The Cambridge conference had "tested the waters" with regard to US-Soviet discussions of the missile crisis. Now it was time to jump in, and go to Moscow for discussions with senior Soviet decision makers. At breakfast, just before the start of the conference, Ted Sorensen, Bob McNamara, and Mac Bundy are reviewing recently declassified documents describing Operation Mongoose. They had not seen these documents since 1962. At the first session, a member of the Cuban delegation would read an excerpt from these documents into the record:

"(1) Operation Mongoose will evolve according to the following assumptions: (a) After executing the overthrow of the government in question, the U.S. will make maximum use of native [Cuban] resources, internal and external, but it recognizes that the final outcome will require the decisive military intervention of the U.S. (b) Its native resources, such as they are developed, will be utilized to prepare for or justify the intervention and therefore facilitate or support it."

This document I have read is dated March 14, 1962.

This is an early version of what we now describe as "regime change."

On the Soviet side, the two most senior participants were Anatoly Dobrynin, who was the Soviet Ambassador to the US during the crisis, and Andre Gromyko, who was the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko was one of only 6 Soviet officials who knew about the installation of the missiles; Dobrynin was not one of those six. During the conference, Gromyko (whose nickname was "Old Stoneface") turned to Dobrynin and said, "I didn't tell you about the missiles? Oh, ... it must have been a very big secret!" This was followed by a roar of laughter throughout the room.

The big surprise of the Moscow conference was the presence of the Cuban delegation. To this point, the received wisdom was that the missile crisis was a superpower confrontation, with Cuba being nothing but a bystander. The Cuban delegation was there to refute that view. The photo includes three people with whom Jim and janet would subsequently work for many years -- Rafael Hernandez (second from the left, researcher from the Center for the Study of the Americas), Jose Antonio Arbesu (second from the right; he would later become Chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC the equivalent of Cuban Ambassador to the US, if the US and Cuba had normal diplomatic relations), and Jorge Risquet (a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party in Cuba).

Organizing and producing an international critical oral history conference is a major undertaking that involves collaboration with many institutions and many people. For the Moscow conference, our chief partner in Moscow was IMEMO (Institute of World Economy and International Relations). During the conference, 9 young researchers from IMEMO were "on duty," round the clock to deal with the many issues that come up during a conference. They had a suite -- command central -- at the conference site. Here is the sign that was on their door. Note that in the Soviet Union (now Russia), the event is not called "the Cuban missile crisis." Rather, it is called "The Caribbean Crisis" -- an indication that in their view, it was not "the missiles" that caused this crisis.

The organizing group from IMEMO were fabulous! During the course of the conference we were a fully functioning international team. We confronted an array of problems and worked together to solve them. By the end of the conference, having all gone through a kind of scholarly version of "outward bound," we were friends -- special friends. On our last night in Moscow, we celebrated together. One friend stayed up all night to paint a picture for us -- which still hangs in our bedroom. Others gave us albums of Russian music, and even baby pictures! Toward the end of the evening, they showed us how to make the "Komsomol salute" -- the salute that began the meetings of "young communists" that they participated in as children. Pictured here, with Jim Blight and janet Lang are Eugene Danilov, Eugene Schagarin, Anna Padryan, Masha Vanjan and Boris Sorochinsky.