Key takeaways
- The US Office of the Historian calls October 1962 the moment the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict; Wikipedia dates the crisis from 16 to 28 October.
- A U-2 photographed missile sites under construction in Cuba on 14 October; the images reached the White House the next day.
- On 22 October Kennedy ordered a naval 'quarantine' — a word chosen, the Office of the Historian says, because a blockade assumed a state of war.
- On 27 October a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and Khrushchev's second letter demanded the removal of US Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
- Khrushchev announced the missiles' removal on 28 October; the US quietly removed its Jupiters from Turkey in April 1963.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles secretly installed in Cuba. The US State Department's Office of the Historian calls it "the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict." It ended when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a public US promise not to invade Cuba — and a private promise to remove American missiles from Turkey.
Wikipedia dates the crisis from 16 to 28 October 1962. Counting both ends, that is 13 days, matching Wikipedia's description of a "13-day confrontation." Count from the U-2 photographs of 14 October instead and it is 15. Which start you choose depends on whether the crisis begins when the evidence was gathered or when the president saw it.
Why the missiles were there
The Office of the Historian starts with the Bay of Pigs: after the failed US-backed invasion of April 1961, and while the Kennedy administration planned further covert action, Khrushchev agreed with Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba "to deter any future invasion attempt." Wikipedia gives the Soviet side of the ledger: the United States had put Thor missiles in England from 1959 and Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey in 1961, all within range of Moscow, and Moscow was uneasy about Cuba drifting towards China. The deal was agreed at a Khrushchev–Castro meeting in July 1962, and construction began soon after.
14–22 October: discovery and decision
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 14 October | A U-2 photographs medium- and intermediate-range missile sites under construction |
| 15 October | The images are presented to the White House |
| 16 October onwards | Kennedy convenes the advisers who become the EXCOMM |
| 22 October | Kennedy orders a naval "quarantine," writes to Khrushchev and addresses the nation on television |
The advisers split. The Office of the Historian records that some, "including all the Joint Chiefs of Staff," argued for an air strike followed by an invasion; others favoured stern warnings. Kennedy chose "a middle course." The word "quarantine" was deliberate: it legally distinguished the action from a blockade, which assumed a state of war, and helped win the support of the Organization of American States.
His televised warning, as the Office of the Historian quotes it, was that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against a nation in the Western Hemisphere would be regarded "as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." The Joint Chiefs announced DEFCON 3.
24–26 October: ships at the line, and a first letter
On 24 October, the Office of the Historian says, Khrushchev called the "blockade" an "act of aggression" and said Soviet ships would proceed. Yet over 24 and 25 October some ships turned back, and others that were stopped carried no offensive weapons and were allowed through. Reconnaissance showed the missile sites nearing readiness, and US forces moved to DEFCON 2 — meaning war involving Strategic Air Command was imminent.
On 26 October the ABC correspondent John Scali reported a back-channel approach from a Soviet agent: missiles out in return for a no-invasion pledge. That evening — the middle of the night in Moscow — a long, emotional letter from Khrushchev proposed much the same, urging both sides not to "relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope" but to "untie that knot."
27 October: Black Saturday
The next day nearly undid it. Khrushchev's second message demanded the removal of US Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Around noon, Wikipedia records, Major Rudolf Anderson's U-2 was shot down over Cuba by a Soviet surface-to-air missile, on the order of two Soviet generals in Havana. The same day, US warships dropped signalling depth charges on the Soviet submarine B-59, unaware that it carried a nuclear torpedo; Wikipedia says its captain proposed launching it, and the flotilla commander Vasily Arkhipov, whose consent was also needed, refused.
Kennedy's team decided to ignore the second letter and answer the first. That night his reply proposed removal of the Soviet missiles under UN supervision and a guarantee not to attack Cuba. Separately, the Office of the Historian says, Robert Kennedy met the Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin secretly and indicated that the US planned to remove the Jupiters from Turkey "anyway, and that it would do so soon," but that this "could not be part of any public resolution." Episodes like this one are where counterfactual history is most tempting, and most in need of discipline.
28 October and after
On the morning of 28 October, Khrushchev announced that the missiles would be dismantled and removed. The quarantine continued until the Soviets agreed to remove their IL-28 bombers, and ended on 20 November 1962; the Jupiters left Turkey in April 1963. Wikipedia adds a detail the Americans did not know at the time: tactical nuclear rockets outside the Kennedy–Khrushchev understanding remained in Cuba until, on 22 November 1962, Anastas Mikoyan told Castro they were being removed too.
Wikipedia notes the outcome embarrassed Khrushchev, because the Turkey part of the deal was secret and the Soviets were seen to retreat. The Office of the Historian identifies two lasting results: a direct White House–Kremlin "Hotline," because both sides had struggled to understand each other's intentions, and the first steps towards a nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Its place in the larger rivalry is set out in the Cold War explained, and Kennedy's speech and the Khrushchev letters reward reading as primary sources.
A note on sources: the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library's pages on the crisis could not be retrieved for this article, so it relies on the State Department's Office of the Historian and Wikipedia.
World History Timeline Sim, our app, includes Time Travel Mode, which drops you into turning points and asks what you would have done — useful for thinking about choices like 27 October, but its consequences are simulations, not history. The app is a companion to coursework. More history is in education and brain training.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Why did the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba?
Why was the US action called a quarantine instead of a blockade?
How was the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved?
Did the crisis really end on 28 October 1962?
Sources
- The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962 (opens in a new tab)Office of the Historian, US Department of State — accessed
- Cuban Missile Crisis (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
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