• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1042 0

four, I don't know. And then another night, I remember Bundy at the foot of both of our beds, you know, waking Jack up for something. And Jack would go into his own room and then talk on the phone maybe until, say, from five to six to seven. And then he might come back and sleep for two hours and go to his office, or—as I say, there was no day or night. And, well, that's the time I've been the closest to him, and I never left the house or saw the children, and when he came home, if it was for sleep or for a nap, I would sleep with him. And I'd walk by his office all the time, and sometimes he would take me out—it was funny—for a walk around the lawn, a couple of times. You know, he didn't very often do that. We just sort of walked quietly, then go back in. It was just this vigil. And then I remember another morning—it must have been a weekend morning—when all—there was a meeting in the Oval Room and everybody had come in one car so that the press wouldn't get suspicious. And Bobby came in in a convertible and riding clothes. And so, you know, and I was there—so—and then I went in the Treaty Room, where I—well, just to fiddle through some mail or something, but I could hear them talking through the door. And I went up and listened and eavesdropped. And I guess that was at a rather vital time, because I could hear McNamara saying something, "I think we should do this, that, this, that." No—McNamara summing up something and then Gilpatric giving some summary and then a lot of ques—and then I thought, well, I mustn't listen, and I went away.

Did the President comment at all on the question of whether there should be a raid to knock the bases out or blockade or what? I mean, you mentioned Mac Bundy's—

Well, that I all knew later and that was never told to me until much, much later. And the thing was—no, at the time, you know, at the time he—well, it was just so—he really wasn't sort of asking me. But then I remember he did tell me about this crazy telegram that came through from Khrushchev one night. Very warlike. I guess he'd sent the nice one first where he looked like he would—Khrushchev had—where he might dismantle, and then this crazy one came through in the middle of the night. Well, I remember Jack being really upset about that and telling me and then deciding that they would just answer the first, and being in on that.56 I also remember him telling me about Gromyko, which was very early in it.

Oh, yes.

How he'd seen Gromyko and he talked to him and everything they'd said and that he really wanted to put Gromyko on the line of just lying to him and never giving anything away. And I said, "How could you keep a straight face?" or "How could you not say, You rat!' sitting there?" And he said, "What, and tip our whole hand?" So he described that to me. And then I remember another thing which—the man that Roger Hilsman wrote me a letter about just this winter—but how one of the worst days of it all, the last day, suddenly some U-2 plane got loose over Alaska or something?57

Violated Soviet airspace.

Yeah, but some awful thing. Oh, my God, you know, then the Russians might have thought we were sending it in, and that could have just been awful. I remember him telling me about that. And then I remember when the blockade—oh, and then I remember hearing how Anderson at the Pentagon was mad at McNamara, wouldn't let—I don't know if that was afterwards or before—but all that thing.58 And then I remember just waiting with that blockade. The only thing I can think of what it was like, it was like an election night waiting, but much worse. But one ship was coming and some big fat freighter had turned back, but it didn't have anything but oil on it anyway—and all these ships cruising forward. And I remember being—hearing that the Joseph P. Kennedy59 was there and saying to Jack, "Did you send it?" or something. And he said, "No, isn't that strange?"—you know, and just remembering, and then finally, some ship turned back or was boarded or something, and then that was when you heaved the first relief, wasn't it? And I