mccone's been notified and is coming back from the west coast. carter's here, though.
in those five minutes they could kill 80 million americans and destroy a significant number of our bomber bases, degrading our retaliatory options. the joint chiefs' consensus is that this is a massively destabilizing move, upsetting the nuclear balance.
gmaic estimates ten to fourteen days. however, a crash program to ready the missiles could cut that time.
i have to stress that there may be more missiles that we don't know about. we need more u-2 coverage.
we have high confidence in the expanded air strike option. the problem, mr. president, is that it's a short-term solution. khruschev can send more missiles next month. the chiefs and i believe we should follow up the air strikes with the full version of
yes, sir. we can be sure we get all the missiles, and we remove castro so this can never happen again.
yes, sir. our best option is to commence the strikes before the missiles are operational. the invasion happens eight days later.
yes, sir, we're preparing to implement all three options, though i must stress again, sir, there are risks to the strikes without the follow-on invasion.
if mcnamara'd get off the fence.
the situation is worse than we thought. we count 40 missiles now, longer range irbms. they can hit every city in the continental u.s.
we've just begun the mobilization under cover of a pre-arranged exercise, sir. we're looking at another week and a half, mr. president.
sir, we have a rapidly closing window of opportunity where we can prevent those missiles from ever becoming operational. the other options.
do not guarantee the end result we can guarantee. however, the more time that goes by, the less reliable the choice we can offer you becomes.
they are continuing to proceed with the development. we're commencing low-level photography runs this morning.
our guy running this show is the best. commander bill ecker of the navy's vfp 62, the fightin' photo. something of a character, but the highest efficiency ratings we've ever had.
to protect our pilots, we're prepared to retaliate against any sam site or anti aircraft battery that opens fire.
we have a flight of thunderchiefs able to respond within minutes of an attack on our planes.
it appears our low-level flights are getting back okay. some unconfirmed reports of small-arms fire from some of the missions, but that's it.
still heading for cuba.
it's protecting the freighters.
unlikely, mr. president. we've been monitoring transmissions from both the gagarin and kimovsk. their radios are working fine.
mr. president, the orders were limited to our strategic forces in the continental u.s.
technically, general lemay is correct that sac has the statutory authority --
we are not at war, sir, not until we're at defcon 1.
mr. president, i'm afraid we have some bad news. we're getting gmaic estimates from our latest low-level overflights. it appears the missiles are two to three days away from operational status.
the quarantine, sir, is not producing results. the chiefs feel it's time you take another look at our options.
mr. president, there is another possibility we haven't considered. this may not be a coup at all.
it's possible that the back-channel overture, last night's letter, and this letter today, along with everything the soviets have said all along, is nothing more than a lie -- disinformation.
understood, sir. we need to step up the overflights, finalize our pilots' target folders in order to be able to carry out the strikes.
the soviets are in control of the sams. it's hard to believe with their centralized command structure that it could be an accidental launch.
mr. president, our pilots are in danger. we must order punitive airstrikes against the sam site that shot down major anderson per our rules of engagement.
there's no reason to believe the soviets will let it go.