BEHIND THE SCENES...THE 'CRISIS CABINET'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010018-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 7, 2014
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: November 2, 1962
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE
RIM/ e) 10C9 STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010018-8
the ,p n o o
(3-Fr /3 4ili
By David Wise
Of The Herald Tribune Staff
WASHINGTON.
The-Cuban crises has brought to public
view the "inner group" that for many
months has been acting as President
?Kennedy's foreign policy and national
!security team. ?
Behind the ?scenes at the White House
for the past ? three weeks, this "Crisis
cabinet" hs been meeting daily to advise
the President. The three members who
have been closest to the Chief Executive
during-the crisis are his brother, Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of
Defense, Robert S. McNamara and Mc-
George Bundy, the President's special
assistant for national security.
On Tuesday,- Oct. 23, the White 'House
announced that the President had formed
a 12-man "executive committee" of the
? National Security Council to meet with
j him daily during the crisis. Since the
!NSC by law consists of only five men, the
"executive committee" is larger than the
council. itself and in fact was a -device to
give formal status to the inner group.
Ithat has been working with the President
? for months.
Physically, the "executive committee"
Meets daily in the Cabinet Room in the
west wing of the White House. It has
dealt hour by hour with the fast-break-
. ing crisis and its uncertain ,aftermath.
Below the President's office in the base-
? ment of the White House is the "situation
room," a euphemism for "war room,"
which is the nerve center of the White
House in' any crisis. It is manned around
the clock.
All communications, including cables
from embassies and military reports, flow
into this basement room. During the
Cuban crisis it has been manned by
Bromley_Smith, executive secretary of
*tre%'"YSC, Mr47Bundy, his deputy Carl
Kaysen, and Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clif-
ton, the President's military aid.
Important dispatches are brought up-
stairs to the President's office or to the
Cabinet Room if the NSC committee is
meeting. The time lag from the situation
room to the upstairs offices is only about
1 a minute.
t In addition, Mr Kennedy has kept
abreast of hourly evelopments by watch-
,risis C bine
ing the commercial news tickers in the .?
White House, the Signal Corps teletype - 1
ticker and, like other people, on occasion .4
his television set. He watched Adlai E.
Stevenson, United States Ambassador to . 4
:the United Nations, on TV during the'
! Security Council debate last week. ." ?
The President's brother, who always has
been his colsest friend and adviser, has
attended the NSC committee meetings. He
was also at the President's side during the
six days from Oct. 16 when the U. S. re- ?
sponse to the fact that Soviet offensive
missiles had been placed in Cuba was being
debated in tight secrecy by the President ?
and his advisers.
Besides Robert Kennedy, Mr Bundy and
Mr. McNamara, the members of the execu-
tive committee are Vice-President Johnson,
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Treasury
Secretary Douglas Dillon, Gen. Maxwell D.
Taylor, chairnian of the Joint Chiefs of -
Staff; .,,,Lehn A. McConAir,ector of the
- Central Inttillgtfie'rXgency; Under -Secte=
tory dr State 'George W. Ball, Deputy
Secretaryo f Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric,
Llewellyn E. Thompson, ambassador at
large and Soviet expert, and Theodore C.
Sorensen, special counsel to the President.
. . _ ?
r
This inner group really emerged after
the disaster at the Bay of Pigs, wheni
; Cuban exiles armed and trained by thel
; CIA failed in an attempt to invade their!
,in
Kennedy took respon-1
:sibility for the failure. But in the months:
that followed he welded the national secu-
rity team that appeared to function withl
remarkable smoothness during the Cuban;
crisis of 1962.
"The,..Bay of Pigs," said one high offi-
cial, "caused the coming together of this;
kind of a group, that was able to deal',
with the Cuban crisis when it developed,":
Considering its size, the group was able'
to move rapidly. On Saturday morning,? ?
for example, Soviet Premier Khru- ?
shchev's message urging a swap of missile
bases in Turkey and Cuba came in over the.
Signal Corps wire. The President and his
advisers decided it called for an imme-,
diately reply, even though the Message,.
1)1P.11 b.nfl been br-tist.-,ast y thiJ Moscow
radio, had not yet reached the White
House through diplomatic channels.
A reply, rejecting any negotiations until ;
the bases were dismantled, was drafted
on the spot by Mr: Bundy and released to
reporters Ilkortly aftaresoort._:;: 4,16,?ij
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/04/08: CIA-RDP74-00297R001600010018-8