Wednesday, December 1, 1965: Freedom Flights

A new chapter in the long, often dangerous and always dramatic exodus of Cubans from their Communist homeland opens today with the start of a refugee airlift. The first plane, a Pan American World Airways DC7C, will leave Miami's International Airport at 7 a.m., carrying only its crew and two officials of the U.S. Public Health and Immigration departments. It will return three hours and 35 minutes later from Varadero, Cuba, with 90 refugees, the first of up to 100,000 expected in the new wave of immigration.

     -- Associated Press, December 1, 1965: @

     -- "First Cubans Begin Flights to US Haven" (AP, December 1): @

     -- "First Refugee Plane Lands" (AP, December 1): @

The last of more than 260,500 Freedom Flight refugees from Fidel Castro's Cuba limped off a plane here yesterday.

     -- Associated Press, April 6, 1973: @

-- 1965 photo from Public Health Image Library, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Resources
* "The Cuban Experience in Florida: Revolution and Exodus" (State Library & Archives of Florida): @

* Freedom Flight Memories and database (The Miami Herald): @

* "In Search of Freedom: Cuban Exiles and the U.S. Cuban Refugee Program" (University of Miami Libraries): @ 
* "Cuban Migration to the United States: Policy and Trends" (Ruth Ellen Wasem, Congressional Research Service, 2009): @

* "An Historic Overview of Latino Immigration and the Demographic Transformation of the United States" (David G. Gutierrez, National Park Service): @

* "Freedom Tower, Miami, Florida" (National Park Service): @

* "The 'Other' Boatlift: Camarioca, Cuba, 1965" (U.S. Coast Guard): @
* "The Cuban Refugee Program" (William L. Mitchell, Social Security commissioner, March 1962): @

* "Cuban Refugees in the United States" (John F. Thomas, The International Migration Review, 1967): @

* "Analysis of Federal Expenditures to Aid Cuban Refugees" (U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1971): @ 
* "Cubans in the United States" (Pew Research Center, 2006): @

* Photos (The Miami Herald): @

* Photos (University of Miami Libraries): @

* Cuban Research Institute (Florida International University): @

Books

* "Desperate Crossings: Seeking Refuge in America" (Norman L. Zucker and Naomi Flink Zucker, 1996): @

* "Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America's Half-Open Door, 1945-Present" (Gil Loescher and John A. Scanlan, 1998): @
* "Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile" (Alex Anton and Roger E. Hernandez, 2003): @
* "Encyclopedia of Cuban-United States Relations" (Thomas M. Leonard, 2004): @

* "Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees During the Cold War" (Carl J. Bon Tempo, 2008): @
* "International Migration in Cuba: Accumulation, Imperial Designs, and Transnational Social Fields" (Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez, 2011): @

* "American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change" (James Ciment and John Radzilowski, editors, 2015): @ 

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Thursday, March 18, 1965: First spacewalk

A Soviet cosmonaut squeezed out of history's highest orbiting manned satellite today and took man's first slowly somersaulting, free-floating swim in outer space. Then he returned to the cabin of his two-man spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, as the Soviet Union took another giant stride in the race for the moon. ... It was the second Soviet team flight in one space capsule, following a three-man, 16-orbit trip last October. It came only five days before America's first planned attempt to orbit a spacecraft with more than one man aboard. ... Alexei Leonov, 30, a chunky lieutenant colonel and a gifted artist, became the first man in history to step into outer space. 

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Photo from www.spacephys.ru

* "Learning to Spacewalk" (Leonov, for Air & Space magazine, January 2005): @
* " 'Our Walk in Space': The Russian Cosmonauts' Story of their bold first step" (Life magazine, May 14): @
* "Alexei Leonov: The artistic spaceman" (European Space Agency): @

* Short biography (International Space Hall of Fame): @
* Russian news report: @
* Black-and-white footage (French audio): @
* Black-and-white footage (no sound; from www.britishpathe.com): @
* Color footage: @

* Universal Newsreel (from www.criticalpast.com): @ 

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Thursday, October 15, 1964: Khrushchev ousted

The Nikita Khrushchev era, embracing ten years of cold war and coexistence, has ended with his retirement as premier and top man in the Soviet Communist Party "in view of his advanced age and deterioration of his health."

     His protege, Leonid Brezhnev, at 57 Khrushchev's junior by 13 years, has taken over the key party post. Alexei Kosygin, the man Khrushchev trusted to run the government during his frequent absences abroad, has become premier. Khrushchev's jobs are this divided, as they used to be.

   In the last two days Khrushchev has disappeared from public view. A picture of him mounted near the Kremlin was taken down last night. Three hours later, at midnight, came the official announcement of the charges ... Tass said the changes were decided upon Wednesday and Thursday.

     -- Associated Press (full story: @)

     -- 1963 photo of Khrushchev and Brezhnev from Corbis Images

* Miami News, October 15: @

* Miami News, October 16: @

* New York Times, October 16: @ 

* Life magazine, October 23 (coverage starts on page 30): @ 

* "Khrushchev Resigns" (newsreel; from Critical Past): @ 

* Summary from BBC: @ 

* Entry from "Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States" (M. Wesley Shoemaker, 2012): @ * "Khrushchev's Downfall and Its Consequences" (FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume XIV, Soviet Union): @ 

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Tuesday, May 19, 1964: U.S. Embassy microphones

More than 40 secret microphones were found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when U.S. security men tore into walls of the building in April. The State Department disclosed the find Tuesday, and said a strong protest was delivered in Moscow on Tuesday morning. Officials said the microphones were imbedded 8 to 10 inches deep in the walls of the 10-story building, and obviously had been installed before the Russians turned the building over for U.S. occupancy in 1952.

     -- Associated Press (full article: @)

     -- Photo from Associated Press; original caption: "A State Department security person holds one of the more than 40 microphones found in the American Embassy in Moscow when walls of the building were torn down in April 1964. On display May 19, 1964 at the State Department in Washington are other listening devices uncovered in other American embassies behind the "Iron Curtain."

* "The Walls Have Ears" (Newsweek, June 1): @

* "Estimate of Damage to U.S. Foreign Policy Interests (From Net of Listening Devices in U.S. Embassy Moscow" (U.S. State Department, October 2, 1964): @

* "Spies, Leaks, Bugs, and Diplomats (Diplomatic Security in the 1960s" (State Department): @

* Earlier post on "The Great Seal Bug" (May 26, 1960): @ 

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Wednesday, January 29, 1964: 'Dr. Strangelove'

Stanley Kubrick's satire of the Cold War and nuclear doomsday opens in theaters, having been delayed from December 1963 because of the assassination of President Kennedy. The movie's full title: "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb."

* Entry from AMC Filmsite: @

* Entry from Turner Classic Movies: @

* Review (Bosley Crowther, The New York Times): @

* Review (Robert H. Estabrook, The Washington Post): @

* Review (Andrew Sarris, The Village Voice): @

* Review (Fernand Fauber, The Toledo Blade): @

* Review (Roger Ebert, 1999): @

* "Almost Everything in 'Dr. Strangelove' Was True" (Eric Schlosser, The New Yorker, 2014): @
* "Doctor's Orders: How a dead serious novel became the nightmare satire of 'Strangelove' " (Bilge Ebiri, Museum of the Moving Image, 2009): @

* "A Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove' " (Dan Lindley, University of Notre Dame): @

* " 'Dr. Strangelove at 40: The Continuing Relevance of a Cold War Icon" (Paul S. Boyer, Arms Control Association): @

* "Dr. Strangelove's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age" (Margot A. Henriksen, 1997): @ 

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Thursday, November 7, 1963: Deep Underground Command Center

To be built 3,500 feet below the Pentagon and connected to the White House by tunnels, this "logical, survivable node" would be built to withstand "multiple direct hits of 200 to 300 (megaton) weapons bursting at the surface or 100 MT weapons pentrating to depths of 70 to 100 feet." The DUCC was never built, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluding that it "would be too small, and its communications too uncertain, to serve as a military command center."
     -- From "Every Nuclear-Tipped Missile is an 'Accident Waiting to Happen' " (summary of "Command and Control," Eric Schlosser, 2013): @

* "Memorandum for the President" (Robert McNamara, November 7, 1963): @

* "Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara" (January 10, 1964): @
* "Editorial Note" (summary, from "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968"): @
* Documents (from cryptome.org): @
* "The Worldwide Military Command and Control System: A Historical Perspective, 1960-1977" (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1980): @
* "Command and Control": @
* "The Nation's Cockpit: The DUCC and Decision-Making Under Nuclear Attack" (from Atomic Skies blog): @ 

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King

With the FBI increasingly concerned about possible Communist involvement in the civil rights movement, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorizes the bureau to wiretap the Atlanta home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the New York offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (of which King was president). The FBI's investigation into King's life, activities and associates began in 1955 and lasted until his death in 1968.

Photo from June 22, 1963, following a meeting at the White House between civil rights leaders and administration officials to discuss pending legislation and the planned March on Washington. From left are King, Kennedy, the NAACP's Roy Wilkins and Vice President Johnson.

* JPEG of request and authorization (Kennedy's signature is in lower left-hand corner): @ 
* Text of FBI memo, October 10 (from "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover," 1991): @ 
* PDF of August 30 FBI memo calling King "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation": @ 
* FBI files on "Surreptitious Entries (Black Bag Jobs)": @  
* "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Case Study" (from "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on  Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," 1976, United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations of with Respect to Intelligence Activities -- aka the Church Committee): @

* Department of Justice review of FBI's activities (1977; go to Part 2 of 2, page 113, "FBI Surveillance and Harassment of Dr. King"): @

* "The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald,  Frank Church, et al." (National Security Archive, 2013): @

* FBI entry from MLK Research and Education Institute: @

* "The FBI's War on King" (American RadioWorks): @ 

* "King Address That Stirred World Led to FBI Surveillance" (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 2013): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King" (David J. Garrow, The Atlantic magazine, July 2002): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From 'Solo' to Memphis" (Garrow, 2001): @ Author's website: @

* "The Pursuit of Justice: Martin Luther King" (chapter from "Robert Kennedy and His Times," Arthur M. Schlesinger, 1978): @ 

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Saturday, October 5, 1963: Vietnam

President Kennedy approves the withdrawal of 1,000 military advisers from Vietnam, where some 16,000 are serving. (The decision has since generated considerable speculation about what policy Kennedy might have pursued in Vietnam had he not been assassinated.)

* Summary from World History Project: @

* Summary from Mary Ferrell Foundation: @

* Memorandum from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor) and the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) to the President (October 2, 1963, from "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963," U.S. State Department): @

* Record of Action No. 2472, Taken at the 519th Meeting of the National Security Council (October 2, from FRUS): @

* Memorandum for the Files of a Conference With the President (October 5, from FRUS): @

* National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 (October 11, from FRUS): @

* White House tapes of withdrawal discussions (from Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* "Mac Finds Out What's Gone Wrong: Big U.S. Team Probes the Climactic Mess in Vietnam" (Life magazine, October 11, 1963, page 22): @

* "Going to Withdraw from Vietnam?" (from mcadams.posc.mu.edu): @

* "Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam" (Gordon M. Goldstein, 2008): @ 

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Friday, August 30, 1963: U.S.-Soviet hotline

    The historic "hot line" between Washington and Moscow is open for business -- business that officials hope will never come.
     Now a tinkle of a bell in the White House or Kremlin -- at either end of the emergency communications system -- may signal the next world crisis.
     But it may also keep nervous fingers from pressing the buttons that would launch nuclear war.
     Completion of the circuits, made possible by a U.S. Soviet agreement to create machinery for forestalling war, was announced laconically Friday night by the Pentagon.
     "The direct communications link between Washington and Moscow is now operational," said a one-sentence announcement.
     The land-line and radio system is, under the terms of the agreement signed in Geneva last June 20, "for use in time of emergency."
     It would be used when the two chiefs of state needed to confer directly and quickly because of an incident, accidental or authorized, which otherwise would bring on nuclear war.
     In urging adoption of the system, President Kennedy cited dangerous delays in communications between Russia and the United States during the anxious days of the Cuban crisis.
     Administration officials said the line will not be used for ordinary communications between Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev or between the foreign offices of the two nations. Those communications will continue to use normal embassy channels.

     The ringing of the bell, part of an elaborate system of sounding and receiving Teletype machines, is the alert that a message is coming.

     The telegraphic tickers will stand ready from now on, day and night.

     Attendants, all carefully selected and screened for security, watch and listen. At least one of the attendants on duty at any time will be bilingual, able to read and wrote both Russian and English.

     -- The Associated Press

The photo is from the National Cryptologic Museum (links: @ and @). The caption reads in part: "The original Washington-to-Moscow Hotline was a one-time tape/teletype system for which the Soviets and Americans exchanged compatible equipment. This East German teletypewriter, made by Gerdlewerk, Karl-Marx-Stadt, was donated to the MCM by a former U.S. Army officer who had been in charge of the Pentagon end of the link."

* "Memorandum of Understanding Between The United States of America and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Link" (from U.S. Department of State): @

* " 'Hot Line' Opened by U.S. and Soviet to Cut Attack Risk" (New York Times, August 31, 1963): @ 
* "There Never Was Such a Thing as a Red Phone in the White House" (Smithsonian magazine, June 2013): @

* Entry from Top Level Telecommunications blog: @

* Entry from www.cryptomuseum.com: @

* "The Washington-Moscow Hotline: A Compilation of Extracts" (website by Jerry Proc): @ 

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July 1963: U.S. interrogation manual

"KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation" was produced by the CIA (KUBARK being the agency's code name for itself). The manual was declassified in 1997. From the introduction:

     This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator. At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes of poor interrogators.  Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation, and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources. ... As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than others; and some of the superiority may be innate. But sound interrogation nevertheless rests upon a knowledge of the subject matter on certain broad principles, chiefly psychological, which are not hard to understand. The success of good interrogators depends in large measure upon their use, conscious or not, of these principles and of processes and techniques deriving from them.

* Manual, pages 1 through 60: @
* Pages 61 through 112: @
* Pages 113 through 128: @
* "Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past" (from National Security Archive, 2004): @

* "Iraq Tactics Have Long History With U.S. Interrogators" (Washington Post, 2004): @
* "The Birth of Soft Torture" (www.slate.com, 2005): @
* "Educing Information. Interrogation: Science and Art -- Foundations for the Future" (National Defense Intelligence College, 2006): @
* "Torture and Democracy" (Darius Rejali, 2007): @
* "Torture and State Violence in the United States: A Short Documentary History" (Robert M. Pallitto, 2011): @
* "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War" (Albert D. Biderman, 1957): @ 

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Monday, July 1, 1963: Kim Philby

     Former Foreign Office official Harold Philby has admitted he was the "third man" in the case of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
     Security services are now aware that using information he gained while working for the MI6 in Washington, Mr. Philby warned the pair that intelligence services were on their trail. This information enabled them to escape to the Soviet Union.
     It is now apparent Mr. Philby was a double agent working for the Soviet authorities during his time with the foreign office.
     The news was announced in the House of Commons by the Lord Privy Seal Edward Heath.
     -- From BBC. Full story: @. 1968 photo of Philby in Moscow from Russia Beyond the Headlines (website: @)
* Heath's statement: @
* Entry from spymuseum.com: @

* Earlier post on Philby (January 1963): @ 

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Wednesday, June 26, 1963: JFK in West Berlin

     

     Police lines buckled, ecstatic women swooned and the old streets shook to endless chants of "KEN-NAH-DEE." Storming into West Germany last week to begin a tour that would take him to Ireland to visit Irish kin, and then to England and Italy, the President looked like a campaigner -- and it was on purpose.
     With the racial crisis bloodily evident on its front pages, the press of America had advised him to stay at home. But he went -- to speak out against the damage inflicted on the Atlantic alliance by France's disruptive President Charles de Gaulle, and to assure Europe of America's steadfastness as an ally in peace or war.
     From the start there was no doubt about how the German people felt. Millions jammed the streets to wave American flags at his motorcade and cheer his speeches. In Berlin he even attracted a pathetic group of handkerchief-waving East Berliners. The measure of the success of the visit lay in Kennedy's quick and warm accord with the hard-bitten old German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
     In a forceful statement of principles, the President hammered on the need for constant transatlantic partnership and trust between the United States and a "fully cohesive Europe." He pledged to lay American cities on the line in defense of those in Europe, and the roar of approval in Germany was matched only by the silence from France.
    -- Life magazine, July 5, 1963. Complete magazine: @

The index card at top shows the phonetic pronunciations Kennedy wrote down for three of the phrases in his June 26 speech: "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner), "civis Romanus sum" (I am a Roman citizen) and "Lass' sic nach Berlin kommen" (Let them come to Berlin). Photo from Corbis Images.

* Summary (from www.findingdulcinea.com): @
* Transcript and video (from Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* Links to more footage (from www.criticalpast.com): @
* Audio (from JFK Library): @
* "Remarks at Free University of West Berlin" (materials from JFK Library): @
* "One Day in Berlin" (video from JFK Library): @
* "The Cold War in Berlin" (summary from JFK Library): @
* New York Times story: @ 
* "Kennedy in Berlin" (Andreas W. Daum, 2007): @

* "Kennedy and the Berlin Wall" (W.R. Smyser, 2009): @ 

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Monday, June 10, 1963: JFK's 'Peace' speech

"President Kennedy announced Monday that the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain have agreed to send high-level negotiators to Moscow next month in a fresh start at hammering out a nuclear test-ban treaty. In the meantime, the President announced, the United States will not conduct any nuclear tests in the atmosphere -- so long as the Soviet Union and other nations hold back on their tests, too. ... The President chose an unusual setting for his announcements, and he embellished them with an eloquent plea for world peace. Standing under the broiling sun in an outdoor amphitheater, Kennedy put the significant announcements into a commencement address to American University's graduating class."
* From The Associated Press. Full story: @

"The United States will seek to increase communications with Russia, to avoid unnecessary irritants, to search for areas of agreement and to avoid pushing to Kremlin into a choice between 'humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.' This fundamental philosophy of how to deal with Russians in a nuclear age, stated Monday by President Kennedy in a major speech, is expected by diplomats to be more prominently recorded in history than his announcements on nuclear testing."
* From United Press International. Full story: @
* Transcript and video (from JFK Library): @

* "JFK at AU: Building Peace For All Time" (American University website): @

* "John F. Kennedy Speaks of Peace" (from Nuclear Age Peace Foundation): @

* "To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace" (Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2013): @ 

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Wednesday, January 23, 1963: Kim Philby

Kim Philby, a newspaper correspondent who had previously worked for British intelligence, secretly leaves Beirut, Lebanon, making his way to the Soviet Union. It is later revealed that he had been spying for the Soviets since the 1930s and that he was among the "Cambridge Five" spy ring.

* Short biography (National Cold War Exhibition): @

* "Kim Philby: Father, husband, traitor, spy" (The Telegraph, January 2013): @

* "Kim Philby and the Age of Paranoia" (New York Times Magazine, 1994): @

* "The Moscow Life of Kim Philby" (Pravda): @

* "The Cambridge Spies" (BBC): @ and @ and @ (news stories, footage)

* Cambridge Spy Ring (spymuseum.com): @

* Bibliography of British spies: @

* "My Silent War" (Philby, 1968): @

* "Philby Talks" (1955 newsreel): @
* "Philby's Choice" (Russia Today, 2012): @
* BBC Newsnight report on Philby's death in 1988: @ 

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Sunday, December 23, 1962: Bay of Pigs prisoners freed

From "Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History" (Jane Franklin, 1996):

In the first stage of an agreement with the United States, Cuba releases 1,113 Bay of Pigs invaders in exchange for $53 million in medicine and baby food. Cuba kept nine of the invaders in prison, releasing the final one in 1986. An additional part of the agreement is that Cuba will allow other Cubans to leave for the United States.

* The Miami News, December 23: @

* The Miami News, December 24: @

* The Miami News, December 25: @

* Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 24: @

* From BBC News: @

* From "The Kennedy Years" (Joseph M. Siracusa, 2004): @

* Bay of Pigs chronology (from National Security Archive): @

* Earlier post on Bay of Pigs (April 17-19, 1961): @

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