EXCOMM

The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (commonly referred to as simply the Executive Committee or EXCOMM) was a body of United States government officials that convened to advise President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It was composed of the regular members of the National Security Council, along with other men whose advice the President deemed useful during the crisis. EXCOMM was formally established by National Security Action Memorandum 196 on October 22, 1962. It was made up of twelve full members in addition to the president. Advisers frequently sat in on the meetings, which were held in the Cabinet Room of the White House's West Wing and secretly recorded by tape machines activated by Kennedy. None of the other committee members knew the meetings were being recorded, save for possibly the president's brother, Robert Kennedy. [Welch, David A., and James Blight. “The Eleventh Hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis: An Introduction to the ExComm Transcripts.” International Security 12.3 (1987-1988): 5-29.]

Declassifying the Tapes

The original tape recordings of EXCOMM's meetings are currently held in the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Great strides have been made in declassifying and publishing the tapes. [McKeown, Timothy J. “The Cuban Missile Crisis and Politics as Usual.” The Journal of Politics 62.1 (2000): 70-87.] Excerpts from the first meeting, which took place on October 16, 1962, document the reactions of the committee members upon initially hearing the news that medium and long-range ballistic missiles might be stationed in Cuba. In the summer of 1985, McGeorge Bundy, who served as EXCOMM's Special Assistant for National Security, transcribed the tapes from the October 27, 1962 meeting. James G. Blight, Executive Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, edited and annotated Bundy's transcriptions. Authorities in Washington and at the library granted Bundy access to the tape recordings given his role with EXCOMM. [Welch, David A., and James Blight. 5-29.] Bundy considered the October 27th meeting especially important, as it was the meeting which immediately preceded EXCOMM's resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Bundy believed the tape recordings included important historical information that should be shared with the public; notably, how political decisions are carried out when involving matters pertaining to nuclear weaponry.

Decision Making

One political theorist, James Blight, analyzes the behavior of EXCOMM's members in the midst of the impending crisis with the Soviet Union. He suggests that the thought of war with the Soviet Union instilled a sense of fear in the committee members so that their deliberations became more productive as they reacted to this emotion. [Blight, James. The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Savage, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 1990.] Blight argues that EXCOMM's focus of attention shifted: as the possibility of war with the Soviet Union became more probable, the committee members became less concerned with removing the missiles from Cuba and instead focused their energy on avoiding a nuclear war.

Membership

National Security Council

*John F. Kennedy, President
*Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President
*Dean Rusk, Secretary of State
*C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury
*Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense
*Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General
*McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor
*John McCone, Director of Central Intelligence
*General Maxwell D. Taylor, U.S. Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Other members

*George Ball, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs
*Llewellyn Thompson, Ambassador to the Soviet Union
*Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense
*Ted Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President

Advisers

Central Intelligence Agency
*Ray Cline
*Arthur Lundahl

Department of Defense
*Paul Nitze, Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs

Office of Emergency Planning
*Edward A. McDermott, Director

Department of State
*U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Undersecretary for Political Affairs
*Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the United Nations
*Edwin Martin, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs

Information Agency
*Donald Wilson

White House
*Kenneth O'Donnell, Special Assistant to the President
*Bromley Smith, Executive Secretary of the National Security Council

References