TWE Remembers: The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Cuban Missile Crisis)

One of the first decisions that President John F. Kennedy made when he learned of the Soviet missiles in Cuba was to assemble a small group of senior administration officials to give him advice. That group of elite advisers was formally constituted on October 22, 1962 as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or the “ExCom” for short. Here are the ExCom’s dozen members and the positions they initially advocated in the group’s deliberations:

The ExCom frequently reached out to other experts, both inside and outside of government, for advice. These experts included:

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