The Secret Sentry (11 page)

Maximum Effort

At seven p.m. on Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy, in a nationally televised broadcast, informed the American people
that the Soviet Union had placed offensive nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba that were capable of striking targets throughout
most of the United States. The president also declared an immediate quarantine of Cuba and ordered the U.S. Navy to stop and
search any ships suspected of carry ing weapons there. At the same moment that Kennedy began his speech, all U.S. armed forces
around the world went to DEFCON-3 alert status. For the next two days, the world seemed to teeter on the brink of nuclear
disaster.

October 23 was a day that no one who was then working at NSA would ever forget. Within hours of Kennedy’s speech, the Russian
military forces in Cuba began to communicate openly among themselves and with Moscow.
⁷³
Shortly after midnight on the morning of October 23, NSA detected two high-level enciphered radioteletype links carrying communications
traffic for the first time between the Soviet Union and a Russian military radio station in Cuba located near the town of
Bauta, outside Havana. The first link appeared to be primarily associated with Russian naval radio traffic, while the second
link, the analysts concluded, was reserved for high-level communications between Moscow and the commander of the Soviet forces
in Cuba.
⁷⁴
At almost the same time, a Soviet air defense radio network inside Cuba suddenly appeared on the airwaves, which intercepts
showed linked the commander of the Soviet air defense forces in Havana with all Soviet radar stations, SA-2 Guideline SAM
sites, and AAA batteries throughout Cuba.
⁷⁵
NSA also intercepted a high-precedence message from the Soviet air force headquarters in Moscow asking if the navigational
beacons at a number of Soviet strategic-bomber dispersal bases in the Arctic were in proper working order. The intercept caused
chills in Washington, because the Russians never deployed strategic bombers to the Arctic dispersal bases except for exercises
or during periods of heightened alert, and this was definitely not an exercise.
⁷⁶
There was also a sudden and dramatic increase in Cuban military radio traffic immediately following the president’s speech,
with one intercepted message confirmed that the Cuban armed forces had just been placed on the “highest degree of alert.”
⁷⁷

At one fifty-seven a.m., the Morse intercept operators at the U.S. Navy listening post in Cheltenham, Mary land, intercepted
the first of a series of high-precedence messages sent by the Soviet merchant marine’s main radio station, outside Odesa,
to each of the twenty-two Soviet merchant ships or tankers heading for Cuba. The messages were apparently a warning for the
ship captains tostand by to receive an extremely important message from Moscow. Twenty-five minutes later, at two twenty-two
a.m., the intercept operators heard the first Morse code preamble of a high-priority enciphered message being sent from Moscow
to all twenty-two ships. After finishing copying the lengthy message, the intercept operators immediately put it on the teletype
and sent it to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade to see if the analysts could read it. Unfortunately, NSA’s cryptanalysts could
not read the cipher used with the message, but given that this particular cipher system was only used in emergencies, it appeared
that whatever Moscow had told the Russian ships approaching the quarantine line that the U.S. Navy was manning around Cuba
was important. So the American, Canadian, and British radio intercept operators at listening posts around the Atlantic periphery,
together with the intelligence analysts at Fort Meade, got themselves ready for what they knew was going to be a very eventful
day to come.
⁷⁸

They did not have long to wait. Starting at about five a.m., NSA’s listening posts situated around the periphery of the Soviet
Union began reporting that the level of Soviet military communications traffic throughout Russia and Eastern Eu rope was rising
rapidly, indicating that the Soviet military had moved to a higher alert status. That afternoon, the U.S. Navy listening post
in Key West, Florida, intercepted an order from the commander of Cuban naval forces instructing patrol boats to immediately
take up patrol stations off the eastern Cuban coast at Banes and Santiago Bay.
⁷⁹

As the day progressed, the two dozen or so U.S. Navy, British, and Canadian direction-finding stations ringing the Atlantic
continuously monitored every radio transmission going to or from the twenty-two Soviet merchant ships approaching the Cuba
quarantine line, in order to track the movements of the Russian ships. By twelve noon, the U.S. Navy’s direction-finding stations
began reporting to NSA that their tracking data indicated that some of the Russian merchant ships had stopped dead in the
water, and that it seemed that at least eight of the ships had reversed course and were headed back toward Russia. The SIGINT
data, however, had not yet been confirmed by visual observation, so ONI did not forward the information to the White House,
the Pentagon, or the CIA.
⁸⁰

The information about the Soviet ships would have certainly affected the discussion at a six p.m. meeting at the White House
between President Kennedy and his national security advisers. As far as an increasingly apprehensive Kennedy and his advisers
knew, the Soviet merchant ships were all still sailing straight for Cuba. But thanks to NSA, the president knew that something
was afoot. Attorney General Kennedy later wrote in his memoirs, “During the course of this meeting, we learned that an extraordinary
number of coded messages had been sent to all the Russian ships on their way to Cuba. What they said we did not know then,
nor do we know now, but it was clear that the ships as of that moment were still straight on course.”
⁸¹

Later that evening, the director of ONI, Rear Admiral Vernon Lowrance, was informed of the latest intelligence about the courses
of the Soviet merchant ships approaching Cuba, but for reasons not easily explained he decided not to inform the White House,
the Pentagon, or the CIA until the reports had been verified by U.S. Navy warships and reconnaissance aircraft. CIA director
McCone was awakened in the middle of the night by a telephone call from the CIA duty officer and was told that ONI was sitting
on unconfirmed intelligence indicating that the Russian freighters had turned about before reaching the quarantine line.
⁸²

Wednesday, October 24, did not start well. At two thirty a.m. the Morse intercept operators at Cheltenham and other intercept
stations began picking up the first parts of an extremely urgent message being sent from the Soviet merchant fleet’s primary
radio station at Odesa to all twenty-two Soviet cargo vessels and tankers sailing toward Cuba. A few minutes after the message
ended, the captains of the Soviet vessels received another message from Odesa telling them that from that point onward “all
orders would come from Moscow.”
⁸³

At about the same time that this was happening, U.S. Navy listening posts picked up a series of burst radio transmissions
from Moscow to a number of Soviet submarines operating in the North Atlantic, along with the replies from the submarines themselves.
A “burst transmission” is one in which the message is compressed electronically and the information packed into the “burst”
takes only seconds to be transmitted and received. NSA had been tracking the radio transmissions of these submarines since
September 27, when SIGINT detected four Soviet Foxtrot-class attack submarines departing Northern Fleet naval bases on the
Kola Peninsula for what was then thought to be a naval exercise in the Barents Sea.
⁸⁴
But three weeks later, the subs reappeared. Not in the Barents Sea, but several hundreds of miles to the south, in the North
Atlantic, escorting the Soviet merchant vessels approaching Cuba. Although NSA could not unscramble the transmissions, by
examining the taped signals and direction-finding data, a team of analysts in NSA’s Soviet Submarine Division headed by a
talented cryptanalyst, Lieutenant Norman Klar, were able to ascertain that there were three or four Russian attack submarines
operating in close proximity to the Soviet ships.
⁸⁵

At nine a.m., ONI finally informed the chief of naval operations, Admiral George Anderson, that preliminary direction-finding
data coming from NSA indicated that some of the Russian merchant ships in the North Atlantic had either stopped dead in the
water or reversed course. As incredible as it may sound, Anderson decided
not
to tell Secretary McNamara of this new intelligence for the same reason given earlier by Rear Admiral Lowrence of ONI—it had
not been confirmed by visual sightings. A declassified Top Secret U.S. Navy history of the Cuban Missile Crisis states, “About
0900Q, [Secretary of Defense McNamara] received astandard merchant ship briefing. At the same time, Flag Plot in the Pentagon
received the first directional fix report that some Soviet vessels bound for Cuba had reversed course. This information was
inconclusive and Mr. McNamara was not informed.”
⁸⁶

At President Kennedy’s ten a.m. meeting at the White House with his senior national security advisers, the news delivered
by CIA director McCone was not good. New U-2 imagery showed that the Russians had accelerated their work on completing the
ballistic missile sites in Cuba, and the latest intelligence showed that twenty-two Russian merchant ships were still steaming
toward the quarantine line. Inside the USSR and Eastern Eu rope, all indications appearing in SIGINT showed that the Russians
were still bringing some but not all of their military forces to a higher state of readiness. NSA intercepts showed that Soviet
air force flight activity was at normal peacetime levels, although Soviet strategic bomber flight activity was significantly
below normal operating levels, and there were additional indications that the Russians were about to deploy a unit of strategic
bombers to Arctic forward staging bases. Earlier that morning, a U.S. Navy listening post in southern Florida intercepted
a directive from Cuban armed forces headquarters in Havana to all Cuban air defense units instructing them not to fire on
American aircraft flying over Cuban airspace except in self-defense.
⁸⁷

It was not until noon that Admiral Anderson finally told Secretary McNamara that the latest direction-finding tracking data
coming out of NSA had revealed that fourteen of the twenty-two Soviet merchant ships bound for Cuba had suddenly reversed
course after receiving extended high-precedence enciphered radio transmissions from Moscow. By the end of the day, SIGINT
and aerial surveillance had confirmed that all of the Soviet merchant ships bound for Cuba either had come to a dead halt
in the water or had reversed course and were headed back to the Soviet Union.
⁸⁸
When McNamara was told that the navy had sat on this critically important information for more than twelve hours without telling
anyone, an NSA history reports, the secretary of defense “subjected Admiral Anderson, the Chief of Naval Operations, to an
abusive tirade.” Why the navy did not pass on this vital information remains a mystery. But the retreat of the Soviet merchant
ships did not end the crisis.
⁸⁹

On Friday, October 26, NSA confirmed that all Soviet and Warsaw Pact ground and air forces in Eastern Europe and throughout
the Euro pean portion of the Soviet Union had been placed on an increased state of alert. SIGINT also confirmed that some
Soviet army units had suddenly left their barracks in East Germany and moved to concentration points closer to the border
with West Germany; Soviet military exercises and training activity in East Germany had been stepped up; and even more Soviet
tactical aircraft based in East Germany had been placed on five-minute-alert status. COMINT confirmed that an unknown number
of ships and submarines from the Soviets’ North and Baltic Sea Fleets had hastily sortied from their home ports, and that
Soviet naval units had stepped up their surveillance of the entrance to the Baltic Sea.
⁹⁰

As the level of tension and apprehension increased, NSA director Blake became increasingly concerned about the close proximity
of the
Oxford
to the Cuban shoreline, which left the unarmed ship highly vulnerable to attack by Cuban or Russian forces if war broke out.
The Cubans had vigorously complained to the U.N. Security Council about the
Oxford
’s continued presence off Havana.
⁹¹
At a ten a.m. meeting with President Kennedy on October 26, the question of what to do with the
Oxford
came up, and Secretary McNamara urged the president to pull the ship back so as to prevent a possible incident. He later noted,
“The Navy was very much concerned about the vulnerability of this ship and the loss of security if its personnel were captured
. . . It seemed wise to draw it out 20, 30 miles to take it out of range of capture, at least temporarily.”
⁹²
The
Oxford
was ordered to pull back to a distance of thirty miles from the Cuban coastline until further notice.
⁹³

The Cuban Missile Crisis hit its peak on Saturday, October 27, which many NSA staffers remember as the scariest of the entire
crisis, particularly for those at NSA headquarters, where the agency’s intelligence analysts knew how dire the situation really
was. NSA official Harold Parish, who was then working on the Cuban problem, recalled, “The [Soviet] ships were getting close
to the [quarantine] lines . . . It was a scary time for those of us who had a little bit of access to information which wasn’t
generally available.”
⁹⁴
The news coming out of Fort Meade was ominous. NSA reported that its listening posts had detected the Cuban military mobilizing
at a “high rate,” but that these forces remained “under orders not to take any hostile action unless attacked.” In East Germany,
intercepted radio traffic showed that selected Russian combat units were continuing to increase their readiness levels, although
no significant troop movements had been noted in SIGINT or other intelligence sources.
⁹⁵