” CINCPAC,
1964 Command History
, pp. 366–67. The author is grateful to Dr. Edwin E. Moïse of Clemson University for making a copy of this document available.
See also Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald,
The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military
Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965
(Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1986), p. 393. For the Navy SIGINT detachment on each Desoto destroyer, see Dr.
Thomas R. Johnson,
American
Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–1989
(Fort Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, 1995), bk. 2,
Centralization Wins, 1960–1972
, p. 515, NSA FOIA; oral history,
Interview with
Captain Frederick M. Frick
, January 8, 1996, p. 5, Oral History Project, Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.