The CIA’s New Predictions: August 1, 1962

Forteenth Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

The CIA’s National Intelligence Estimates

Tim Weiner describes a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) as

“…the best judgment of the American intelligence community, produced and directed by the CIA, and distributed with the authority and imprimatur of the director of central intelligence.. It is his word.” (Emphasis added)

National Intelligence Estimate 85-62

On March 21, 1962, the CIA’s NIE 85-62 declared it “unlikely that the [Soviet] Bloc will provide Cuba with strategic weapon systems…”  and predicted that that even if Castro’s government “should be seriously threatened by either external or internal forces, the USSR would almost certainly not intervene directly with its own forces [and] would almost certainly never intend to hazard its own safety for the sake of Cuba.”  (Emphasis added)

Exactly two months later, the Kremlin had approved a plan to establish strategic missile bases in Cuba.

National Intelligence Estimate 85-2-62 

On August 1 fifty years ago, the CIA issued a new estimate codified as NIE 85-2-62. Each CIA quote from the new estimate is followed by my italicized comments, which benefit enormously from a half century of revelations not available to the CIA at the time. All bolding is mine.

How Committed is the Soviet Union to Defending Cuba?

“By force of circumstances, the USSR is becoming ever more deeply committed to preserve and strengthen the Castro regime. The USSR, however, has avoided any formal commitment to protect and defend the regime in all contingencies.”

On or about August 13, 1962, Castro would receive his copy of the Cuban-USSR mutual defense pact drafted in Moscow by his brother and Soviet officials. The Soviet missiles on their way to Cuba would give that pact nuclear teeth.

The Soviet Military Build-Up in Cuba

“We…believe it unlikely that the [Soviet] Bloc will station in Cuba…combat units of any description, at least for the period of this estimate.”

By August 1, 1962, four heavily armed Soviet ground units totaling 10,000 soldiers were on their way to Cuba, or would be shortly. The CIA never discovered they were there. Navy low-level photo reconnaissance found the first of the four—but not until October 23, 1962.

Could an Anti-Castro Rebellion Succeed?

“The Cuban armed forces are well able to intimidate the general population and to suppress any popular insurrection…. They are probably capable of containing and controlling any threat to the regime through guerrilla action and of repelling any invasion short of a direct US military intervention in strength.”

“If arms and supplies became available and if confidence were created in the likelihood of outside support for a major Cuban uprising, resistance activity and potential would increase. Even so it is unlikely that the regime could be overthrown unless events had already shaken the regime and brought into doubt its capacity for survival, and unless substantial outside support for the insurgents were forthcoming.”

This CIA statement appeared to doom its own clandestine operations to subvert Castro’s regime (Operation MONGOOSE).

How Accurate Were the CIA’s Predictions?

The events of the next ten weeks will answer that question.

However: as of August 1 fifty years ago, U.S. intelligence analysts knew that 75 Soviet ships had already unloaded thousands of passengers and a great many vehicles and other cargo under conditions of extreme secrecy in Cuban ports. These Soviet personnel and the matériel they had brought with them were now dispersing around the island.

The intelligence community also knew that many more “passengers” and much more matériel were in the Soviet-Cuban pipeline.

Why would the CIA persist in telling U.S. policy-makers that this extraordinary projection of Soviet power into the Western Hemisphere was really “business as usual” when it so obviously was not?

Email your questions to phufstader@sbcglobal.net or post a comment.

Sources and Notes

Weiner’s definition of a national intelligence estimate appears on p. 563 of his Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Random House, 2008. While Weiner was writing in the context of the Bush-Cheney administration’s 1992 decision to invade Iraq, his words are equally applicable to the estimates issued in the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Both NIE 85-62 and 85-2-62 were titled The Situation and Prospects in Cuba. I found  NIE 85-62 at www.foia.cia.gov/docs/Doc_0000262093/Doc_0000262093.pdf.

Each paragraph in the opening “Conclusions” of both estimates refers by number to detailed paragraphs in the following “Discussion” section.

My copy of NIE 85-2-62’s “Conclusions” is unredacted. It is printed as Document #363 in Volume X of Foreign Relations of the United States (http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusX/361_375.html). This document does not include the “Discussion” section.  My complete copy of NIE 85-2-62, including the “Discussion,” is heavily redacted. I found the heavily redacted version of NIE 85-2-62 at www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000028764/DOC_0000028764.pdf).

Important though they are, I have ignored both estimates’ “Conclusions” and “Discussion” concerning the Cuban economy and Cuba’s attempts to bring down the governments of other Latin American countries.

Dino Brugioni provides the details about the arrival of Soviet ships in Cuba on p. 74 of his Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of The Cuban Missile Crisis (Robert F. McCort, ed.). New York: Random House, 1991. The flood of Soviet men and matériel into Cuba was covered by national newspapers.