Activities and affiliations

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1893–1969 ○ Natural causes

The American intelligence official who institutionalized covert war

In 1945, negotiations for the surrender of northern Italy hastened the war's end while excluding the Soviet representative and Italian partisans.

Allen Dulles was an American diplomat, lawyer, and intelligence chief who linked wartime secret negotiations to the covert interventions of the Cold War. As head of the OSS station in Bern, he advanced Operation Sunrise, the negotiation of the German surrender in northern Italy, while its exclusion of the Soviet ally and implications for Italian partisan power exposed the tensions within the Allied coalition. He later led the CIA through coups in Iran and Guatemala and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, expanding both the reach of the American intelligence state and the questions of responsibility attached to it. His resignation after Cuba did not end his influence, which remains emblematic of the union of intelligence gathering and imperial intervention.

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1902–1991 ○ Natural causes

CIA director who alone warned that Soviet missiles were coming to Cuba

He warned that a surprise attack on Cuba would leave the United States with a 'Pearl Harbor indictment,' and argued that Castro and Khrushchev should be given 24 hours' warning before any airstrike.

An American businessman and Republican, he was appointed CIA Director by President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Throughout the summer and fall of 1962, he repeatedly warned that the Soviets would place nuclear missiles in Cuba, warnings the intelligence community dismissed, and on September 20, in the 'honeymoon telegram' sent from Paris, he demanded imaginative analysis of the Soviet buildup; on October 14 he ordered the U-2 overflights that discovered the missile sites. He served under President Johnson after Kennedy's assassination but resigned in 1965 over disagreements about the escalation of the war in Vietnam.

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1908–1987 ○ Heart disease

The Mongoose architect whose six-phase Cuba overthrow plan convinced the Soviets invasion was coming

When McNamara asked what the 'x-factor' on his metrics list was, Lansdale replied: 'The feelings of the common rural Vietnamese people.' McNamara erased it and said he couldn't measure it.

A U.S. Air Force major general who turned advertising into a doctrine of psychological warfare, Lansdale first made his name helping crush the Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines by weaponizing local folklore, then ran the Saigon Military Mission as a close confidant of Ngô Đình Diệm. In February 1962 he submitted to President Kennedy the six-phase Cuba Project, a schedule that aimed for open revolt and overthrow of the Castro government by the first two weeks of October. The document became a crucial piece of Soviet intelligence: it convinced Moscow that a U.S. invasion of Cuba was imminent and helped trigger the missile crisis. Forced to retire in 1963 after refusing to abandon Diệm, Lansdale was later recognized as a founding figure of modern counterinsurgency and psychological operations.

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1915–1992 ○ Respiratory failure

The founding father of photo interpretation whose analysts spotted Soviet missiles in Cuba and triggered the crisis

"If there was ever a time I want to be right in my life, this is it": upon confirming the SS-4 missiles in the U-2 photos of Cuba, October 15, 1962

A Chicago-born geologist who began his intelligence career as a Navy photo interpreter during World War II, Lundahl joined the CIA in 1953 to lead its Photographic Interpretation Division and became the founding director of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in 1961, overseeing imagery analysis from U-2 spy planes and early reconnaissance satellites. On October 15, 1962, when NPIC analysts identified Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile sites in U-2 photographs of Cuba, Lundahl personally confirmed the finding and, saying 'If there was ever a time I want to be right in my life, this is it,' alerted CIA headquarters; the next morning he briefed President Kennedy at the White House. He led NPIC until his retirement in 1973, shaping U.S. imagery intelligence through the Cold War and earning the National Security Medal and an honorary knighthood.

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1919–1996 ○ Heart attack

The National Security Advisor who chose not to wake the president on the first night of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Ray Cline's voice on the phone: 'Those things we've been worrying about, it looks as though we've really got something.' Bundy asked, 'You're sure?'

National Security Advisor (1961–1966) under Kennedy and Johnson, and a key architect of the Vietnam War escalation. On the evening of October 15, 1962, the CIA informed him of Soviet missile bases in Cuba; he decided to wait until morning to tell the president, fearing that a hastily called nighttime meeting would blow secrecy. After leaving government in 1966, he served as president of the Ford Foundation and, in his later years, helped lead the campaign to renounce first use of nuclear weapons.

Security, intelligence and policing United States state institutions 1933–2017 ○ Natural causes

An intelligence officer whose restraint mattered at the nuclear brink

Seeing unusual Soviet nuclear readiness, he advised against raising NATO's alert level.

Leonard H. Perroots was a U.S. Air Force general and military intelligence specialist whose career intersected with the management of nuclear danger late in the Cold War. As assistant chief of staff for intelligence, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, during Able Archer 83 in 1983, he observed unusual Soviet nuclear readiness but advised against raising NATO alert levels, avoiding a potentially dangerous escalation. He later directed the Defense Intelligence Agency and left a significant retrospective account of the war scare, illustrating how intelligence judgment can shape decisions at the nuclear brink.