Cuba and Caribbean

Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S.

Washington, D.C., 2 March 2003 - The National Security Archive at George Washington University today published on the Web a presidential audio tapes and set of declassified U.S. White House and State Department documents revealing a secret "informal understanding" made between the Johnson Administration and the PRI government of Adolfo Lуpez Mateos in 1964 that allowed Mexico to balk U.S. efforts to diplomatically and economically isolate the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

Washington, D.C., 31 October 2002-- Forty years ago today, the U.S. Navy forced to the surface a Soviet submarine, which unbeknownst to the Navy, was carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo. This was the third surfacing of a Soviet submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After a day of persistent tracking by the U.S. destroyer, the Charles P. Cecil, commanded by Captain Charles Rozier, Soviet submarine B-36, commanded by Captain Aleksei Dubivko, exhausted its batteries forcing it to come to the surface. On 27 and 30 October respectively, U.S.

Press releases, selected documents, photographs, audio clips and other material from the historic conference in Havana.
Formerly secret documents from U.S., Cuban, Soviet and East Bloc archives.
Listen in on White House intelligence briefings and hear the actual voices of President Kennedy, his brother Robert, and other advisers during meetings of the President's Executive Committee (ExComm).
Images of Soviet missile and antiaircraft installations taken by U-2 spyplanes and U.S. Navy low-level reconnaissance aircraft in October-November 1962 used to brief President Kennedy and his advisers.
Documents, naval charts and other declassified records on the U.S. hunt for Soviet submarines during the most dangerous days of the crisis.

Havana, Cuba, 12 October 2002, 1 p.m. - During the third session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara discussed newly declassified documents showing that the crisis did not end after the famous "13 days," but continued at a high level until late November, in large part because of Cuban rejection of Soviet concessions. The documents show that the Soviet nuclear-armed tactical weapons in Cuba stayed there after the missiles were withdrawn, and may even have been intended for Cuban custody.

Havana, Cuba, 11 October 2002, 1 p.m. - During the first session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara discussed newly declassified documents showing that US president John F. Kennedy, in meetings with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's son-in-law Adzhubei in January 1962, compared the US failure at the Bay of Pigs to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. JFK also assured Adzhubei that the US "will not meddle" with Cuba, but at the same time, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing "cover and deception plans" that included planned pretexts for a US invasion of Cuba. The President's brother, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, simultaneously was leading discussions with the CIA and Pentagon about covert operations (codenamed Operation Mongoose) on the proposition that "a solution to the Cuban problem today carries 'the top priority in the United States government….'"

Havana, Cuba, 11 October 2002, 5 p.m. - During the second session of the historic 40th anniversary conference on the Cuban missile crisis, participants including Cuban president Fidel Castro and former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara discussed newly declassified documents showing that events were spinning out of control at the height of the crisis, with the danger of an accidental or deliberate nuclear exchange even greater than policymakers believed at the time. US intelligence never located the nuclear warheads for the Soviet missiles in Cuba during the crisis, and only 33 of what photography later showed was a total of 42 medium-range ballistic missiles.

Havana, Cuba, 10 October 2002 - Senior surviving veterans of the Cuban missile crisis arrived today in Havana for a historic 40th anniversary conference co-organized by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. At an airport arrival ceremony, Cuban vice president Jose Ramon Fernandez greeted former US secretary of defense Robert McNamara, JFK speechwriter and counsel Theodore Sorensen, JFK aide and Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Gen. William Y. Smith (USAF), JFK aide Richard Goodwin, CIA analyst Dino Brugioni, and other US veterans and scholars. Also attending the conference as honored observers are several members of the Kennedy family spanning three generations. Earlier this week, a distinguished delegation of Russian veterans arrived in Havana from Moscow, including former deputy foreign minister Georgy Kornienko, missile deployment planner Gen. Anatoly Gribkov, former defense minister Dmitry Yazov, and KGB officer Nikolai Leonov.

Washington, D.C., 1 October 2002 – The National Security Archive at George Washington University announced today that the senior surviving veterans of the Cuban Missile Crisis will gather in Havana, Cuba, next week to discuss new evidence and lessons learned from the moment when the world came closest to nuclear war 40 years ago.  Leading Cuban historical actors will host participants such as secretary of defense Robert McNamara, JFK speechwriter and counsel Theodore Sorensen, and JFK aide and Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., among others.  From Russia, deputy foreign minister Georgy Kornienko, missile deployment planner Gen. Anatoly Gribkov, KGB officer Nikolai Leonov, and others will participate.

Washington, D.C., May 15 – The National Security Archive at George Washington University today posted on the Web a declassified Presidential Directive, signed by Jimmy Carter, which stated: “I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba.” The directive, dated March 15, 1977, shortly after Carter took office, is believed to represent the only time a President has ordered normalization of U.S. relations with Castro’s Cuba to be an explicit foreign policy goal of the United States. On May 12, 2002, Carter became the first U.S.