560. NSC Executive Committee record of action, November 291
1. Director McCone presented the intelligence summary, highlighting our knowledge of the remaining Soviet military presence in Cuba.
2. Following a discussion of publicity continually being given to refugee reports of Soviet offensive weapons in Cuba, the President asked that further efforts be made with news media to relate such reports to hard evidence available to us.
[Typeset Page 1502]3. Secretary Rusk reported on the New York discussions with Mikoyan and summarized his recommendations as to positions to be taken with Mikoyan here.
4. The President directed the preparation by the State Department of a longer-range plan to keep pressure on Castro and to bolster other regimes in the Caribbean, the timing of implementation to be related to the outward movement of Soviet bombers and personnel.
5. Secretary McNamara raised the question of overflights of Cuba, recommending that in general low-level flights should only be flown when necessary to clarify high-level pictures revealing suspicious activity. An overflight guideline paper is being prepared for later discussion.
6. There was a discussion of continuing press interest in postmortems of the Cuban crisis. The importance of limiting discussion of this subject with the press was re-emphasized and the designation of authorized White House sources was reaffirmed.
- Refugee reports of Soviet offensive weapons in Cuba; New York discussions with Mikoyan; longer-range plan to keep pressure on Castro; overflights of Cuba; press interest in post-mortem of Cuban crisis. Top Secret. 1 p. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Executive Committee, Vol. III, Meetings, 25–32A, 11/12/62–12/4/62.↩