CNN Moderator: Theodore Sorensen served for 11 years as policy adviser, legal counsel and speechwriter for John F. Kennedy, first in the Senate and later at the White House. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he was a member of the ExComm, a special committee formed by Kennedy to address the crisis.

CNN Moderator: Theodore Sorensen joins us now live from New York. Thank you, Mr. Sorensen. I'd like to start by asking a question about the Bay of Pigs invasion. How did the CIA convince President Kennedy that the Bay of Pigs invasion would succeed?

Theodore Sorensen: CIA assured President Kennedy that there would be no U.S. identification with the Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Assured him that if there was by any chance failure, they would be able to escape into the mountains and carry on guerrilla warfare from there. Assured him that the prospects were good for an uprising by the Cuban people in support of the invasion. All those assurances turned out to be false.

CNN Moderator: Despite the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation, the U.S. continued to covertly hatch plots to eliminate Castro. Did JFK really think those operations would work?

Theodore Sorensen: It's not clear that President Kennedy ever authorized action against Castro's life and I don't believe that he would have done so. But he did authorize continued harassment, sabotage and other activities that it was hoped would keep Castro occupied at home and give him less opportunity to subvert the Western Hemisphere.

Chat Participant: Sir, can you talk about the dynamics of the hawks on the ExComm; the likes of Gen. Marshall and Maxwell Taylor appear to provide a formidable position to try and moderate away from war with Cuba or the Soviet Union.

Theodore Sorensen: Let me first stress that within ExComm we neither used terms like "hawks" and "doves" or feel that we were divided into two opposite groups. I believe that General Taylor was as devoted to securing the peace and national security of the U.S. as anyone else in that room. There were many who thought that stopping a Soviet ship on the high seas was more likely to provoke a serious war with the Soviet Union than an invasion of Cuba, which General Taylor thought possibly the Soviets would chose to ignore. We know now that he was wrong. And that an invasion would have encountered the use of nuclear weapons by Soviet forces.

CNN Moderator: What were your immediate thoughts upon learning about the missile sites in Cuba?

Theodore Sorensen: I knew that this was most serious problem that the president or any of his advisers could possible face. That it was a potential nuclear confrontation. That the Soviets had secretly made a very provocative, aggressive move and there was no clear or simple answer.

Chat Participant: What action did the CIA director recommend at the height of the missile crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: I believe that CIA Director John McCone preferred the air strike/invasion option to the blockade/quarantine option. And it was those two choices that we finally came down to. But he was careful to offer policy recommendations only when requested by the president and to keep the CIA's primary role as one of gathering the facts.

CNN Moderator: President Kennedy seemed remarkably calm during the crisis. Do you remember any moments when he seemed as upset or disturbed as many others seemed to be?

Theodore Sorensen: Throughout the 11 years that I worked with him, John F. Kennedy displayed remarkable calm objectivity, an ability to see problems in perspective, even an ability to laugh at himself and the problems which he faced. That was true during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- although on one occasion, he felt that a State Department spokesman had gone too far in issuing a warning to the Soviets and called him up and reprimanded him sharply.

Chat Participant: Mr. Sorensen, how far would President Kennedy have gone to resolve the Cuban crisis? As a member of the ExComm, do you think President Kennedy would have authorized air strikes and full-scale attack if Khrushchev hadn't agreed to back down?

Theodore Sorensen: That is a very good question, to which no one can be certain of the answer. I believe that President Kennedy was so opposed to risking nuclear war that he would have searched for every possible method of obtaining the peaceful removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. He would not have started an invasion the next day, as was suggested on the television program. I don't believe he would have started it in the next few days.

CNN Moderator: What were those "back-up plans" for peaceful resolution?

Theodore Sorensen: He had other back-up plans for peaceful resolution in mind and for increasing pressure on the Soviets to settle just in case the exchange of letters on Saturday, October 27, did not succeed. One was to use a back channel, wholly secret, to the secretary-general of the United Nations to have the secretary-general announce a new posture which the United States would be willing to sign onto if the Soviets did. Another was to increase the pressure of the naval blockade by keeping out not only offensive weapons but all petroleum products, which can soon lead to a country's economy and industry grinding to a halt.

CNN Moderator: How did the Bay of Pigs fiasco affect Kennedy's decision-making during the missile crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: It was very important. The Bay of Pigs crisis took place during Kennedy's first few months. He recognized after that he needed to change some of the people in his administration. He needed to change some of the procedures by which decisions were reached on these far-reaching national security matters. He needed to change this country's effort to isolate Castro and Cuba. In the missile crisis, to an extent never true in the Bay of Pigs, he led an effort to examine all the options, not merely one plan, and to foresee what the consequences would be of each option and not assume their success.

Chat Participant: What was the level of confidence that the U.S. military could have prevailed in any serious combat at the time of the crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: We were confident that a conventional arms clash with the Cubans and Soviets in the Caribbean, where we had an overwhelming geographic advantage and overwhelming naval advantage, would have produced a victory by the U.S. if it could be confined to conventional weapons and confined to the Caribbean. But we were deeply concerned that Khrushchev would respond with an attack on Berlin, where he had the geographic advantage, and with nuclear weapons, which would have transformed that local battle into a terrible global struggle.

Chat Participant: We now know there were nuclear-tipped tactical weapons on Cuba. If JFK had known that then, how would that have changed his decision-making?

Theodore Sorensen: Very much so. There were some reports at that time of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba. And even though we could not be certain, the mere existence of that possibility weighed heavily on the minds of those considering the invasion option. Had our naval and land forces been devastated by tactical nuclear weapons, we would have felt compelled to answer with nuclear weapons of our own. And the ladder of escalation would have risen very sharply, very quickly.

Chat Participant: Sir, did you ever feel that the Soviets were the puppetmasters while Castro was the puppet at any time during the crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: In many ways, Castro was a puppet. He and his troops were kept away from the missiles when they were put in, and they had no voice in their being taken out. Kennedy emphasized that this was an issue between two military superpowers, and that the Cuban people were the victims, the pawns, who would suffer.

Chat Participant: Sir, can you talk about Robert Kennedy's negotiations with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin outside of ExComm's purview? How did these affect the group members, or did they know this was ongoing at all?

Theodore Sorensen: On that final Saturday, after everybody had approved the letter that the president was sending to Khrushchev proposing a settlement, a group of us, but by no means all, were called to a separate meeting in the Oval Office, in which the president and secretary of state discussed the tone, so to speak, the context of Robert Kennedy's delivering that letter to Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin. It was not until some 10 years later that the assurance, the private assurance, to the Soviets that the president had intended all along to remove the outmoded [missiles] based in Turkey became known generally and known to others in the ExComm who had not participated in that meeting. I assume some of them were not happy. Some of them were probably not surprised.

CNN Moderator: How differently would the crisis have been handled had Robert Kennedy not been part of ExComm?

Theodore Sorensen: We often met in the State Department conference room without the president because it was important that he maintain his regular schedule of speeches and other commitments in order to avoid raising suspicion among the Soviets that we knew something and also because we determined that many of the second-rank officials in our group spoke more frankly and freely when the president was not there. It was extremely valuable for the president to have at those meetings held without him someone like Robert Kennedy, whom he knew would reflect his thinking and hold everybody else's feet to the fire so to speak.

Chat Participant: Why did Nikita Khrushchev try to test Kennedy in such a confrontational way? Do you have any insights into that?

Theodore Sorensen: The Soviets themselves disagree on Khrushchev's motives for putting offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba. In part, it was to show the United States that the Soviet Union was also a superpower with a global reach who could put missiles on our borders just as we had put missiles on their borders.

In part, it was to increase the amount of nuclear might [to] threaten the United States at a time when a new crisis over Berlin approached.

And no doubt in part, it was to assure the survival of a communist outpost in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba.

Chat Participant: Sir, weren't we in fact already considering removing the nuclear missiles from Turkey anyway, and as it turned out they provided an excellent and fortunate means to an end for the crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: Yes, because those were old, out of date and unreliable missiles, the president the previous year had talked about their removal, replacing them with Polaris nuclear submarines that could focus on the same targets in a much more reliable way, but because they were not visible, much less provocative. Some historians say that Khrushchev, alarmed about the dangers of military action in Cuba getting out of control, had already decided to take the missiles out even before he heard that the NATO missiles in Turkey would ultimately be removed.

CNN Moderator: In the days following the crisis, what thoughts went through your mind as you considered the stakes involved?

Theodore Sorensen: President Kennedy warned us not to talk about victory for the United States or humiliation for the Soviet Union. He paid tribute to Khrushchev's statesman-like decision to recognize his mistake and withdraw the missiles. But no one who has lived through such a crisis could possibly feel that nuclear confrontation, much less a nuclear exchange, is the way to solve our differences.

Chat Participant: Today, what threat if any does Cuba pose, and did the past actions create this problem?

Theodore Sorensen: Cuba poses no threat to the U.S. today. Cuba no longer has the will or the strength to subvert the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Under no imaginable rationale would Cuba wish to attack the U.S. In many ways, Cuba, because of its hanging on to the old Marxist philosophy that has been repudiated almost everywhere else, is an irritant.

Cuba has complaints about the American embargo and ... [the] U.S. has complaints. It ought to be possible for both countries to meet and settle those complaints now.

CNN Moderator: How would a Cuban Missile Crisis unfold today -- given the intense glare of the media, the instant polling nature of our politics, the partisanship on Capitol Hill?

Theodore Sorensen: One of the great advantages we had in formulating a successful resolution for that crisis was our ability to meet and plan and debate in secret, without the Congress imposing a very different solution, without the news media second guessing our every step, without the American public reacting either with panic or excessive demands. The president did not brief the congressional leaders on the action we were going to take until one hour before he announced that action on national television. And those leaders preferred an invasion and air strike. I doubt that any president today would be able to make that kind of unilateral decision or to keep the formulation process secret for a week.

Chat Participant: What precautions, if any, were ExComm members taking to assure the safety of their families during the crisis?

Theodore Sorensen: Some members of ExComm sent their families outside the Washington area and did so very quietly, usually without explaining all the reasons and trying not to panic others. Other members of ExComm simply felt that they should not take any action outside of our own group that might possibly be a clue. Mrs. Kennedy was out in the country when it started. And the president, without disclosing any facts, urged her to stay out there with the children, but she told him that she would come in to the White House and share with him whatever happened.

Chat Participant: What do you think the policy toward Cuba and Castro should be today?

Theodore Sorensen: As mentioned, I favor a negotiated settlement to the differences between Cuba and the United States, including ending the embargo. But it takes two to tango. I'm not certain that Mr. Castro has demonstrated his willingness to negotiate a solution.

CNN Moderator: What will happen after Castro?

Theodore Sorensen: Castro today is more of a figurehead and a speechmaker than he is in day-to-day operational control of the government of Cuba. I think when Castro goes, much of the revolutionary fervor in Cuba, to the extent that any is left, will dwindle away, but I don't expect drastic changes in the operation of the government.

CNN Moderator: Any final comments, Mr. Sorensen?

Theodore Sorensen: I would simply note that on the basis of the transcripts that were released last year, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged Kennedy to take an all-out military action, air strike and invasion, in response to the missiles. And the congressional leaders also urged that same course. And it was John Kennedy who stood up against an action that we now know would have led to a nuclear war. So he gets some credit for our even being able to look back 36 years and talk about these possibilities.

CNN Moderator: Thank you for joining us, Mr. Sorensen.

Theodore Sorensen: I've enjoyed it. Thanks.

CNN Moderator: For more information on the Cuban Missile Crisis and many others stories of the Cold War, visit CNN.com/ColdWar.