MCCONE SAYS MISSILES IN CUBA ARE TO PRESSURE AMERICAN POSITION IN WEST BERLIN
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On the morning of October 17, 1962, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM*) met at the State Department here in the Nation's Capital on what was to be the second day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
President John F. Kennedy was not present at the meeting.
Central Intelligence Agency director John McCone**, according to leading authority on foreign policy James M. Lindsay, was present at the meeting and believed that Premier Nikita Khrushchev had Russian nuclear missiles placed in Cuba to put pressure on the American position in West Berlin.
*Excomm, composed of a dozen U.S. government officials along with the POTUS, met during the missile crisis in the Cabinet Room of the West Wing of the White House.
**John Alexander McCone (1902-1991) was born in San Francisco & graduated from University of California, Berkeley, 1922. JAM served on the Atomic Energy Commission, 1958-1961 & as CIA director 1961-1965.
SOURCE
"The Water's Edge: A Council on Foreign Policy Blog," by James M. Lindsay.
