1. On October 14, a U-2 spy plane over western Cuba discovered the missile sites. President Kennedy demanded that Khruschev remove them, but he refused. The Kennedy administration increased the size of the army and quadrupled its nuclear arsenal. Unable to compete with America’s military superiority, the Soviet leader Khrushchev began to look for some way to save face. He found it in Cuba. Kennedy had already tried unsuccessfully to invade Cuba to overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro. Khrushchev assured President Kennedy that he would not put offensive weapons in Cuba but he began to do so in August of 1962. On October 14, 1962, American U-2s photographed a Launchpad under construction that, when completed, could fire nuclear missiles with a range of 1,000 miles. At the risk of nuclear war, the Kennedy administration wanted those nuclear weapons out of Cuba.

2. John Hughes briefs SecDef McNamara on Soviet missile sites in Cuba in 1962. DoD photo. How America should respond to the missile crisis became the focus of 12 days of intense activity within the Kennedy administration. The President formed an emergency Executive Committee, led by his brother Robert Kennedy, to advise him on the crisis.. President Kennedy’s goals: Get missiles out of Cuba Avoid nuclear exchange Prepare for Russian moves elsewhere DO NOT lose face A heated debate produced options: Launch a nuclear strike against the missile sites Launch a conventional air strike, followed by an invasion Initiate a naval blockade to prevent the Soviets from sending further material to Cuba

3. President Kennedy chose the naval blockade as the initial American response. European allies were notified, and on October 22 he went on television to break the news to the American people. He announced that the United States was imposing “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment” being shipped into Cuba. He warned the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) that America would consider any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a military response. Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy on October 23 rd that warned the U.S.S.R. would NOT observe the illegal blockade. Soviet ships would refuse to be stopped by the blockade. Work on missile sites continued without interruption, and would soon be operational.

4. American ships stopped and boarded a Panamanian vessel headed for Cuba carrying Russian goods but it contained no military material. A Soviet surface-to-air missile shot down an American U-2 spy plane flying over Cuba. Confidant that the blockade had failed to stop the Soviets, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended an immediate airstrike on the missile sites. The world was now on the brink of nuclear war.

5. Finally, Khrushchev sent a letter to President Kennedy proposing that the Soviet Union would withdraw its missiles from Cuba if: The U.S. withdrew the blockade The U.S. promised never to invade Cuba again and The U.S. withdrew American missiles from Turkey President Kennedy was willing to agree to two demands. Publicly the President refused to back down on the missiles in Turkey. Robert Kennedy met secretly with the Soviet ambassador and told him that the missiles in Turkey would also be removed. The next day, the Soviets announced that their missiles would be removed. The crisis was over.