On the afternoon of November 19, 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy met with Georgi Bolshakov, ostensibly Press Attache of the Soviet Union but reputedly one of the leading KGB officials in Washington and a direct link to Chairman Khrushchev. The Attorney General warned Bolshakov that unless the Soviet Union withdrew its IL-28 bombers from Cuba, the United States was prepared to resume low-level reconnaissance of Cuba. President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy insisted, required an answer before his press conference on November 20 at 6 p.m. (Memorandum by Robert Kennedy, November 30; Kennedy Library, Robert Kennedy Papers as cited in Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, page 550)
With the exception of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who had access for his biography, the Robert Kennedy Papers are not open to Department of State historians or any other researchers.