For Immediate Release: December 2, 2003
Further information: Ann Scanlon (617) 514-1662
Boston, MA – The John F. Kennedy Library today announced that it has declassified and made available for research more than 10 hours of presidential recordings that include several meetings and conversations that took place in the Cabinet Room and Oval Office of the White House from February 25, 1963 to April 8, 1963. The release incorporates tape numbers 76 to 79.
Although 40 years that have passed since these discussions took place, many of the subjects reflect enduring issues faced by American Presidents in the modern world: guerillas backed by a regime hostile to the United States, debate on the role of the United Nations in response to foreign policy crises, the appropriate function of Congress in treaty legislation, the India-Pakistan and Arab-Israeli conflicts, economic trade issues with Europe and the protection of American economic interests, and even the Cuban people’s struggle and their need for hope.
The Kennedy Library and Museum is providing members of the media with a CD-ROM containing approximately 20 minutes of excerpts. Highlights included on this CD-ROM include:
Cuba and the export of “terrorists”
On Tape 78, in a March 13, 1963 meeting, CIA Director John McCone and President Kennedy discuss a recent Time magazine article that described the flooding of sabotage experts, whom the President refers to as “terrorists”, from Cuba to the rest of Latin America. After a colorful exchange between McCone and the President regarding the use of the word “flood”, its accuracy and their phone conversations with Henry Luce on the article, the President asks:
“I wonder what kind of information we’ve got on what happens to those that go into Cuba.…How many of them really become active party members who are doing terrorist work, sabotage work or work within the trade unions which is peaceful but under communist discipline.” Secretary of State Dean Rusk adds, “The Cuban business does illustrate the overriding importance of prevention compared with curing the situation.”
Edward R. Murrow on Cuba’s hope for the future
In Tape 78, the March 13, 1963 meeting on Cuba, USIA Director Edward R. Murrow explains to the President that through radio broadcasts:
“We can tell the people of Cuba a little about what is going on in Cuba and a lot more about what is going on in the rest of the world. But the essential ingredient that is missing in our output is hope. We are unable to talk to them in terms of any future. …Our primary need, I think, is to present to the Cuban people some vision of what their country can become once, in one way or another, they get out from under the grip of the communists.”
In response to Murrow’s request for long range planning, the President stated:
“What you really need is almost a government in exile” who would decide “what kind of Cuba they want”. It was also pointed out to the President that after World War II, “exiles seldom went home and when they did they didn’t last long.”
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland on the role of the United Nations
On Tape 78, during the March 11, 1963 Yemen meeting, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland provide interesting observations on the role of the United Nations in military conflicts. Rusk states:
“I would like myself to see the UN involved in this contingency because if it deteriorates I think it is very important that the UN be in it ….Now I think that there is a little tendency for the people at the UN to start acting like a Foreign Office instead of like the United Nations.”
Cleveland later adds:
“But from our point of view, if we downgrade the UN’s international look by having them look too much like a cat’s paw, then it is going to be too hard to use them later when it is going to be even more necessary to get a seal of approval on the final disengagement deal.”
Robert F. Kennedy on Nikita Khrushchev
On Tape 79, during a April 5, 1963 meeting about the USSR, Attorney General Robert Kennedy provides an overview of his recent meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin in which Dobrynin relates a talking paper from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, written in a very angry tone. The point of the discussion was to try and open up a channel of communication with Khrushchev. Robert Kennedy thought that Khrushchev “had gotten into some difficulty or problem and was having a struggle of some kind and wanted to prove how tough he was …and by talking loud and yelling and standing up that everything would be equal again.” Robert Kennedy also expresses surprise at Khrushchev’s lack of understanding of the United States system of government, stating:
“This idea is so backward, that the country’s run by capitalists and monopolists who want to make war profits… This is the kind of stuff I heard from the communist students in Japan.”
President Kennedy on the role of Congress in treaty ratification
On Tape 78, in a March 22, 1963 meeting, while discussing Congress and its negative reaction to the creation of multilateral military force with our European allies, President Kennedy tells his concerned staff not to worry about Congress since Congress’ function is to “agree to ratification not to make the treaty. …Hell, if you ask the Congress they are going to say no to everything …. We ought to go up and just give them the deal for the Congress to accept or reject. I voted for the Eisenhower Resolution for the Middle East which I thought was lousy, but the alternative of rejecting it was worse. ”
Undersecretary of State George Ball on the responsibility of our European allies
On Tape 78, earlier in that March 22, 1963 meeting, Undersecretary of State George Ball comments on how the United States should be approaching the European allies with the multilateral force idea, stating:
“We think [the MLF idea] is very desirable as a means of sharing the nuclear responsibility because we believe that with Europe we are going to have to share a lot of things. Europe is going to have to share in the financing of world responsibilities. Europe is going to have to share on the helping of the less developed countries and Europe is going to have to share in defense. …I think that we deceive ourselves (that) we could rather dangle this before them and say, if you want this you can have it but we really don’t care whether you take it or not, and expect that we will get any kind of a really firm decision on it. I think that it is contrary to the habits of a great power to play that role of appearing to be too tentative.”
President Kennedy on the importance of protecting US economic interests
On Tape 78, in a February 27, 1963 meeting, the President and his staff meet to discuss tariff and trade issues with Europe. In a strong response to Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Carl Kaysen’s request that the US should consider a compromise on some agricultural policy and price fixing issues, the President states:
“I am not sure of that. We’ve done enough of that …I think that we ought to put everything just to make sure our economic condition is protected. I think everything else will be all right. [But] the minute they don’t need us in the financial end is when we are having trouble. So I think that we ought to be awfully tough and make no more grand gestures…. Let the Europeans worry about themselves politically. I think we just want to make sure that we are protected economically - that’s where they’ll screw us.”
President Kennedy and Walt Rostow discuss the India/Pakistan and Arab/Israeli conflicts
On April 8, 1963, the President met with Walt Rostow, from the Department of State, about Rostow’s recent trip to India and Pakistan. The President asks if the India and Pakistani conflict is “worse than the Arabs and Israelis” to which Rostow initially answers no.
In response the President inquires, “because religious hostility isn’t there so much with the Arabs is it?”
Rostow then reflects on his answer saying, “maybe I shouldn’t be so fast, maybe fundamentally it [India-Pakistan] is tougher … like a fight in the family.”
Other subject areas included in this tape release include military relations with Europe, aid to Brazil, Yemeni - Saudi Arabian relations, and the steel wage and price increases.
This complete release totals 10 hours and 27 minutes of recordings of which 3 minutes 59 seconds remain classified. Approximately 90 hours of meeting tapes remain to be reviewed for declassification prior to release. Processing of the presidential recordings will continue to be conducted in the chronological order of the tapes. Please note that on tape #77 there is one meeting which is currently closed pending further review; this meeting was not listed in the total minutes for this opening.
The Kennedy Library and Museum is providing members of the media with a CD-ROM containing approximately 20 minutes of excerpts. The eight sound files were selected because of their sound quality and because the subject matter is familiar to most Americans. Members of the media are cautioned against making historical conclusions based on the sound clips alone. They are provided as a professional courtesy to facilitate the reporting of the release of these presidential recordings.
The first items from the presidential recordings were opened to public research in June of 1983. Over the past 20 years, the Library staff has reviewed and opened all of the telephone conversations and a large portion of the meeting tapes. The latter are predominantly meetings with President Kennedy in either the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room. While the recordings were deliberate in the sense that it required manual operation to start and stop the recording, it was not, based on the material recorded, used with daily regularity nor was there a set pattern for its operation. The tapes represent raw historical material. The sound quality of the recordings varies widely. Although most of the recorded conversation is understandable, the tapes include passages of extremely poor sound quality with considerable background noise and periods where the identity of the speakers is unclear.
Today’s release of White House meetings is in tape form without transcripts. The tapes are available for research use in the Library’s Research Room. The hours of operation are Monday – Friday from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm and appointments may be made by calling (617) 514-1629. The recordings and finding guide are available for purchase at the John F. Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, or by calling the Audiovisual Department (617) 514-1617.
To document the life and career of President Kennedy and to provide insight into people, events, and issues of mid-20th century American history, the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum collects, preserves and makes available for research the documents, audiovisual material and memorabilia of President Kennedy, his family, and his contemporaries. The Library's Archives includes 48 million pages of documents from the collections of 340 individuals, organizations, or government agencies; oral history interviews with 1,300 people; and more than 30,000 books. The Audiovisual Archives administers collections of more than 200,000 still photographs, 7,550,000 feet of motion picture film, 1,200 hours of video recordings, over 7,000 hours of audio recordings and 500 original editorial cartoons.
The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.