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A book I'm reading mentions a quote that supposedly comes from a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee meeting:

Senator Albert Gore Sr., an ally of the administration, stated that they were a “provocation” in a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1961 (more than a year and a half before the missile crisis), adding, “I wonder what our attitude would be” if the Soviets deployed nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba.

Given the above information, I tried to search https://www.foreign.senate.gov/, but I couldn't find anything pertaining to a meeting in February 1961. Is it possible to find such documents?

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  • Isn't that the point of a closed session?
    – user9389
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 16:51
  • @notstoreboughtdirt: I think he's looking for transcripts that are old enough to have been declassified and released.
    – Giter
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 20:09
  • I'm assuming they are released considering it was cited by the book.
    – user7548189
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 20:29
  • @user7548189 - It could have been hearsay from another Senator. I think this is a good question, but you might want to explicitly state that you're looking for old transcripts, not current ones.
    – Bobson
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 22:01
  • I suspect this one is part of the JFK Library collection. (Just a guess based on date and relation to the CMC)
    – SoylentGray
    Commented Jul 24, 2018 at 17:54

1 Answer 1

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In some cases, yes.

See the committee's 14 July 2010 press release Senate Foreign Relations Committee Releases Volumes Of Previously Classified Transcripts From Vietnam Era Hearings:

1175 pages of declassified transcripts:

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/senate-foreign-relations-committee-releases-volumes-of-previously-classified-transcripts-from-vietnam-era-hearings

Also, in 2007 other transcripts were declassified:

https://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/1967executive.html

More pertinent to 1961 may be Executive sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Specifically Volume XIII, part 1, is January-May 1961 transcripts made public in April of 1984.

And, yes, on page 220 of the above-linked document, Gore speaking 28 February 1961 states:

I wonder what our attitude would be if warheads should be attached to missiles in Cuba.

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