McNamara The second point Mr President is the present position of the Soviet vessels and our plans for intercepting them There are two vessels that I'll be discussing One is the Gagarin and the other is the Kimovsk of which these are pictures Both of thes will be approaching the barrier by which I mean they are about 500 miles from Cuba at approximately noon today roughly the present time eastern daylight time I say they will be approaching itthey will be approaching it if our dead reckoning is correct Twenry-two seconds excised_ as classified tnjormation The Gagarin appears to be about so to 50 miles behind the Kimovsk Ten seconds excised as classified information The Gagarin declared its cargo as being technical material at Conakry This is a typical declaration of an offensive weapons- arrying ship from the Soviet Union We have checked back the records and this appears to be a typical way by which they propose to deceive Both of these ships therefore are good targets for our first intercept Admiral Anderson's plan is to try to intercept one or both of them today There is a submarine very close we believe to each of them Between One submarine relatively close to both of them The submarine will be at the barrier tonight late today It's traveling 8 knots an hour and therefore it should be 20 to 30 miles from these ships at the time of intercept And hence it's a very dangerous situation The Navy recognizes this is fully prepared to meet it Undoubtedly we'll declare radio silence And therefore neither we nor the Soviets will know where our Navy ships are for much of today And that I think suni marizes our plan President Kennedy Which one are they going to try to get Both of them McNamara They are concentrating on the Kimovsk but we'll try to get both The Kimovsk has the 7-foot hatches and is the most likely target President Kennedy If the one of our ships what kind of ship is going to try to intercept A de troyer McNamara Last night at about midnight the plan was to try to intercept the Kimovsk with a destroyer Previously it had been thought it would be wise to use a cruiser But because of the Soviet submarine at the time of intercept it's believed that it would be less dangerous to our forces to use a destroyer The aircraft carrier Essex with antisubmarine equipped helicopters will be in the vicinity and those helicopters will attempt to divert the submarine from the intercept point ' McCone Mr President I have a note just handed to me from unclear It says that we've just received information through ONI that all six Soviet ships currently identified in Cuban waters-and I don't know what that means-have either stopped or reversed course ' Rusk What do you mean Cuban waters -6 Thi alrCraffcarrier-uss Er m -a-lead ship of-Nav-y Task Force 1S6 CQIJ ll Jlanded by Vice Admiral Alfred Ward was directly responsible for implementing the quarantine under CINCLANT Admiral Dennison and the chief of naval operations Admiral George Anderson 7 The ONI was the U S Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence McCone Dean I don't know at the moment McNamara Most of these ships in Cuban waters are outbound from Cuba to the Soviet Union There are several and I presume that that's what that refers to There are onlyPresident KennedJ interrupting Why don't we find out whether they're talking about the ships leaving Cuba or the ones coming in McCone I'll find out what this guy unclear He leaves the room Rusk dri y Makes some difference Aftw people laugh Bundy It sure does McNamara There were a number of ships so close to the harbors in Cuba this morning that we anticipate their entering the harbors at the pres nt time inbound from the Soviet Union There were a number of ships outbound also relatively close to the harbors Gilpatric There is one other ship a tanker which is now passing through one of the straits one of the channels through the islands a tanker President Kennedy If this submarine should sink our destroyer then what is our proposed reply Taylor Well our destroyer first will be moving around all the time and the submarine is going to be covered by our antisubmarine warfare patrols Now we have a signaling arrangement with that submarine to surface which has been communicated I am told by toAlexis Johnson I sent it to the Soviets last night yes Unidentified But is that Taylor Could you describe this I justAlexis Johnson I sent the identification procedures for a submarine I sent a message to Moscow last night saying that in accordance with the President's proclamation the Secretary of Defense has issued the following procedures for identification of submarines and asked the embassy to communicate this to the Soviet government and said this is also being communicated to other governments this would be a general regulation Whether they I have not got acknowledgment ofreceipt of that As far as our proclamation is concerned it was delivered to the Soviet foreign office last night and very promptly returned _Rnsk I presume they took a look at it Alexis Johnson It was also delivered to the embassy here last nigljt We have not yet received it back But these identification procedures should be in their hands 1 They are standard I understand they are an addition to standard international practice accepted by the Soviets McNamara No This is a new procedure I asked them to set up yesterday Alex Alexis Johnson It is a new procedure McNamara Here is the exact situation We have depth charges that have such a small charge that they can be dropped and they can actually hit the submarine without damaging the submarine TaylimThe y're practice depth charges -- ---- - McNamara Practice depth charges We propose to use those as warning depth charges The mess ge that Alex is talking about states that when our forces come upon an unidentified submarine we will ask it to come to the surface for inspection by transmitting the following signals using a depth charge of this type and also using certain sonar signals which they may not be able to accept and interpret Therefore it is the depth charge that is the warning notice and the instruction to surface It was after McNamara made this point in the discussion Robert Kennedy jotted down later that day that he thought these few minutes were the time ef greatest worry by the President His hand went up to his face covered his mouth and he closed his fist His eyes were tense a mast gray and we just stared at each other across the table ' Taylor I believe it's the second step Mr Secretary as Admiral George Anderson described it McNamara Yes Taylor First the signals and then afterMcNamara Right The sonar signal very probably will not accomplish its purpose Alexis Johnson The time element being what it has been I am not sure that we could assume McNamara I think it's almost certain they didn't Unclear didn't see ours but you and I were working on it at 1 30 unclear I'm sure th' t it got to the Soviet Union back to the submarine NowAlexis Johnson That's what I mean Yes McNamara I neglected to mention one thing about the submarine however Nineteen seconds excised as classified information President Kennedy Kenny Kenneth O'Donnell What if he doesn't surface then it gets hot President Kennedy If he doesn't surface or if he takes some action- takes some action to assist the merchant ship are we just going to attack him anyway At what point are we going to attack him I think we ought to wait on that today We don't want to have the first thing we attack as a Soviet submarine I'd much rather have a merchant ship Taylor Well we won't get to that unless the submarine is really in a position to attack our ship in the course of an ntercept This is not pursuing unclear on the high seas ··· McNamara I think it would be extremely dangerous Mr President to try to defer attack on this submarine in the situation we're in We could easily lose an American ship by that means The range of our sonar in relation to the range of his torpedo and the inaccuracy as you well know of antisubmarine warfare is such that I don't have anyPresident Kennedy Unclear imagine it would 8 Robert Kennedy's handwritten notes on the meeting found in the Robert Kennedy Papers are quoted in Arthur Schlesinger Jr Robert Kennedy and His Times New York Random --House ··l978 p -514 See-also Robert Kennedy's•own--later reczonsti ustion of' this part of the meeting in Thirteen Days A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis New York Norton 1971 pp 69-70 McNamara -great confidence that we can push him away from our ships and make the intercept securely Particularly I don't have confidence we could do that if we restrict the commander on the site in any way I've looked into this in great detail last night because of your interest in the question Rusk Can you interpose the Soviet merchant vessel between the submarine and yourself Or does he have torpedoes that can go around and come in from the other side Taylor He can maneuver anyway he wants to Rusk I know But I mean suppose that you have air observation you keep the Soviet shipUnidentified Right underneath Unidentified I don't thinkMcNamara What the plan is Dean is to send antisubmarine helicopters out to harass the submarine And they have weapons and devices that can damage the submarine And the plan therefore is to put pressure on the submarine move it out of the area by that pressure by the pressure of potential destruction and then make the intercept But this is only a plan and there are many many uncertainties Rusk Yeah esident·Kennedy OK Let's procee I