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—— ON THIS DAY ——
OCTOBER 16, 1962
Washington, D.C., USA
64 years ago
The Cuban Missile Crisis, the thirteen-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began on October 16, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy was shown evidence of Soviet missile sites in Cuba.
Shortly before nine on the morning of Tuesday, October 16, 1962, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy went to the White House residence, where President John F. Kennedy was still in his robe reading the newspapers, and told him that a U-2 spy plane flying over western Cuba two days earlier had photographed Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles being installed. Once operational, they could deliver nuclear warheads to Washington and much of the eastern United States within minutes of launch.
Kennedy convened a group of about a dozen advisers that became known as the ExComm. For the first week they met in secret while the president kept to his public schedule. The early consensus favored air strikes on the missile sites followed by an invasion of the island. Over several days of argument, the group moved toward a less drastic first step: a naval blockade, labeled a quarantine for legal reasons, to stop further military shipments while demanding that the missiles already in place be removed.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The Executive Committee of the National Security Council, known as ExComm, the group of advisers President Kennedy assembled to manage the crisis, whose deliberations were secretly tape-recorded.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had sent the missiles for several reasons: to protect Fidel Castro's government from another American-backed invasion after the Bay of Pigs, to offset the large American lead in long-range nuclear weapons, and to answer the American Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey, on the Soviet border. He gambled that the deployment could be completed in secret and presented as an accomplished fact. On the evening of October 22, Kennedy revealed the discovery in a televised address and announced the quarantine. American forces went to their highest alert level of the Cold War. Around the world, people stocked up on food and wondered whether they would see the end of the week.
The most dangerous day was Saturday, October 27. A Soviet surface-to-air missile shot down a U-2 over Cuba, killing its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, the only combat death of the crisis. Another U-2 strayed into Soviet airspace near Alaska. And in the Sargasso Sea, American destroyers dropped practice depth charges to force a Soviet submarine to surface, unaware that it carried a nuclear torpedo and that its exhausted captain wanted to use it. Firing required the agreement of three senior officers on board. One of them, Vasili Arkhipov, refused.
That night the president's brother Robert met the Soviet ambassador and offered a deal. The United States would publicly pledge not to invade Cuba, and would privately promise to withdraw the Jupiter missiles from Turkey within a few months, provided that part stayed secret. On the morning of October 28, Khrushchev announced over Radio Moscow that the missiles would be dismantled. The aftermath included a direct communications hotline between Washington and Moscow and, in 1963, a treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere. We now know there were also about a hundred tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba that American planners knew nothing about. An invasion would very likely have met them.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
It was the closest the world has come to nuclear war. Evidence released since the Cold War shows that the danger was greater than either side understood at the time, and that the outcome depended in part on luck and on the judgment of a few individuals.
It changed how the superpowers managed their rivalry. The shock produced the hotline, the first arms control treaties, and a shared understanding that direct confrontation between nuclear powers had to be avoided.
It remains the essential case study in crisis decision-making. Kennedy's choice to slow events down, resist military pressure for immediate strikes, and leave his opponent a way to retreat without humiliation is still studied in governments and universities.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On October 16, 1962, a president in his bathrobe was shown photographs of missile sites ninety miles from Florida. Thirteen days later the missiles were on their way home, in exchange for a public promise and a secret trade. A Soviet naval officer most people have never heard of may have done as much as anyone to see that the week ended the way it did.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.”
— Secretary of State Dean Rusk, as Soviet ships stopped short of the quarantine line, October 24, 1962
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 photographs, the ExComm debates, the naval quarantine, and the secret deal that ended the standoff?
