The Cuban Missile Crisis Quarantine

Major historical events often receive microscopic analyses from political scientists, journalists, and historians. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis certainly received this treatment. Some authors described the crisis in such rhetorical terms as the prelude to a nuclear holocaust, on the road to Armageddon, or poised on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse. Former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy called the crisis “a confrontation . . . which brought the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind.”¹

Having placed the crisis under such minute scrutiny, many authors probed the data to such an extent that even the smallest details provided grist for any event with the slightest question open for debate. The seriousness and the broad geopolitical ramifications of the Cuban Missile Crisis ensured that questions would surely arise as a result of statements and/or actions by the major personalities involved in the policy and decision-making processes.

One such question arose concerning the Navy’s initial assignment of ships to quarantine stations on 24 October 1962, based on a statement contained in Robert Kennedy’s book, Thirteen Days. The date and time of the event to which he referred require remembering: 2300, 23 October 1962, only 11 hours prior to official commencement of the naval quarantine of Cuba.

The Attorney General had just returned to the White House from a meeting with the Soviet ambassador, Andrei Gromyko. He joined his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and the British ambassador to the United States, David Ormsby-Gore. According to Robert Kennedy’s account, they discussed a means for providing the Soviet Union’s leaders with a little more time to react to the President’s ultimatum before probable interception of a Soviet merchant ship by a U.S. warship at the quarantine intercept line the following morning.

The President had set the quarantine line at a distance measured as a radius from Cape Maysi, the easternmost tip of Cuba. The Navy would place warships spaced at intervals along the line. The Navy would intercept and, if necessary, stop and inspect Soviet merchant vessels, which might contain materials specifically designated by the President as useful in the launching of “offensive weapons” from Cuba.

Robert Kennedy stated in his book that “the 800 mile^s had been fixed by the Navy to stay outside the range of some of the MIG fighters in Cuba. The President called [Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara and shortened it to five hundred miles.”² The questions later raised by analysts of the event lay in the distances involved, 500 or 800 miles, for the initial placement of the quarantine intercept line from Cape Maysi, and as to whether or not the Navy had complied with the presidential directive.

Despite these questions, the Navy itself had not considered that any question existed as to the placement of its ships on stations during the 24 October-20 November 1962 naval quarantine of Cuba. Nonetheless, a controversy has existed for the past 20 years. It has sprung, primarily, from attempts by two authors to interpret various source materials. Thus, we have a controversy created by inaccurate interpretive analyses rather than by geopolitical decision-making.

One analyst, Dan Caldwell, chose to utilize specific primary source materials for his analysis, the deck logs of warships that he thought had participated in the initial quarantine station assignments on 24 October 1962. These deck logs contain the daily record of all official operational orders and activities, including course and speed changes, names of ships in company, complete hourly weather observations, and the 0800, 1200, and 2000 geographic positions of each ship in latitude and longitude

The other analyst, Graham T. Allison, essentially relied upon the statements contained in others’ books rather than utilizing the primary sources. Even Dan Caldwell did not investigate primary sources sufficiently and, as a result, created further erroneous suppositions. It seems appropriate to set the record straight through a complete analysis using the most accurate of primary source materials, the quarantine ships’ deck logs, as substantiated by reports from naval officers responsible for the operational functioning of the quarantine.

In his excellent book, Essence of Decision, Allison chose the Cuban Missile Crisis as a case study to apply three different conceptual models applicable to the understanding of any foreign affairs activities. To support one of his hypotheses, Allison used Robert Kennedy’s statement from Thirteen Days, that the President moved the quarantine line from 800 to 500 miles late in the evening of 23 October, as a frame of reference. Allison claimed that “this incident would seem to suggest that organizational plans and procedures [of military leaders] can be changed by political leaders successfully and at small cost. . . . Existing accounts to the contrary, the blockade was not moved [from 800 to 500 miles] as the President ordered.’’³ As a result, Allison also argued, the U.S Navy leadership disobeyed a direct presidential order.

In disputing Allison’s theory, Caldwell presented evidence that the Navy did, in fact, move the “original quarantine line” arc from 800 to 500 miles from Cape Maysi in accordance with a presidential order. Caldwell cites letters received in 1978 from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell D. Taylor, and former presidential biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Taylor recalled in his letter to Caldwell, some 16 years after the fact, that “the original quarantine line was, as recommended by the Navy, at a distance of about 800 miles from Cuba. Very shortly thereafter, the President directed that it be pulled in several hundred miles to give more time to the Soviet skippers to receive and obey orders to turn back. The figure of 500 miles conforms to general recollections.”⁴

In his letter to Caldwell, Schlesinger agreed with Robed Kennedy’s account in Thirteen Days that the President had initially set the blockade line at 800 miles, but “the Navy did comply with the President’s order, 800-500 sounds right to me.”⁵

Beyond these two letters, Caldwell also analyzed specific data from a sampling of deck logs. Regrettably. he did not provide any rationale for the 11 ships he had selected, other than that they “most likely played an active role in the implementation of the blockade.”⁶ Accordingly, Caldwell requested copies of the deck logs from the National Archives and Records Service for what he presumed were 11 representative ships that had participate in the quarantine. Unfortunately, Caldwell did not ask specifically for the logs of ships assigned to the original quarantine line.

From this source, Caldwell disputed Allison’s claim that the Navy did not move the quarantine line. Vice Admiral Alfred G. Ward, Commander Second Fleet/ Commander Task Force 136, the quarantine force commander, had assigned only five of Caldwell’s 11 sample ships to initial stations on the quarantine line, which Ward called Walnut, at the outset of operations on 24 October. (See Table 1.)

Of those five ships’ positions analyzed by Caldwell, the CSS Bigelow (DD-942), USS McCaffery (DD-860), and CSS William C. Lawe (DD-763) departed Mayport, Florida (720 miles from Cape Maysi), on 22 October, and never sailed farther from Cape Maysi while transiting to 'heir Walnut station assignments on the 500-mile arc. The other two destroyers, the USS John R. Pierce (DD-753) and USS Gearing (DD-710), departed Norfolk, Virginia C.040 miles from Cape Maysi), en route to their Walnut stations. Caldwell apparently misinterpreted their initial distances from Cape Maysi as being on the 800-mile quarantine line rather than steaming to the 500-mile arc stains from their ports of departure.

Although the other six ships in Caldwell’s sample participated in the quarantine operations at one time or another, none had received one of the 12 initial station assignments on the Walnut line from Admiral Ward. Therefore, their distance from the quarantine line as a means of comparison lacks any relevance to Robert Kennedy’s statement. Table 2 lists those ships assigned by Admiral Ward to initial stations on the Walnut quarantine line by station number, latitude and longitude, ship name, and port of departure.

From Caldwell’s 11-ship sample, the antisubmarine carrier USS Randolph (CVS-15) did not participate in the initial quarantine operations. From Norfolk, the cruisers USS Canberra (CAG-2) and USS Newport News (CA- 148), with the destroyer USS Lawrence (DDG-4) in company as escort, had roving stations, generally described as in support of the north and south ends of the quarantine line. These ships did not have any specific geographic distances prescribed with respect to Cape Maysi.

The destroyer USS Zellers (DD-777) did not leave Mayport until 25 October. Caldwell may have confused this ship with the guided missile destroyer USS Sellers (DDG-11), which had a Walnut station assignment. The destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy (DD-850) departed Newport, Rhode Island, on 23 October, en route as an escort for the ammunition ship USS Great Sitkin (AE-17) and fleet oiler USS Elkomin (AO-55), not to a station on Walnut. Caldwell may have assumed that the Joseph P. Kennedy's participation with the destroyer John R. Pierce in the visit and search of the SS Marcula at 0600, 26 October, indicated an initial station assignment to Walnut. Actually, Vice Admiral Wallace M. Beakley, Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, had suggested the use of the Joseph P. Kennedy to assist in the Marcula visit and search as a symbolic gesture.

Table 3 provides the 12 ships’ initial station assignments on quarantine line Walnut by number and ship name, the distance of each ship from Cape Maysi at 2300, 23 October, and their distances from Cape Maysi and station numbers at 2000, 24 October, after official commencement of the quarantine operations.

Most importantly, one should note in Table 3 that the four ships of Destroyer Squadron 26, the USS Dewey (DLG-14), USS Leary (DD-879), USS John R. Pierce, and USS Steinaker (DD-863), which had departed from Norfolk, Virginia, were on a south-southeast course (149° true) and a speed of 22 knots at 2300, 23 October. They were 600 miles from Cape Maysi and heading southward toward their initial stations on the 500-mile Walnut line.

The six ships of Destroyer Squadron 16, the USS Bigelow, USS Gearing, USS William C. Lawe, USS McCaffery, USS Forrest Royal (DD-872), and USS Sellers, had departed Mayport, Florida (730 miles from Cape Maysi) and were on an east-southeast course (120° true) and a speed of 24 knots at 2300, 23 October. They were 300 miles from Cape Maysi and also heading toward their initial stations on the Walnut line.

The USS Macdonough (DLG-8) from Charleston, South Carolina, and the USS Witek (EDD-848) from Port Everglades, Florida, were in company on a southeasterly heading (140° true) at 23 knots at 2300, 23 October. They Were 385 miles from Cape Maysi, heading southeastward toward their initial stations on the Walnut line. It seems inclusively evident from the data in Table 3 that all ships signed to initial stations on the Walnut quarantine line Were clearly proceeding from their ports of departure, not an 800-mile arc, to the 500-mile arc at the time of the conversation between the Kennedys and Ormsby-Gore.

Two anomalies appear in Table 3 with respect to the initial station assignments of the Forrest Royal and the Bigelow to the Walnut line by their non-appearance on the Ene at the outset of the quarantine. Just prior to their arrival at assigned Walnut stations, these two ships were reasoned and, at about 0700, 24 October, rendezvoused with Eto USS Essex (CVS-9) to act as escorts. The Essex had Eeen in the Guantanamo Bay operating areas when ordered late in the evening of 23 October to an area in proximity to the Walnut line, ostensibly to provide early ASW air support for the destroyers involved in the initial quarantine operations.

Caldwell erroneously interpreted that “the records of Randolph, Pierce, Kennedy, Lawrence, Gearing, and Canberra strongly indicate that the blockading ships were initially stationed 800 miles from Cape Maysi and moved to a position 500 miles from Cuba.’’⁷ Caldwell’s data, as observed above, in no way support his hypothesis but father conclusively illustrate that the original quarantine line was 500 miles from Cape Maysi. While Allison ^agreed with the original 500 miles, he used the statements of other authors for his analysis rather than definitive primary source documentation.

Both Allison and Caldwell also neglected to consider the date and time, about 2300, 23 October, of the conversion between the Kennedys and Ormsby-Gore, and that 'he Navy had already implemented the orders that would officially begin the quarantine less than 12 hours later. In fight of the enormous amount of high-level planning for Premier Nikita Khrushchev with more time to make a decision.

Allison and Caldwell also seem to have overlooked or neglected the definitive data concerning the capabilities of Soviet and Cuban aircraft as threats to U.S. Navy ships on the quarantine line. The closest of such aircraft at Holguin (11 MiGs and 9 Il-28s) and Santa Clara (42 MiG-2 Is and 11 other MiGs) were 550 and 600 miles, respectively, from the closest stations on the 500-mile line. The 33 II- 28s at San Antonio de los Banos, outside of Havana, were 730 miles from the closest Walnut stations.⁸

Soviet technicians had not yet uncrated most of the II- 28s by 23 October and U.S. intelligence sources— low-flying Blue Moon photo-reconnaissance aircraft— provided specific information as to exactly how few. When finally put together from their recent arrival in Cuba in a crated condition, the U-28s still needed flight testing, and who would fly them? Photo evidence provided proof that only Soviet pilots flew the MiG-2 Is in Cuba, and it seems likely that the same would hold true for the Il-28s.⁹ Except in utter desperation, it seems highly unlikely that Khrushchev would have permitted offensive aircraft flown by Soviet pilots to attack U.S. Navy ships under any circumstances, much less at the absolute maximum aircraft combat range against U.S. men-of-war in international waters.

U.S. planners also knew of the deterrent value of the two attack carriers USS Independence (CVA-62) and USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), both operating northwest of the Bahamas from 21 to 23 October. From these positions, aircraft from the two carriers could have interdicted Soviet and Cuban aircraft heading toward ships on the Walnut line. It seems obvious that planners knew that the MiGs and Il-28s did not offer any valid threat and that their maximum operational radii from Cuban bases to even the Walnut line makes the idea of an 800-mile line highly unlikely.

Apparently Admiral Ward also thought so three days before the conversation between Kennedy and Ormsby-Gore ever took place. At a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) meeting three days earlier, at 2100 on 20 October, he strenuously objected to the 500 (not 800)-mile arc from Cape Maysi as being “excessive (author’s emphasis) and requiring too many ships.” JCS Chairman Maxwell Taylor concurred “in that the current intelligence indicated that the 11-28 bombers were not yet operational and that 180 miles (apparent JCS estimate of the MiG combat radius) would be outside of MIG range.”¹⁰ In post-crisis reports, both the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet substantiated that the initial quarantine station assignments were “on a 500 mile arc from Cape Maysi.”¹¹

The information contained in Admiral Ward’s statement reveals that not only had Taylor erred concerning his recollection in the letter to Caldwell 16 years later, but, more importantly, that the JCS had concurred by 20 October to using not more than a 500-mile arc from Cape Maysi for the initial quarantine line in accordance with a presidential order.

From the known facts, the President made the final decision in choosing a quarantine in favor of other actions in the late afternoon or early evening of October 20. From this point, the most likely scenario would have had Secretary of Defense McNamara direct the JCS to provide a specific quarantine plan for approval. Thus, the JCS meeting that evening described by Admiral Ward would appropriately fit such a scenario.

Surely, some discussion concerning the distance of the quarantine line took place between the President and British ambassador. But had John Kennedy merely stated that he had originally considered 800 miles and then ordered it changed to 500 miles to give Khrushchev more time, or had he requested some advice from Orsmby-Gore? Did the British ambassador respond to such a question from the President, did he volunteer the suggestion to change the distance, or did Ormsby-Gore merely agree with a comment by the President that he had already changed the distance? We have only Robert Kennedy’s account of a conversation on the subject.

The possibility also exists that either no one informed John Kennedy of the distance change, he forgot it, or he had misunderstood that the Navy had already carried out such a change as he had ordered previously. Other possibilities come to mind not suggested by either Allison or Caldwell. The President may have wanted to stroke Ormsby-Gore’s ego by diplomatically flattering the ambassador into thinking that he had contributed to solving the dilemma. When Robert Kennedy arrived, he may have entered after the conversation and misunderstood the facts.

Whatever took place during that discussion, neither the geographic, logistical, military, nor political conditions indicate any basis for either of the Allison or Caldwell hypotheses. The facts simply do not support the former's thesis that the Navy disobeyed a presidential order or the latter’s theory that the Navy changed the quarantine line from 800 to 500 miles from Cape Maysi. Along with the quarantine ships’ deck log entries, the facts indicate that the JCS agreed by 20 October upon a presidential directive for the quarantine line to lie on a 500-mile arc from Cape Maysi, and that the quarantine force proceeded to the initial station assignments along that arc, arriving on stations by the official commencement of the quarantine at 1000. 24 October 1962.

A Name Does Not a Flier Make

I was ordered to Jacksonville in November 1940 as a chief flight instructor in PBYs. The site had been picked out by the Hepburn Board to establish a base. Originally it was supposed to be a fleet base, but because of the war and the requirements and need for training, it was made initially into a training establishment only, with both flight training and technical training going on there. We had four or five training squadrons.

We went off and ferried planes from all over the country. The first airplanes we got were “Yellow Perils.” I brought back a flight in the middle of winter. It was colder than hell, those open cockpit jobs, when I brought them back to Jax. Then I brought back a flight of three SNJs from the West Coast. They were getting the smaller planes first.

Jacksonville became a technical training center too. The complex eventually had 35,000 personnel on board, more aviation people than there were in the whole South Pacific. We had 24 airplanes, 80 instructors, 800 maintenance personnel, and 200 students.

In addition to the training, we flew the convoy protection patrol, antisubmarine patrol between Cape Hatteras and Banana River. There were 12 of us, among the 80, who were fleet designated patrol plane commanders (PPCs). So we got a hell of a workout. We knocked people off at either 110 or 120 hours a month. That was enough.

You get pretty dam weary of instructing and going out on these damn patrols. We took our students with us when we went out on patrols, and that’s what we were, an operational training squadron.

One of our students in October 1941 was Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. I got this telephone call about 11 o’clock one night, and the voice on the other end said, “My name is So and so. I’m the secretary to Senator David Walsh [Democrat-Massachusetts].”

And I said, “Yes?”

And he continued, “You’re the commanding officer of an aviation cadet named Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.”

And I replied, “No, you’re mistaken. I’m not his commanding officer. I’m the chief flight instructor in the squadron in which he is now training. This is his last squadron before he gets his wings.”

And he said, “Well, Senator Walsh is very, very much interested in this student, and he wants to be sure he’s going to get his wings.”

I said, “Well, Senator Walsh notwithstanding, if Mr. Kennedy gets his wings, he’s going to earn them. I know he's the son of a prominent man, but he has to earn his wings. Otherwise he’s going to kill himself or kill somebody else.”

This fellow was getting pretty uppity. I finally said, “If you’ll excuse me now. I’ll hang up. It’s getting late.” So I hung up. About an hour later the phone rang again. The voice on the other end was the same guy, but he obviously had been drinking. He said in sort of a garbled tone, “I don’t think you seem to realize how important this is, but Senator Walsh is very, very angry about this, and he is adamant that Kennedy get his wings.”

And I said, “The answer is exactly the same. If he can earn his wings, he’ll get them, and we’ll be glad to give them to him. But he has to earn them. He’s a good student. I have no reason to expect that he won’t get his wings, but he has to earn them.”

These students had probably about 150 hours, maybe 200, before they reached our squadron, which was the last one. They flew approximately 100 hours in our squadron before they earned their wings. The total syllabus, then, was close to 300 hours, give or take. We had practically no attrition rate in the big seaplanes. By the time they got to us, I remember very few people were turned away. So there wasn’t much chance of failing.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was coming up for his final check in a couple of days. So the next morning I went to the skipper of the squadron. Bill Hamilton, and told him what had happened. He said, “Well, in view of the political aspects of this thing, we don’t know whether this man was really talking for Senator Walsh or not.” (Walsh was chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee.) “I think you’d better go up and tell Captain Mason what happened so he’ll be aware of it.”

So I went up and told Captain Charlie Mason, who was Commanding Officer, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville, and he said, ‘‘You did exactly right. You gave him the right answer. I think you’d better stay out of this. Don’t you check him.” (Kennedy wasn’t a student of mine, but I did a lot of the final checks on people.) “Let somebody else do it.”

I went back to the squadron and told Hamilton what Mason had said. Lieutenant Commander Jake Gorton was there, a World War I reservist from Boston, the same place the Kennedys were from. So Jake said, “I’ll check him. I know the Kennedy family. But I’ll tell you, there’s not going to be any family mixed up in this. He’s going to earn it.”

Well, Jake took Kennedy out in an airplane, and they were gone about two hours. I remember when they got back, they came in soaking wet with perspiration. Jake said, “Well, goddamn it, he can do it. I pulled every dirty trick on him that I could possibly think of, and he responded to all of them properly. He’s a good kid. If anybody else wants to check him, go right ahead. But as far as I’m concerned, he can have his wings.”

So Kennedy got his wings.

Excerpted from the Naval Institute's oral history of Rear Admiral Francis D. Foley. USN (Ret.)