JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters Read Free Page A

of twenty-four nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
    May 8, 1962 : Following President Kennedy’s instructions, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara orders General Paul Harkins at a Saigon conference “to devise a plan for turning full responsibility [for the war in Vietnam] over to South Vietnam and reducing the size of our military command, and to submit this plan at the next conference.”
    June 13, 1962 : With his Russian wife, Marina, and infant daughter, June, Lee Harvey Oswald returns to the United States with a loan from the State Department, after his highly publicized October 1959 defection to the Soviet Union and two and one-half years living as an expatriate in Minsk.
    As the Oswalds settle in Fort Worth, Texas, Lee Oswald begins to be shepherded by intelligence asset George de Mohrenschildt, at the instigation of Dallas CIA agent J. Walton Moore.
    July 23, 1962 : The United States joins thirteen other nations at Geneva in signing the “Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos.” CIA and Pentagon opponents regard Kennedy’s negotiation of the Laotian agreement as surrender to the Communists. They undermine it by supporting General Phoumi’s violations of the cease-fire.
    In another conference on the war in Vietnam, at Camp Smith, Hawaii, Secretary McNamara discovers that his May 8 order to General Harkins has been ignored. He repeats President Kennedy’s order for a program to phase out U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
    October 16, 1962 : President Kennedy is informed that photographs from a U-2 reconnaissance flight show Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. Kennedy calls a top-secret meeting of his key advisers, who become the Executive Committee (ExComm) of the National Security Council. At their first meeting, they debate ways of destroying the Soviet missiles by preemptive attacks on Cuba, prompting Robert Kennedy to write a note to the president saying: “I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor.”
    October 19, 1962 : As President Kennedy resolves to blockade further Soviet missile shipments rather than bomb and invade Cuba, he meets with his Joint Chiefs of Staff. They push for an immediate attack on the missile sites. General Curtis LeMay tells him, “This [blockade and political action] is almost as bad as the appeasement [of Hitler] at Munich.”
    October 22, 1962 : President Kennedy delivers a televised speech to the nation, announcing the U.S. discovery of Soviet missile sites in Cuba. He declares “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba” and calls for “the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba.”
    October 27, 1962 : A Soviet surface-to-air missile shoots down a U-2 reconnaissance plane over Cuba, killing the Air Force pilot. The Joint Chiefs and ExComm urge a quick retaliatory attack. Kennedy sends a letter accepting Khrushchev’s proposal to withdraw the Soviet missiles in return for JFK’s pledge not to invade Cuba, while ignoring Khrushchev’s later demand that the United States remove its analogous missiles from Turkey beside the Soviet border. JFK sends Robert Kennedy to meet with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. RFK gives Dobrynin a secret promise that the missiles in Turkey will also be withdrawn as part of the agreement. He appeals for a quick response by Khrushchev, saying many generals are pushing for war and the president may lose control. Upon receipt of this message from Dobrynin, Khrushchev announces publicly he is taking the Soviet missiles out of Cuba in exchange for Kennedy’s no-invasion pledge.
    The Joint Chiefs of Staff are outraged by Kennedy’s refusal to attack Cuba and his concessions to Khrushchev.
    December 18, 1962 : After visiting Vietnam at President Kennedy’s request, Senator Mike Mansfield issues a report cautioning Kennedy against being drawn “inexorably into some variation of the unenviable position in Vietnam which was formerly occupied by the