War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Art Lundahl, 1986

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES D04020-D04021 ART LUNDAHL

Discovering Photographic Evidence of Soviet Offensive Missilery in Cuba

Interviewer:

LET'S TAKE YOU BACK TO WHEN YOU FIRST SAW THESE THESE PICTURES. AND IF

YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT YOUR INITIAL REACTION WAS, WHEN THESE CAME INTO

YOUR HANDS.

Lundahl:

Oh, the initial was great surprise because we had never seen a MRBM

Base outside of the Soviet Union, and there it was with all of the

components that we had clearly identified from separate looks elsewhere

in the Soviet Union. Not only the missile transporters, but the cherry

pickers, the Nuclear Weapons, the, the vans, the warhead vans, the

whole panoply of equipment. There was about fourteen or fifteen

different items that were clearly laid out for this particular site at

San Cristobal in Cuba.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU MOVE THAT A LITTLE CLOSER TO YOU, ART?

Lundahl:

Sure .

Interviewer:

DO YOU SEE ALL THOSE THINGS, IN THAT ONE, IN THAT FIRST...

Lundahl:

Yes, it isn't easy to see without the magnification and when we looked

at them, we had them as transparencies, not as prints. And we were

looking at light that comes through them, and we vary the magnification

and you can see the stuff very clearly down through the trees that way.

Interviewer:

WHAT DO YOU SEE ON THAT PICTURE THERE, DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?

Lundahl:

Yeah, I see some transporters which are, arrayed side by side here at

the edge of this clearing. There are lots of trucks parked over here,

there's recent track activity, there are personnel moving around in the

trees down in here, there are tent-covered shelters where the missiles

are actually readied for launching--that is, being prepared. And then

when they are prepared, they're taken over to the launching point and

erected. But this is all in the preparatory stages for firing. And they

were not ready to fire at the time we looked at them here

Interviewer:

WERE YOU SURPRISED WHEN YOU FIRST SAW THEM?

Lundahl:

Yeah, really surprised, because we knew the Soviets weren't moving all

of those SA to the sand sites in there to defend in the cane fields,

something important was going on, but we weren't sure. Was it going to

be submarine bases, what was going to happen in Cuba? So we were ready

for almost any eventuality, but this one was a real surprise for us.

Interviewer:

FINALLY YOU HAD EVIDENCE IS THAT HOW YOU...

Lundahl:

Yes. Real evidence and of course there were a lot of people who were

just, thunderstruck, as we were, because it was estimated that the

Soviets would never do such a thing as this. But here it was right

before our eyes. Now the question came, how many of these things are

here, and are there other bigger things? These are medium range

ballistic missiles MRBMs with a range of about eleven hundred miles.

Are there bigger missiles? And looking at it a few days later with

additional coverage, sure enough, IRBM sites. But they were going to

take more time to complete. They were going to have a range of about

twenty-one hundred miles, and that way they'd cover all of the United

States except the tip way up, near and, the, northwest part of the

state of Washington.

Briefing President Kennedy on Soviet Missiles in Cuba

Interviewer:

BEFORE WE GET TO THE IRBMs, LET'S, CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE MEETING,

WHEN YOU MET PRESIDENT KENNEDY?

Lundahl:

Yes as you know there were...

Interviewer:

YES, GO AHEAD. CAN YOU START OVER, START THAT OVER AGAIN I'M SORRY.

Lundahl:

Yes, President Kennedy was to be briefed in the White House in the

morning of October the 16th, which was a Monday 1962, and we had

several pre-briefings first, I had to do a big briefing at CIA and then

a pre-briefing in the White House for Mr. McNamara, for Bobby Kennedy,

C. Douglas Dillon, and other famous people of the cabinet at that time.

And when the buzzer rang, we went up to the President's office. He was

sitting on the opposite side of the long boat-shaped table. And I had

briefed him before, he knew who I was. And I asked him, I said Mr.

President, may I come around on your side of the table? I wanted to

make sure he saw this, and he said, he waved me over. So I stood behind

him and I lay the pictures in front of him and pointed out these things

that I'm pointing out to you. The missile transporters, the nuclear

warhead vans, the vans, the separate transporters which had tent

enclosures where the missiles could be worked on. Mind you there was a

lot of rain in Cuba at that time so they had to protect themselves

while working. So I went over about fourteen or fifteen of these items

in detail with a big magnifying glass. And when the President heard all

this, he kind of straightened up and he turned back and he looked me

right in the eye, and he said "Are you sure of all this?" And I said to

him, "Mr. President, I am as sure of this as a photo interpreter can be

sure of anything. And I think you might agree that we haven't mislead

you on the many other subjects we've reported to you today." And he

said, "Well that's right." And so then he turned in his chair, and he

started to order his aides to immediately cover all of the rest of Cuba

within this next seven working days. I don't know how many missions a

day. Two or three a day were going to go. But all of Cuba was going to

be covered so we had the totality of the threat in hand by a week from

that day.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS KENNEDY, APART FROM SAYING YOU KNOW, ARE YOU REALLY SURE OF

THIS...WHAT WAS HIS FIRST QUESTION? WHAT WAS HIS FIRST CONCERN?

Lundahl:

Well, he up to that time, had been steadily briefed on the build up of

defensive weaponry in Cuba. The MiG-21s, the MiG-19s, the Guided

Missile PT Boats, the short-range cruise missile sites along the coast,

and on and on and on. And he had said well that's all right. I

understand that, that's defensive missilery. But when anything comes in

here, which is going to threaten the United States, I want to know

about that right away. Well there we were telling him right away, and

there was no doubt about this, this was not defensive missilery. This

was offensive missilery. So the fact was in the fire and the President

knew it right at that point.

Interviewer:

HOW DID HE REACT, WAS HE, WAS IT UH, DETERMINATION? WAS IT AN ANGER,

WAS IT UH...

Lundahl:

No, he wasn't angry, he was a very, very determined person. He wanted

to know the facts, he asked us questions quickly, he recorded the

answers in his mind quickly, he sought out a couple of different views.

But generally, it was a one on one, I talking to the President, with

all of the other advisers, sitting around the table and as the

President finished looking at these briefing aids, they were moved

around the table so the others were seeing what the President had just

seen a few minutes before.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS ROBERT KENNEDY'S REACTION? I UNDERSTAND HE WAS KIND OF PACING

AROUND.

Lundahl:

He, well he was very much more excitable...

Interviewer:

COULD YOU START THAT AGAIN AND SAY ROBERT KENNEDY, OR THE PRESIDENT'S

BROTHER?

Lundahl:

Yes. Robert Kennedy was far more excitable. He stopped around the room

and I was never quite sure what he was going to do. He kind of snorted

like a prize fighter does when he's walking around the ring. And he

uttered a couple of bitter epithets. And he had a far more emotional

response to it, than the President, who was very, very cool, in the way

he responded and took on this information.

The Process of Photo Interpretation

Interviewer:

AS THE, AS THE DAYS WENT ON, THERE WERE OTHER, THERE WERE OTHER

PHOTOGRAPHS THAT CAME TO YOU. THIS, COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THIS IS

HERE, JUST SORT OF SHOW IT TO ME, SHOW IT TO THE CAMERA.

Lundahl:

Yeah. Well this is a uh, one of these long....

Interviewer:

YOU SHOULD PICK UP THE BACK OF IT AS SHOW...

Lundahl:

Sure. Sure, a little bit like that..

Interviewer:

YEAH, THAT'S BETTER.

Lundahl:

Well, this is, these are all trees in in this kind of jungle terrain

down there. And roads freshly scoured out with all kinds of truck and

track activity around here, and those are transporters of various

kinds, but the big thing of course is this long tent. It's been set up,

and inside that tent in our interpretation, there's no question about

it, there's a missile. And they were working on it in there checking

out all the joints and checking out all the connectors, and making sure

that everything was in readiness to fire. And elsewhere off the edge of

this picture was a firing point. That had been surveyed in, on which

would set a blast deflector. So when that missile was wheeled out this

tent, and erected into the vertical position over the blast deflector,

and everything was ready to go, it would fire and all firing tables

were in order and it would go on its way.

Interviewer:

LET'S DO A WIDE SHOT AND HOLD, HOLD THE WIDE SHOT ON THIS NEXT ANSWER.

WHEN, WHEN I LOOK AT THIS UM, AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH, I MEAN ALL ALL AN

ORDINARY PERSON SEES, AN UNSKILLED PHOTO INTERPRETER AH, AH, LIKE

MYSELF, I JUST SEE YOU KNOW, SOMETHING THAT LOOKS LIKE A TENT...

Lundahl:

Sure.

Interviewer:

WHAT, WHY WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT TENT AND SAY THERE'S A MISSILE IN IT?

Lundahl:

Because we have been looking at thousands of pictures, and we've seen

all kinds of tents, we've seen all kinds of missiles, we've seen all

kinds of transporters, trucks and track activities, and there's a

peculiar configuration, collection, which immediately spells missile to

us. The man on the street couldn't be expected to call this right off.

For example the President himself, when we had it all outlined for him,

was not sure. And he wanted to be reassured. And that is, is certainly

to be expected. This is not the way you do photo interpretation at

discovery. You're looking at transparencies, you're varying

magnification, but you have an enormous background of experience from

having looked at these things in many other contexts. And when you get

them all together in the gestalt, that sells, tells you right away that

you've got a base, a sight that's being prepared to fire. Mind you

these were not yet ready to fire. A few days away.

Interviewer:

LET'S LOOK AT SOME OF THESE OTHER ONES NOW. THIS IS AN INTERESTING

PICTURE WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE. CAN YOU SORT OF SHOW IT.

Lundahl:

Ya, this was an antiaircraft sight. It was not too far away from San

Cristobal. There's a radar position in the middle, and there's separate

firing positions on the outside. And they were readying to defend these

things if they had to use them, or if they were going to be attacked

before they used them. They were ready to defend against aircraft. Not

only low-flying aircraft, but high-flying aircraft.

Interviewer:

BUT YOU CAN SEE ACTUALLY, YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE MEN RUNNING...

Lundahl:

Oh, yes. They're moving around here. There's several score of them,

they're all undoubtedly Russians who were manning these things. And who

had the know-how, and undoubtedly those were Russian troops that were

handling the positions in here. Mind there had been over twenty

surface-to-air missiles sites, SA-2s put into Cuba in the months before

this thing, and so we were seeing just a steady build-up of defensive

armament, before the real offensive threat came into being.

Evidence of IRBMs in Cuba

Interviewer:

THIS IS A GRAPH, THIS A LEONI GAVE ME THIS...

Lundahl:

Yeah...

Interviewer:

APPARENTLY YOU USED THIS IN, IN SOME OF YOUR LATER BRIEFINGS...

Lundahl:

Oh, yes

Interviewer:

THE IRBMs WERE...

Lundahl:

Yes , uh.. .

Interviewer:

CAN YOU SHOW US, HOLD IT UP AGAIN...

Lundahl:

Sure...Sure ...

Interviewer:

HOLD IT QUITE CLOSE TO YOUR BODY....

Lundahl:

Okay, sure. Okay...

Interviewer:

WE'RE GOING TO START TO SHOW IT. IF YOU COULD START A LITTLE BIT

CLOSER...

Lundahl:

Yeah, the uh...

Interviewer:

JUST A SECOND ART, WE'RE JUST GOING TO FOCUS AND GET READY.

Lundahl:

Sure... okay.

Interviewer:

OKAY, GO AHEAD.

Lundahl:

Okay, this is Cuba down in here, and there are two circles drawn around

San Cristobal. This one, and this larger one. Now this, this smaller

circle has a radius of approximately eleven hundred nautical miles.

That means the range would reach just beyond Washington, D.C. from San

Cristobal. The one which was at twenty-one hundred miles, reaches all

the way across the United States and except for a little corner up in

the northwest of Seattle in there. Other than that the rest of the US

would have been within range of the IRBM sites. Now they were going to

longer to build because they had to pour a lot of concrete, and do a

lot more to ready those. But the MRBMs, they were going to be ready in

a, in a couple of days.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE EVIDENCE THAT...LET'S GO WIDER AGAIN. WHAT WAS THE

EVIDENCE THAT YOU HAD THAT YOU HAD IRBMs. I'M NOT SURE IF I HAVE ANY,

ANY IRBM PHOTOGRAPHS HERE, BECAUSE THESE ARE ALL THE MIRVs, BUT MAYBE

YOU CAN JUST TELL ME WHAT WAS...

Lundahl:

Well the main evidence was the kind of...

Interviewer:

START, START THAT AGAIN. I'M SORRY I WAS UH. . .

Lundahl:

Yes, sure. The main evidence for the IRBMs was again, our study of

these very same kinds of missiles in the Soviet Union we had seen them

at Kapustinar(?), and we saw that they would have to lay some concrete

around the pad area. This is not something you erected like a

firecracker and shot off, this needed a lot of handling. This was a big

piece of equipment that was going to go a long way. So to get it ready

to fire, you needed to take some weeks and... undoubtedly would have

been well on in to November or even later before they were ready to

fire the IRBMs. But we had no doubt about them, and we clearly call

them to the President as soon as we saw them.

Interviewer:

LET'S GO BACK TO THE FIRST COUPLE OF U-2 PICTURES....

Lundahl:

Sure.

Technological Process of Identifying Missiles from Photographs

Interviewer:

LET ME ASK YOU A COUPLE OF MORE DETAILS. THIS ONE HERE, NOW, HOW CAN

YOU, HOW CAN YOU KNOW THAT THAT IS A, IS A MISSILE? IS IT THE LENGTH,

IS IT SOMETHING THAT YOU SAW PULL THROUGH RED SQUARE...

Lundahl:

Yes. ..

Interviewer:

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE....

Lundahl:

Oh, yes, you see the missiles had very, very fixed characteristics.

Their length, the shape of their fins, the taper, the kind of

supporting equipment that went with them, the transporters and so

forth. And we had seen these things at other places, and so we were

quite uh, convinced. Now the business of getting real dimensions on the

real world, from the measurement off of pictures, is in the science of

photogrammetry. And we have crackerjack photogrammetrists, very precise

measuring equipment that measures to a micron, and we can enlarge, and

there's no doubt in our mind what the dimensions of these things are.

So that verifies the size and the shape and the dimensions, very, very

sharply pinned down the fact that we were dealing with an MRBM or an

IRBM.

Interviewer:

JUST KEEP HOLDING THAT...

Lundahl:

Yup...

Interviewer:

COULD YOU START ON THAT PETER? RIGHT ON THE MISSILES, HERE.

Lundahl:

Uh hum, yeah...

Interviewer:

AND MAYBE ART THAT'S RIGHT, IF YOU COULD POINT AT THEM... NOW, IF YOU

COULD POINT AT THOSE ART,

Lundahl:

Yeah...

Interviewer:

AT THE MISSILES THERE...

Lundahl:

Yeah, there you go...

Interviewer:

AND, AND TELL ME NOW AGAIN, HOW YOU COULD DETERMINE THE LENGTH OF THESE

THINGS, AND WHY YOU FIGURED THEY WERE MISSILES.

Lundahl:

When you look to a, an object called a stereo comparator. And it's a

cursor with cross fares in it, and you precisely set the cross fare at

one end, and then you traverse that cross fare to the other end of the

missile and you take the readings in both cases, you run it through a

photogrammetric transform, and out comes the number. You run it several

times and you're right on the money time after time. You may vary by a

half a foot or so, but you're right on it. So there was no problem with

the dimensions, we knew exactly what these were and we knew they were

exactly like the dimensions of the MRBMs we had seen in the Soviet

Union. But mind you, this was the first time we had ever seen offensive

missilery outside of the Soviet Union. We had seen other things, but

this was the first time we'd seen big stuff; MRBMs, the smallest, IRBMs

the next, outside of the Soviet Union.

Interviewer:

LET'S JUST STOP FOR A SECOND.

Lundahl:

Uh hum, sure.

Interviewer:

UHM, I WANT TO DO A LITTLE MORE, JUST A SORT OF DIFFERENT LEVEL OF

STUFF, SO WE COULD CERTAINLY, IF YOU WANT TO DO ANYTHING LIKEWISE, NOW

THAT WE'VE LOST THE, WHY DON'T WE STOP AND DO THAT. YOU WERE EXPLAINING

TO ME WHAT A U-2, WITH THE TECHNOLOGY OF U-2, THE CAMERA AND THE, THE

HEIGHT THAT IT'S FLYING ABOVE THE EARTH, THE TYPE OF CAMERA, COULD

YOU...

Lundahl:

Yes, the camera used was called a B Camera, it had 36 inch focal length

lens, and the scale of a photograph is determined by the focal length

of the lens, divided by the altitude. So 36 inches, three foot over

seventy thousand feet, you've got something like one over twenty-three

thousand, for the contact scale. Then you enlarge from there, but how

much you can enlarge of course, depends upon the resolution of the

pictures. And in the U-2 pictures, they were characteristically better

than sixty line per millimeter, in contrast to something like fifteen

lines per millimeter that we would get in World War II. So you had a

real good medium to work with. You could enlarge four, five, six,

eight, ten times and still see people and small details on the ground

six, eight inches or so, and have plenty of detail for interpretation.

Interviewer:

MUST BE A GREAT TOOL FOR A PHOTO INTERPRETER TO WORK WITH.

Lundahl:

Yes. . .

Interviewer:

THAT AIRPLANE AND THAT TECHNOLOGY...

Lundahl:

Yes, they were very, very fond of it, and the men who flew it were very

fond of it too because it was very, very low vibration, it the cameras

seemed to work without any difficulty and the resultant photography was

extremely good.

Evidence of a Nuclear Shelter in Cuba

Interviewer:

WHAT'S THAT PHOTOGRAPH YOU'VE GOT THERE?

Lundahl:

Well, this is a good one. That's uh,

Interviewer:

COULD YOU HOLD IT UP THERE CLOSER...

Lundahl:

Sure. Sure. Well this is a, it's a

Interviewer:

THAT ONE MY KIND SIR... THIS IS A...

Lundahl:

This is a concrete tunnel, if you will. It's made of arches one after

the other which are bolted together. You can see the separate segments

one after the other all the way across, and after that is all segmented

together, they bury it in earth, they cover it with sod, and now you

got a concrete shelter, if you will, buried with sod, so it's going to

be difficult to see if you didn't see it under construction. And there

inside, you could store your nuclear warheads, your weapons, until the

time came when you were ready to use them. So this was a very, very

ominous continuation of the story. The missiles that were not just

going to be dropping high explosives, they were going to be carrying

nuclear materials. And this was a clear indication that a nuclear

shelter was under construction right near the sites.

[END OF TAPE D04020]

US during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

AS A PHOTO INTERPRETER, YOU KNOW, AND SOMEONE WHO WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED

IN THIS WHOLE CRISIS, AND WHO SPOKE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES ABOUT IT, WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF THIS

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?

Lundahl:

Oh, I think the essential lesson is that the United States, for that

matter, any nation in the world, has to be vigilant. And has to keep

track of the kinds of threats which surround it. Now how you do that is

each nation's responsibility. But aerial reconnaissance has proven

itself over and over and over again. For example, in World War II,

aerial reconnaissance provided somewhere between eighty and ninety

percent of our total military intelligence which is a tremendous

amount. And in a world that is as dangerous as the world is today, we

may never survive another Pearl Harbor, so the, the name of the game is

to keep Pearl Harbors from happening. To keep aware of these threats,

and then start political action before the threat has actually invoked

upon us.

Interviewer:

DID YOU EVER FEEL THROUGH THAT, THOSE THIRTEEN DAYS, THAT...WE WERE ON

THE EDGE OF A NUCLEAR WAR...

Lundahl:

Oh yes. I, ah, my people and I were so busy with work that we had

little time for concern, shall we say, about weapons landing on the

city. We felt that if we worked rapidly and provided the information

accurately to our leaders, that they would have what they needed for

the decisions that came. And so although we were working under

considerable pressure, the lights never went out in our building, we

were not frightened. We were determined that we were going to win for

the USA and keep that flag flying on the hill, like they say here.

Interviewer:

I UNDERSTAND THAT LET'S DO THAT AGAIN CLOSE...IF YOU COULD TELL ME THAT

QUES... THAT ANSWER AGAIN, YOUR RESOLUTION AND YOUR PATRIOTISM IN A

SENSE DURING THIS.

Lundahl:

Yes, well the the attitude of the photo interpreters, a wonderful bunch

of troops, most of them trained in World War II, was that we far rather

have some small role in the making of history, than a seat on the fifty

yard line watching it being made by somebody else. And here was our big

chance. We were now right in the front line, if you will our findings

were moving within a matter of minutes, to the attention of the

President of the United States. We had to be right, we had to be swift,

and we had to be very, very careful about the information we gave to

our leaders. We didn't want them to run off half-cocked, neither do we

want them to run off misinformed, or partially informed. So it was a

very trying time for the interpreters, but we enjoyed every minute of

it because that was our beginning in history.

Interviewer:

WHAT UM...KENNEDY'S BEEN QUOTED AS SAYING HE THOUGHT THAT THE WORLD

WAS...SOMEWHERE, YOU KNOW THAT THE CHANCES OF NUCLEAR WAR WAS SOMEWHERE

BETWEEN ONE AND THREE AND EVEN OTHERS LIKE ROBERT MCNAMARA WHO WE SPOKE

TO YESTERDAY SAID THAT THERE WAS ONE NIGHT I THINK IT WAS SATURDAY

NIGHT, THE LAST, THE DAY BEFORE KHRUSHCHEV ANNOUNCED HE WAS GOING TO

WITHDRAW THE MISSILES, THAT HE THOUGHT MAYBE HE'D SEE HIS LAST SUNSET

AND THAT SORT OF THING. DID YOU EVER FEEL THAT IT WAS THAT CRITICAL...

Lundahl:

Well...

Interviewer:

THAT YOU WERE REALLY ON THE EDGE OF A NUCLEAR WAR?

Lundahl:

I didn't feel it as strongly. If I'd been sitting home with my carpet

slippers on reading all the news dispatches or looking at TV, I might

have been wrapped around the axle. But I wasn't. We were working

eighteen hours a day, right up against the stops with every new mission

that was coming, and coming out with information, and we knew that

things were going on, that troops were moving, and airplanes were

moving and the country was mobilizing. There was no question about

that. But we didn't have time to reflect on that. We had to do our

part, or all the rest of it was going to be in vain.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS YOUR IMPRESSION OF KENNEDY THROUGH ALL THIS, DO YOU THINK

HE...

Lundahl:

Well I was tremendously impressed. John F. Kennedy was a, a marvelous

person to brief, you could pour information at a, at a tremendous rate

and he'd never let a drop of it hit the ground. He would soak right up

and then readily come right back at you with questions which were right

on target. Very precise and very penetrating and very useful. He was a

delight to brief because he could take on information so fast. There

were other people that we briefed who could not. They either could not

understand, or you'd spend too much time explaining or expanding, but

not with Kennedy. He was very, very cool, I never saw him swear, or

heard him swear, I never heard him raise his voice. He was well

modulated, he was in command at all times and of course, he had

enormous respect from his cabinet and everybody who had anything to do

with him. He'll linger in my mind as as a marvelous president and one

that I was delighted to have had a chance to serve.

Interviewer:

YOU TOLD ME LAST TIME ABOUT THIS WHOLE TIME OF THE SURGING OF THE, OF

THE ACTIVITY. CAN YOU, CAN YOU TELL ABOUT THAT, THIS IS THE END OF THE

FIRST WEEK --

Lundahl:

Yeah, I'd say the times were the tension that you're talking, but, got

to me even a little bit, was during the moments I was waiting in the

wings at the White House with my briefing package and I had nothing to

do to wait, but to wait until my number was called. And at that moment

I could hear the clack of heels. I could hear the clack of teletype

machines in various directions. I could hear people running a piece of

teletype material being torn from a machine and somebody running down

the hall and somebody utter something that sounded like an oath, a door

would slam, two or three other people would uh move... and so the

histrionics which were attaching it, which I had to sit there and look

at while I was waiting to go into the arena, were the things that

probably stirred me up far more than anything else during the crisis.

Activity in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer:

LET'S GO TO A WIDE...SO WE SEE THE PICTURES... OKAY. THERE WAS A MOMENT

NEAR THE END OF THAT FIRST WHEN, WHEN YOU WERE STUDYING THESE PICTURES,

I GUESS EVERY MORNING THEY WERE COMING IN...

Lundahl:

Yes, yeah.

Interviewer:

EVERYDAY THEY WERE COMING IN. AND YOU COULD SEE THAT SUDDENLY THE

SOVIETS HAD, WHAT, WHAT YOU CALLED LAST TIME SURGED THE CONSTRUCTION OF

THEM THAT THERE WAS THIS ENORMOUS SPEED UP IN ACTIVITY AND IT LOOKED

LIKE THEY WERE RUSHING TO GET THEM READY. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?

Lundahl:

Oh yes. We could see that they were trying very hard to get these

things ready to fire. They had troubles down there. Mind you this was

the rainy season in Cuba, the heavy cables, the electrical connectors

and so forth had to be the, the cables had to be lifted off the ground

with Y shaped supports. And they were every type, everyday you looked

at a base, you could see more track activity. More scouring and, and

scraping of the ground. And it was quite clear that they were trying as

hard as they could to get these things ready to fire, as quickly as

possible. And the mediums were very close to, being ready to fire. The

intermediates, that was a longer story because you had concrete and you

had a lot of other heavy equipment to go in there. So the mediums were

the first concern. The intermediates were next.

Interviewer:

DID THAT SURPRISE YOU, THE SPEED AT WHICH THE, THESE THINGS WERE BEING

ASSEMBLED?

Lundahl:

Yes. It did me because when you...

Interviewer:

SORRY. I'M SORRY...WE'RE NOT GOING TO USE MY QUESTION SO IF YOU COULD

USE THE WORD SURPRISE IN THERE, IF, IF YOU DID FILL UH...

Lundahl:

Yeah. We, we were surprised at the speed with which they were moving.

Not completely surprised, but when you see them do things as we had in

an R and D sense, things move slower. Now we were looking at them in an

operational sense. Where a lot of great national prestige and

importance was hanging in the outcome and the speed with which they

worked was impressive.

Interviewer:

COULD SEE THAT

Lundahl:

Yes, Yes. From day to day we'd see a lot of progress being made. And we

knew that uh, they had been working through the nights in many of these

cases under lights, and otherwise, they were working just as hard at

their end as we were working at our end. There was no question about

that.

Necessity of Photographic Intelligence in the Nuclear Age

Interviewer:

TODAY, BRINGING THIS WHOLE STORY UP TO DATE, HERE WE ARE AT TWENTY

THREE YEARS LATER I GUESS, DO YOU THINK THE... I WAS GOING TO WAIT FOR

THE PLANE TO GO BY SO I'LL JUST KEEP TALK, BABBLING HERE FOR A

MINUTE...BUT, ESSENTIALLY MY QUESTION IS, YOU KNOW THE LAST PART OF

EACH OF THESE FILMS WE'RE MAKING IS TRYING TO BRINGING THE, THE PERIOD

OF HISTORY THAT WE'RE DEALING WITH UP TO DATE...

Lundahl:

Right...

Interviewer:

THERE ARE THIRTEEN FILMS THAT WE'RE MAKING, THIS IS JUST ONE OF THEM.

UP TO DAY, IN THE SENSE OF WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM, FROM THIS EPISODE IN

HISTORY, AND, AND MAYBE A BIT OF YOUR ASSESSMENT IF WHETHER YOU FEEL

TODAY, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE ADMINISTRATION, UHM, YOU KNOW, NOT

JUST THE UNITED STATES BUT ELSEWHERE, HAVE LEARNED THE ESSENTIAL

LESSONS, HAVE REMEMBERED THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF THE, OF THAT TIME.

Lundahl:

Yeah...

Interviewer:

GO AHEAD.

Lundahl:

I think we've learned a great deal from this particularly the enormous

importance of photographic intelligence for the welfare and survival of

the United States. Up, we learned a lot about it in World War II, but

it was in the hands of military commanders. But here, we are not right

at the lap of the president of the United States in "peacetime", quote

unquote in which the importance of the military information on a

military subject, to put it that way, was so high, that I don't think

any president in the future will ever want to make his decisions

without knowing what the photography has revealed to them. Whether the

photography comes from aircraft or from satellites, or from whatever

means available to us at that time, we're going to have to have this

kind of information. There's no question about that.

Interviewer:

HOW ABOUT THE, THE NUCLEAR AGE ITSELF. IS THIS, HAS, HAS, HAS THE

ADVENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THIS ENORMOUS EXPANSION IN THE SIZE OF

THE NUCLEAR ARSENALS, HAS THAT CHANGED THE IMPORTANCE OF THE...

Lundahl:

The nuclear age has greatly intensified the need for intelligence. In

the ancient days, before the nuclear age, you could fall flat on your

face, get up, mobilize your troops, march in with all your supplies,

and no matter how many early rounds of the fight you lost, your

over-productivity could win the fight. In the nuclear age, the first

round of the fight, or part of that, may be the total fight. And if

you're not ready for it, either to avoid that fight, or to preempt the

battle, you're lost. And therefore, the premium on intelligence is

greater now than it ever has been in history, as far as I know, and the

premium in that total intelligence on photographic intelligence, is

right at the very top.

Interviewer:

THIS MUST BE A VERY PROUD MOMENT IN YOUR CAREER, THE, THE BUSINESS OF

THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. IS IT SOMETHING YOU LOOK BACK ON, THAT

PERIOD, WITH PARTICULAR CLARITY AND WITH PARTICULAR PRIDE?

Lundahl:

Well, it was because we were, like any good athlete, preparing

ourselves for the big game. For the big battle, whatever it was. We had

trained, we had studied, we had honed our equipment we developed our

techniques, we knew what we were doing, most of us were trained in

World War II and, and here was a great chance to, to serve our country

in a way we never thought we would have a chance, and we did. And not

only did we serve, but we cast a model forward, which will not be lost.

All of the presidents since Kennedy, right on down to the present time,

clearly realize how important this resource is and it's never going to

be lost again. So it's not just what we did in Cuba, but what we did to

the psyche of the United States leadership as far as future

confrontations are concerned, to prepare them so they demand this kind

of resource before they make decisions.

Evidence of the Soviets in Cuba

Interviewer:

THANKS VERY MUCH. THAT'S VERY GOOD. WE'LL HAVE TO BE QUIET FOR ABOUT

FIFTEEN SECONDS. START ROOM TONE PLEASE... THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE I

WANTED TO ASK YOU... THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE I WANTED TO ASK YOU ABOUT

ART, WHILE WE STILL HAVE A BIT OF TAPE LEFT HERE...

Lundahl:

Sure.

Interviewer:

THERE WAS A CURIOUS THING THAT HAPPENED DURING IN TERMS OF THE HOW THE

SOVIETS SET UP THEIR BARRACKS AND THE PAINTED FLAG STEMS, AND THAT SORT

OF THING...

Lundahl:

[Laughs]

Interviewer:

IS THAT, IS THAT SOME THINGS, THAT'S A PERMANENT BASIS THERE HOW MUCH

DOES THAT SURPRISE YOU THAT...HAVE YOU SEEN THAT IN PICTURES TAKEN OVER

THE SOVIET UNION?

Lundahl:

No, no, we never did...

Interviewer:

WHERE ARE WE SEEING THAT WITH...

Lundahl:

Well, we're looking at an MRBM launching site, this is number three.

And there's a whole bunch of associated equipment there, track

activity, vehicle activity, missile activity, but the things that I

would like to expand on for just a moment, is the fact that the Soviets

were a long way from home, and they had interests, aesthetic and

otherwise, and so they sometimes would plant the regimental insignia in

the petunias or in the flower beds, and as we would be looking at this

low altitude photography, we'd suddenly start reading off ground order

of battle, in these very clear designators in flowers, as it were.

Other peculiar things they did, they carried their own tents in there

which were different configures, different configurations, to the Cuban

tents. So we had a good means for separating who were the Cubans, and

who were the Russians at any one of these complexes. There was no doubt

at a base like this, that these are Russians. This is complex

equipment. No Cubans were handling that, at that stage in history. But

the association of the barracks and the encampments around there, were

sometimes questionable in these little things. Like the plantings, and

the paintings, and the configurations that they did oh, uh, trees, and

things like that, gave us leads that we would not have been able to

hope for in any other way.

Interviewer:

I, I DON'T UNDERSTAND, I MEAN, YOU LOOK AT A PICTURE LIKE THIS...

Lundahl:

Uh hum...

Interviewer:

WHY, THE SOVIETS KNEW YOU HAD U-2s, THEY KNEW YOU WERE FLYING OVER,

THE, THE PLANES WERE SCREAMING OVERHEAD, THE LOW LEVEL ONES...

Lundahl:

Yeah...

Interviewer:

WHY DIDN'T THEY TRY TO DISGUISE THESE THINGS A LITTLE?

Lundahl:

Well, you see, when they started to put these things in, it was the

rainy season. Heavy weather. Now there aren't many days that are CAVU

(Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited). And you could be flying many, many

places in this, in the Cuban territory, and if the weather conditions

were not right, you might not see the ground in those locales. Okay.

They were going to get these things in, they were going to be covered

as this one here is with canvas, they were going to paint the canvas,

and give it the uh, usual vegetation effect just like in that nuclear

warhead storage site they covered it with sod. So I would pre, predict

that an extensive camouflage effort was going to go on. They all the

while hoping that we wouldn't either detect or react, until it was

neatly covered over and then they could say, what are you talking

about? There's no such thing down there. But when you catch it under

construction, every stage, and you them naked in, in the open, there is

no way of saying it is not there. Particularly like Mr. Dobrynin at the

United Nations when they, he wouldn't even look at the pictures, and

Adlai Stevenson saying "I'm prepared to wait for your answer till hell

freezes over." Well, it was these naked examples that we're talking

about, that there's no denying or no hiding from. There were going to

camouflage but they didn't have enough time.

[END OF TAPE D04021 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Art Lundahl, 1986

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-639k35mg69

If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-639k35mg69).

Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Lundahl, Art
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 085dfeab1db193861d4167572a554d817665f472 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Art Lundahl, 1986,” 1986-02-21, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-639k35mg69.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Art Lundahl, 1986.” 1986-02-21. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-639k35mg69>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Art Lundahl, 1986. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-639k35mg69