
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 28, 1994                   TAG: 9407280077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

KENNEDY, AIDES COOL IN CRISIS

Conscious that a misstep could mean nuclear war, President John F. Kennedy and his advisers grappled with the Cuban missile crisis with cool detachment, according to White House tapes released Wednesday.

Much of what is on the 1962 recordings already has been exhaustively recounted in the writings of participants. But the tenor of the meetings, which now can be heard and not just described, surprised historians.

``The tone of the whole discussion is quite remarkable,'' said Sheldon Stern, an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Library. ``It's completely devoid of the rhetoric of the Cold War. They're very, very calm, and they're just trying to find a way out of this.''

The Kennedy Library made the 21/2 hours of tapes public after a 16-month review by the National Security Council. One other discussion taped during the crisis was declassified in 1987, the 25th anniversary of the confrontation.

The tapes contain discussions from two meetings in October 1962: the 18th, a few days after Kennedy and his advisers learned there were Soviet missiles in Cuba; and the 22nd, the day Kennedy told the nation of the crisis.

The participants included Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, national security adviser McGeorge Bundy and press secretary Pierre Salinger.

But the tapes are murky, and no transcript was released to identify the speakers.

``The question really is, what action do you take which lessens the chance of a nuclear exchange, which obviously is the final failure,'' the president told the men he had assembled to advise him through the crisis.

One unidentified aide predicted on Oct. 22, 1962: ``If you do declare a blockade and the Soviets do observe it, this could very quickly bring down Castro within Cuba.''

Six days later - after the United States blockaded Cuba, massed warplanes in Florida and secretly offered to remove NATO missiles from Turkey - the Soviets agreed to remove offensive weapons in Cuba, and the crisis was defused.

Kennedy had recording equipment installed secretly in the White House.

The NSC ordered 2 minutes, 12 seconds deleted from the batch of tapes released Wednesday, citing national security reasons. More than 12 hours of recordings of meetings on the crisis still are being reviewed by the NSC.

by CNB