Gallery moment · 1962-10-27
Simulation, labeled as simulation. Nothing a figure says here is a quote.
Black Saturday: the ExComm decides between a strike and a trade
Late afternoon on the twelfth day. A U-2 has been shot down over Cuba and its pilot killed. Khrushchev's private letter of Friday offered withdrawal for a no-invasion pledge; his public letter this morning added the Jupiter missiles in Turkey. The Joint Chiefs want the air strike on Monday, followed by invasion. Thompson argues the first letter can still be answered as if the second never came. Robert Kennedy will carry a private assurance about the Jupiters to Ambassador Dobrynin tonight. The room does not know that Soviet forces in Cuba hold tactical nuclear weapons.
Seats
- President: John F. Kennedy
- Attorney General: Robert F. Kennedy
- Secretary of Defense: Robert S. McNamara
- Secretary of State: Dean Rusk
- National Security Adviser: McGeorge Bundy
- Ambassador-at-large, Soviet affairs: Llewellyn Thompson
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: Gen. Maxwell Taylor
- Special Counsel: Theodore Sorensen
Endings
- What happened: Kennedy answers the first letter in public and sends his brother to Dobrynin with a private assurance on the Jupiters. On Oct 28 Khrushchev announces the missiles will be withdrawn. · Route
- The fork: The air strike on the missile sites goes ahead on Oct 29 and the crisis still ends by Nov 15 without a nuclear detonation anywhere. · No route
Sources
- Summary Record of the Eighth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council - Cuban Missile Crisis - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
- October 27, 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
- Part II Crisis-October 16 - 28, Documents 46-107
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- October 27, 1962
- Episode 4: Black Saturday | JFK Library
- TWE Remembers: Black Saturday—Near Calamities Abound as JFK Offers Khrushchev a Deal (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Twelve) | Council on Foreign Relations
- Historical Documents - Office of the Historian