EXCOMM

The original tape recordings of EXCOMM's meetings are currently held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, Boston. Great strides have been made in declassifying and publishing the tapes.[2] Excerpts from the first meeting, which took place on October 16, 1962, document the reactions of the committee members upon initially hearing the news that medium and long-range ballistic missiles might be stationed in Cuba. In the summer of 1985, McGeorge Bundy, who served as EXCOMM's Special Assistant for National Security, transcribed the tapes from the October 27, 1962 meeting. James G. Blight, while Executive Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, edited and annotated Bundy's transcriptions. Authorities in Washington and at the library granted Bundy access to the tape recordings given his role with EXCOMM.[3]

Bundy considered the October 27 meeting especially important, as it was the meeting which immediately preceded EXCOMM's resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Bundy believed the tape recordings included important historical information that should be shared with the public: notably, how political decisions are carried out when involving matters pertaining to nuclear weaponry.

In the mid-1990s, the audio tapes were systematically declassified (with a modest number of excisions) and released, first as published transcripts[4][5] and later as downloadable audio files.[6]

The EXCOMM's deliberations are a favorite topic of social scientists. Irving Janis argued that they were relatively free of the "groupthink" that plagued discussions leading up to the Bay of Pigs. Allison and Zelikow make frequent reference to them in the second edition of Essence of Decision, in connection with the "bureaucratic politics" perspective.[7]

One political theorist, James Blight, has analyzed the behavior of EXCOMM's members in the midst of the impending crisis with the Soviet Union. He suggests that the thought of war with the Soviet Union instilled a sense of fear in the committee members so that their deliberations became more productive as they reacted to this emotion.[8] Blight argues that EXCOMM's focus of attention shifted: as the possibility of war with the Soviet Union became more probable, the committee members became less concerned with removing the missiles from Cuba and instead focused their energy on avoiding a nuclear war.

Sociologist David Gibson has explored the EXCOMM's deliberations from a discourse-analytic, or conversation-analytic, perspective. He argues that inasmuch as Kennedy's decisions were shaped by the ExComm's deliberations, they hinged on the group not talking about the dangers that awaited around every corner—such as the danger that the U.S. would have to bomb operational nuclear missiles were the blockade to fail to force Khrushchev to remove the missiles.[9]

Historian Bayard De Volo argues that the composition of the committee as all-male influenced its decisions. She argues that gender operated as a ‘pre-emptive deterrent against decisions and actions associated with femininity’, which therefore discouraged signs of weakness and attempts at cooperation.[10] This can be seen in the response of the hawkish Joint Chiefs of Staff to the crisis as well as Kennedy himself who believed a failure to act through strength would expose him to the risk of impeachment.[11]

• List of all NSC ExComm Meetings, 1962-1963