The Cuban missile crisis
For thirteen days the United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other over Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles deployed to Cuba under the codename Anadyr. Kennedy convened an advisory group whose deliberations were secretly recorded, rejected the majority preference for air strikes, and announced on 22 October a naval quarantine of the island, which took effect on 24 October. The most dangerous day was 27 October, when a U-2 was shot down over Cuba, another strayed over Soviet territory in the Far East, and an American destroyer group forced a Soviet submarine to surface with practice depth charges. Khrushchev announced the withdrawal of the missiles on 28 October in exchange for a public American undertaking not to invade Cuba and a private, concealed undertaking to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Later research established two things nobody knew at the time: tactical nuclear weapons were already on the island, and the submarine incident had come closer to a nuclear release than any participant in Washington understood.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Cuba · region · Cuba
- The San Cristóbal medium-range missile sites · site · Cuba · not located
- John F. Kennedy · person · United States · not located
- Nikita Khrushchev · person · Soviet Union · not located
- The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft · vehicle · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
The Cuban Missile Crisis — declassified documents and briefing books
Named as the principal declassified-document collection behind this pack's account of the crisis, the B-59 submarine incident and the later disclosures about tactical warheads on the island. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — nsarchive.gwu.edu is blocked by the environment's egress proxy. Everything this pack says about the crisis is from standing knowledge of the published historiography, and the degree of documentary support for the B-59 account in particular is not established here.
National Security Archive, George Washington University · Partly verified
National Security Archive Cuban Missile Crisis collections and briefing books, including materials on the Soviet submarine incidents of 27 October 1962 and on tactical nuclear weapons deployed to Cuba
The Kennedy White House tapes, October 1962
Named as the source for the existence and character of a near-verbatim record of the ExComm deliberations, including Kennedy's resistance to the air-strike option and the concealed Turkish missile understanding. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted; no recording or transcript was heard or read in this session and nothing is quoted from them.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum · 1962-10 · Partly verified
Presidential recordings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, October 1962, held by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
Recorded on Cuba
- A U-2 photographs missile construction in western Cuba
- The Cuban missile crisis
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.