Amid those grave concerns, the memo ends on a different note. A US agent in Moscow describes "packed houses and enthusiastic applause" during a run of Russian performances by the New York City Ballet.
That report, given to Kennedy a day before the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is among roughly 19,000 pages of newly declassified CIA documents from the Cold War released Wednesday. Stamped "For the President's Eyes Only" on some pages, the dossiers were delivered daily by the spy agency to the White House.
Conspiracy theorists mining for signs of nefarious CIA plots are likely to be disappointed. Many of the briefs remain partially blacked out, and what isn't won't rewrite textbooks. Instead, historians say, the memos reveal the real-time intelligence that shaped pivotal decisions made in the Oval Office after the Bay of Pigs and through Vietnam.