This history by the CIA was issued in August 2019. It examines in more detail how CIA's growing capability to do independent analysis of the Soviet military threat led to major disagreements with the U.S. armed services over Soviet military capabilities and intentions, beginning in the Dulles era. Much has already been written about these controversies and how they played out. This history will focus primarily on the role that key CIA leaders and managers played in the development of the Agency's military analytic capabilities, rather than on the controversies themselves. It will also provide detailed information on how OSR was formed and on those individuals who contributed heavily to its success.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.The first chapter of this history of OSR examines the Dulles era and the key people involved in the growing capability of ORR to do independent Soviet military force assessments. This capability grew out of CIA's efforts to use a building-block approach to better define the Soviet defense budget, partially by attempting to more precisely estimate the cost of Soviet weapons production. Dulles initially believed strongly that the military services had been given the authority to produce military intelligence for policymakers and that CIA should not challenge the results of such efforts. He changed his view with the advent of the so-called bomber and missile-gap controversies in the late 1950s. The controversies were not fully resolved until the development of new satellite photographic collection capabilities in the early 1960s led to more accurate assessments of Soviet strategic forces. Chapter two focuses on the significant growth of CIA's capability to do strategic military analysis in the early 1960s during the tenure of DCI John McCone. President John F. Kennedy appointed McCone to replace Allen Dulles in November 1961 in the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle. Unlike Dulles, McCone believed strongly that CIA needed to do its own independent analysis and make key judgments on a wide range of topics, including strategic military intelligence, without having to rely on input from DoD. In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, McCone also argued that CIA needed to be informed about what was happening in defense policy so the DCI could provide President Kennedy with the kinds of intelligence support he expected. As a result, under McCone, CIA's support to national policymakers became more frequent and direct, and such interactions were no longer tied primarily to NIEs.The Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962 represented a significant intelligence success for McCone and his new senior DI leadership team in providing detailed military intelligence support to the president and senior policymakers. As a result, CIA's intelligence support to Pentagon planners began to expand dramatically, and CIA also began to provide Soviet intelligence analysis to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). China's strategic weapons programs got new attention, as did Soviet ground forces. These efforts required closer interaction between CIA and the newly formed DIA, and conflicts began to develop between the two organizations over roles and responsibilities. Finally, the process for producing NIEs on Soviet strategic military forces began to change significantly as a result of the new DoD requirements for more comprehensive analysis of the Soviet military establishment.

This Letort Paper provides a detailed chronology and analysis of the intelligence failures and successes of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author, Mr. Kenneth Absher, contends that, when our national security is at stake, the United States should not hesitate to undertake risky intelligence collection operations, including espionage, to penetrate our adversary’s deceptions. At the same time, the United States must also understand that our adversary may not believe the gravity of our policy warnings or may not allow its own agenda to be influenced by U.S. diplomatic pressure. As both a student of and key participant in the events of the crisis, the author is able to provide in-depth analysis of the failures and successes of the national intelligence community and executive leadership during the build-up to the confrontation, and the risky but successful actions which led to its peaceful settlement. From his analysis, the author suggests considerations relevant to the collection, analysis, and use of intelligence which have continuing application.

In 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, CIA-trained and -organized Cuban exiles aiming to overthrow Fidel Castro were soundly defeated. Most were taken prisoner by Cuban armed forces. Fearing another U.S. invasion of its new ally, the Soviet Union sneaked into Cuba strategic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads and Soviet troops armed with tactical nuclear weapons. However, a U-2 spy plane flight would soon find the Soviet missile sites, thus sparking the famous missile crisis. For thirteen terrifying days, the world watched nervously as the two superpowers moved toward escalation, holding the world s fate in their hands. Finally, Nikita Khrushchev blinked. He agreed to withdraw the weapons from Cuba in return for John F. Kennedy s pledge not to invade the island.But what if it had not turned out this way? What if the U-2 flight had been delayed? If the confrontation had set off a nuclear war, what would have happened to the United States and Soviet Union in 1962? What kind of account would a historian have written in a world scarred by nuclear war?Eric G. Swedin draws on research made available after the Soviet Union s collapse to examine what could have happened. Top U.S. military officers all urged stronger action against Cuba than the naval blockade, including a bombing campaign and even a full-scale invasion. Unknown to the Americans, meanwhile, the Soviet Union had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and were prepared to use them.The 1962 crisis had many possible outcomes. Positing an alternate history helps us better appreciate the dangers of that tense time. Such counterfactual speculation shows what the Cuban missile crisis could have wrought and how it was truly one of the most important moments of the twentieth century."

This edited volume addresses the main lessons and legacies of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis from a global perspective. Despite the discoveries of recent research, there is still much more to be revealed about the handling of nuclear weapons before and during the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC). Featuring contributions from a number of eminent international scholars of nuclear history, intelligence, espionage, political science and Cold War studies, An International History of the Cuban Missile Crisis reviews and reflects on one of the critical moments of the Cold War, focussing on three key areas. First, the volume highlights the importance of memory as an essential foundation of historical understanding and demonstrates how events that rely only on historical records can provide misleading accounts. This focus on memory extends the scope of the existing literature by exploring hitherto neglected aspects of the CMC, including an analysis of the operational aspects of Bomber Command activity, explored through recollections of the aircrews that challenge accounts based on official records. The editors then go on to explore aspects of intelligence whose achievements and failings have increasingly been recognised to be of central importance to the origins, dynamics and outcomes of the missile crisis. Studies of hitherto neglected organisations such as the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) both extend our understanding of British and American intelligence machinery in this period and enrich our understanding of key episodes and assessments in the missile crisis. Finally, the book explores the risk of nuclear war and looks at how close we came to nuclear conflict. The risk of inadvertent use of nuclear weapons is evaluated and a new proposed framework for the analysis of nuclear risk put forward. This volume will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, international history, foreign policy, security studies and IR in general.

This book shows how President Kennedy and his brother Robert used this information to bring about the withdrawal of the missiles without war.

This Letort Paper provides a detailed chronology and analysis of the intelligence failures and successes of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and suggests the applicability of lessons learned to the collection, analysis, and use of intelligence in strategic decisionmaking. The author was assigned to Sherman Kent's Office of National Estimates (ONE) after completing his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Junior Officer Training Program in June 1962. He was one of two analysts for Latin America in Kent's ONE. He was a participant in the drafting of every National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) on Cuba and the Soviet military build-up from June 1962 to February 1963. This paper describes how the crisis unfolded using the author's personal recollection, declassified documents, and many memoirs written by senior CIA officers and others who were participants. Lessons learned include the need to avoid having our political, analytical and intelligence collection mind-sets prevent us from acquiring and accurately analyzing intelligence about our adversaries true plans and intentions. When our national security is at stake, we should not hesitate to undertake risky intelligence collection operations including espionage, to penetrate our adversary's deceptions. We must also understand that our adversaries may not believe the gravity of our policy warnings or allow their own agendas to be influenced by diplomatic pressure. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided secretly to place offensive missiles in Cuba, he clearly did not believe President John Kennedy would use military action to enforce U.S. policy warnings against such a deployment. Lacking hard intelligence to the contrary, the American Intelligence Community (IC) also issued a failed SNIE on September 19, 1962, stating Khrushchev would not place offensive missiles in Cuba. The Soviets had never before placed such missiles outside the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Warsaw Pact and the IC believed that Khrushchev certainly would not run the risk of a U.S. military response to such a provocation. Thanks to the leadership of the Director of Central Intelligence and the President, the United States overcame a political mind set against scheduling U-2 flights directly over Cuba where they risked being shot down by Soviet surface-to-air missiles. Intelligence from an espionage agent was used by the historic U-2 flight to photograph the SS-4 medium range missiles being installed in western Cuba. An analysis of this and subsequent U-2 photography utilizing the operational manuals of the Soviet offensive missiles provided clandestinely enabled the IC to tell the President how much time he had prior to each missile site becoming operational. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev finally agreed to withdraw the missiles, bombers, and nuclear weapons after being convinced that the United States was preparing to launch a massive bombing and invasion of Cuba. The author concluded that such U.S. military operations were within 48-72 hours of being launched when Khrushchev publicly said the missiles would be withdrawn. There was a last minute understanding that Jupiter missiles would probably be withdrawn later from Turkey if Soviet missiles were first withdrawn from Cuba. But imminent U.S. military action was what convinced Khrushchev that the missiles had to be withdrawn.

Presents a detailed description of the events, issues, and personalities involved in the lead-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fateful thirteen days in October, offering an incisive analysis of one of the pivotal events of the Cold War.

Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."