ABSTRACT
In the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union was an intelligence challenger with an ideological leadership style; the United States was an intelligence defender with a bureaucratic-pragmatic leadership style; and Cuba was an 221intelligence bystander with a charismatic-revolutionary leadership style. To evaluate intelligence performance, and to inform organizational change, it is helpful to recognize that these differences in structural position and leadership style posed different kinds of challenges for each country's intelligence community. A survey of US, Soviet, and Cuban intelligence in the Cuban missile crisis indicates that, of the three, the US intelligence community met its challenges best. Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John McCone deserves much of the credit for this. Despite flaws in his own analysis, he proved a nimble intermediary between policy makers and the intelligence community.
