THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER: JOHN SCALI

For the last "As Seen On TV" showcase remembering the thirteen days in October, 1961, during which the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, the spotlight is on one of the two men involved in the most interesting turn of events during that crisis....

JOHN SCALI

AS SEEN IN:
"The Missiles Of October"

AS PLAYED BY:
Paul Lambert

From Wikipedia:
John Alfred Scali (April 27, 1918 – October 9, 1995) was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 1973 to 1975.

Scali was an ABC News reporter who became an intermediary in the Cuban Missile Crisis and later a part of the Nixon Administration. Scali gained fame after it became known in 1964 that in October 1962, a year after he joined ABC News, he had carried a critical message from KGB Colonel Aleksandr Fomin to U.S. officials. He left ABC in 1971 to serve as a foreign affairs adviser to President Nixon, becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1973. Scali re-joined ABC in 1975 where he worked until retiring in 1993.

Scali was contacted by Soviet embassy official (and KGB Station Chief) Fomin about a proposed settlement to the crisis, and subsequently he acted as a contact between Fomin and the Executive Committee. However, it was without government direction that Scali responded to new Soviet conditions with a warning that a U.S. invasion was only hours away, prompting the Soviets to settle the crisis quickly.

[Scali is seen here trying to get information out of a senator (unnamed)
and meeting with Aleksandr Fomin.]

BCnU!