McCone Rejects General LeMay's Claim US Was Blind in Cuba
By Marcus Boone ·
Professional reputations clashed as John McCone fought General LeMay's claim that the U.S. was blind in Cuba, fearing political liability and professional damage to the CIA.
In the high-stakes aftermath of the October Crisis, the argument shifted from whether the world would end in nuclear fire to who had been right about the intelligence. By February 1963, the immediate confrontation involving Soviet missiles in Cuba—which the public record notes lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962—had subsided, but the friction between the Central Intelligence Agency and the military establishment remained.
A memorandum dated February 11, 1963, from CIA Director John A. McCone to General Taylor captures a specific, sharp disagreement over the quality of American eyes on the island. The document, found in the Foreign Relations of the United States (State Dept) files, concerns a request for low-level reconnaissance of Cuba. While McCone ultimately concurs with the plan, he spends the bulk of the memo correcting the record to ensure that the CIA's high-altitude efforts are not characterized as failures.
"The literal fact"
The tension in the memorandum is driven by two specific inputs: a recommendation from General Carroll on January 29 and a letter from General LeMay on January 25. Both generals urged the implementation of low-level reconnaissance, citing a need for better intelligence and noting "psychological reasons" for such flights.
McCone takes particular exception to the phrasing used by General LeMay. According to the memo, LeMay wrote that "the literal fact is that we do not really know what is going on in Cuba." For McCone, this was not a literal fact, but a mischaracterization of the intelligence state. He writes plainly that he does not feel LeMay's statement is correct.
This was more than a semantic dispute. In the world of Cold War intelligence, the claim that the United States was "blind" was a political liability and a professional indictment of the Director of Central Intelligence. To counter this, McCone notes that he had recently spent "a considerable time reviewing recent photography with a member of the U.S. Senate." Through this review, McCone claims he was convinced—and the Senator was likewise convinced—that the existing U-2 photography provided a "very comprehensive picture" of Cuban activities.
Guerra and the U-2
The memorandum highlights a disconnect between the operational desires of the Air Force and the assessments of the intelligence community. McCone reveals that he had previously suggested low-level missions over Guerra as recently as January 23, 1963. However, these suggestions had been sidelined by the COMOR Committee of the United States Intelligence Board.
The COMOR Committee had maintained that U-2 photography was providing all the desired information and that no "unusual situation" had emerged to justify requesting presidential authority for low-level flights. To the intelligence analysts, the high-altitude view was sufficient; to the generals, it was a gap in capability.
McCone further disputes General Carroll’s assertion that the U.S. was in "somewhat the same position" in February as it had been in the latter part of September 1962. McCone views this as an implication that the current U-2 program is "non-productive." He corrects the timeline with a precise detail: in the latter part of September, the U.S. had flown only "two peripheral flights on the eastern end of the Island." By contrast, the program since mid-October had been far more robust.
February 11, 1963
The memo functions as a defensive posture, a way for McCone to signal that the CIA had the situation under control while still granting the military the reconnaissance they wanted. He concurs with the plan for low-level flights, but only on the condition that they be framed as a supplement rather than a replacement for a failing system.
This internal struggle over the "literal fact" of the situation reflects a broader pattern of institutional rivalry. While other records in the US National Archives, such as the "Pictorial Essay Related to Aspects of the Soviet Arms Threat in Cuba," document the external face of the crisis, this memorandum captures the internal effort to manage the narrative of competence. The dispute is not about whether the planes should fly, but about why they are flying.
McCone concludes the memorandum by proposing a specific phrasing for the official record. He requests that it be noted that low-level photography is desired to supplement a "very comprehensive and informative high-level program" that had been operational since mid-October.