121. Memorandum of Conversation0
Admiral BURKEʼS CONVERSATION WITH CDR WILHIDE, 18 APRIL 1961
Adm Burke … Before we got started about 1140, I went down to his1 office—about ten minutes after I got the word. Then he heard that McNamara and Lemnitzer were coming back. So we went down to the garage into a little anteroom there and talked for a few minutes. Then McNamara and Lemnitzer went over in their car. Gilpatric, Buzz Wheeler, Breitweiser2 and I went over—I guess Breitweiser went in McNamaraʼs car—all to the White House. We got over there in the Cabinet Room.3 The President was talking with CIA people, State Department people and Rostow and a lot of other people. They were talking about Cuba. Real big mess.
Nobody knew what to do nor did the CIA who were running the operation and who were wholly responsible for the operation know what to do or what was happening. A lot of things have happened and they have caused to happen and we the JCS donʼt know anything whatever about. We have been kept pretty ignorant of this and have just been told partial truths. They are in a real bad hole because they had the hell cut out of them. They were reporting, devising and talking and I kept quiet because I didnʼt know the general score. Once in a while I did make a little remark like “balls.” It wasnʼt very often. It was a serious meeting. They didnʼt know what the President should do. … When it came out as to what could the United States do—it was all Navy. The upshot of it was that the President moved into his room—his office with Rusk, McNamara, Dulles, Lemnitzer and me. We talked a little bit in there about what [Page 275] could we do, Rusk not being in favor of doing very much. Then we came out. I was sent for again and I was asked could we find out what the score really was, by landing people in helicopters or something like that. That was all right. I wrote some dispatches4 and did some things. Over there. And I came back.
Then Bobby Kennedy called me up and said the President is going to rely upon you to advise him on this situation. I said it is late! He needs advice. He said the rest of the people in the room werenʼt helpful. (Call from the President)5
What do you do. He is bypassing Lemnitzer, the Chairman, the SecDef, SecNav, CIA and the whole works and putting me in charge of the operation. That is a helluva thing. We had better watch this one.
Cdr Wilhide: He must realize what he is doing.
Adm Burke: I told Bobby Kennedy this was bypassing. He said he knew.
[Here follows discussion relating to Admiral Burkeʼs concern about the implications of short-circuiting the usual channels of responsibility in the management of the crisis.]
- Source: Naval Historical Center, Area Files, Bumpy Road Materials. Top Secret. This memorandum apparently was based on a tape recording later transcribed by Wilhide. The transcription printed here begins, as indicated in mid-conversation. The earlier portion of the conversation may not have been transcribed, and no record of it has been found. Wilhide was Burkeʼs aide at the time.↩
- It is not clear to whom Burke was referring at this point. A chronology prepared from the records in Burkeʼs office indicates that he received a phone call from Gilpatric at 11:27 a.m. proposing arrangements to go to the White House for a meeting on Cuba. (Ibid.) Since he went to the White House with Gilpatric, he may have stopped at Gilpatricʼs office.↩
- Major General Robert A. Breitweiser, Director for Intelligence of the Joint Staff.↩
- The Presidentʼs appointment book indicates that this meeting began at noon and lasted until 1:25 p.m. Participants included, in addition to the President, Vice President Johnson, Rusk, McNamara, Robert Kennedy, Lemnitzer, McGeorge Bundy, Bohlen, and Foy Kohler. (Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Appointment Book) Burkeʼs account indicates that the CIA was also represented and that other members of the Department of Defense, JCS, and the Department of State were present at the meeting.↩
- Documents 122 and 123.↩
- The transcript indicates that the President called Burke again 20 minutes later. No further information is given regarding either call.↩