The Cuban Missile Crisis began in October 1962 when U.S. reconnaissance flights discovered Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba. Over the next two weeks, President Kennedy and his advisers debated options of air strikes or a blockade as tensions escalated. Khrushchev eventually agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a promise from the U.S. not to invade Cuba and to remove its missiles from Turkey, ending the crisis.

1. Cuban Missile Crisis
Andrew Wood and Dave Ryan

2. A Brief Chronology
 May, 1962: Khrushchev makes veiled
references to a plot (How would the U.S. feel to
have missiles pointing at them, as they have
missiles pointed at us?)
 September: JFK and Congress issue warnings
to USSR that US will deal harshly with any
threats to national security
 October 14: U2 recon. flight over Cuba spots
sites installing nuclear missiles
 October 15: Presence of missiles is confirmed

3. The Missiles: One Site

4. Chronology, Continued
 October 16: President Kennedy notified
 October 16-22: Secret deliberations on what
should be done
 October 22: Kennedy tells nation his plan for
blockade and quarantine
 October 23: OAS endorses naval quarantine
 October 24: Naval quarantine begins and
successfully changes course of many Soviet
ships

5. Chronology, Continued
 October 25: One Soviet ship challenges naval
quarantine; Kennedy lets it pass
 October 25: At the UN, Adlai Stevenson directly
challenges the Soviet ambassador to admit to
the existence of missiles, when the ambassador
refuses, Stevenson wheels out pictures of the
missile sites
 October 26: Soviets raise possibility for a deal:
if we withdraw missiles will America promise not
to invade Cuba?

6. Chronology, Continued
 October 27: Soviets demand that Americans
also withdraw missiles from Turkey; Major
Anderson’s plane is missing over Cuba,
presumably shot down; U.S. recon plane strays
over Soviet airspace…high tensions
 Kennedy tells Khrushchev that he will accept
the proposal of the 26th, Kennedy tells his
brother to tell the Soviet Ambassador that
though the Turkey missiles would not be part of
the bargain, they would be removed in time
 October 28: USSR agrees to withdraw missiles

7. Soviet Decisions
 Motivations
 Close the missile gap—Currently far
behind U.S. in terms of number of
missiles
 Verbal threats no longer effective with
overwhelming evidence of U.S.
superiority
 Protect Cuba
 Reciprocity: The U.S. has missiles
pointing at us, let’s see how they feel
now

8. Soviet Decisions, Continued
 Inability to use the missiles
 If fired a missile, repercussions would be
severe

9. Why Khrushchev Settled
 Effectiveness of naval quarantine
 Conventional inferiority in the Caribbean
 No possible countermove
 Overwhelming world support for the U.S.
 Other possible reasons
 Got what he wanted?
 No U.S. invasion of Cuba
 U.S. missiles withdrawn from Turkey

10. The American Decision
 In September Kennedy had stated
and Congress had passed a
resolution saying that if the Soviet
Union placed offensive weapons in
Cuba we would not tolerate it.
 Could we then rely solely on
diplomacy? Kennedys thought
John could be “impeached” if he
didn’t act in accordance with his
prior warnings
 Determined in first 48 hours of crisis
that the removal of missiles was the
primary objective
 This objective effectively ruled out
isolated diplomacy, and left two
options…

11. The American Decision cont.
 Option 1 - Air Strike
 On October 17th, President Kennedy “made
the flat statement that there would definitely be
an air strike, at least against the missile sites,
and perhaps against wider targets” (Bundy
394)
 Reservations from others, airstrike may be
using a “sledgehammer” to kill a “fly
 Later that day Robert McNamara suggests
policy in between diplomacy and an air strike

12. The American Decision cont.
 Option 2 – Blockade
 Advocated early on by McNamara and Robert
Kennedy, blockade would not require instant killing,
but critics feared it would not remove the missiles
and would allow Soviets time to complete what they
already had in Cuba
 Douglas Dillon strengthened blockade argument by
suggesting that it would only be a first step, that if
Khrushchev did not remove the missiles to lift it,
then more could be done
 By Friday the 19th, the committee working on the
blockade adapted it into a quarantine, on Sunday
Kennedy accepted their plan as the course of
action

13. Could America have acted
differently?
 Could we have used the crisis to remove
Castro?
 Our warnings all along had been against offensive
weapons so once that warning is tested if we use it
to attack Castro are we sticking to our word?
 Could we have tried diplomacy before resorting
to the quarantine?
 If we didn’t keep secrecy, Khrushchev could have
proclaimed defiance, or denounced
quarantine…then both countries would be in
positions where they’re heading straight for each
other and can’t just turn back

14. Castro’s Role
 No real role in decision
making
 Apparently out of touch with
the situation
 Oct. 26: “Aggression
imminent/imperialists
disregarding world
opinion”—Clearly not the
case
 Khrushchev plays along
to some extent but it is
clear he disagrees with
him (“your suggestion
would have started a
thermonuclear world
war”)

15. Questions
 Do you feel Major Anderson’s death justified
more aggressive action?
 Seeing as how our options in the crisis were
somewhat dictated by the warnings we issued
in September…should we have issued those
warnings?
 Robert Kennedy likened an air strike to Pearl
Harbor (Bundy 394), was that a fair analogy?
 If the missiles in Cuba were conventional,
and neither the Soviet Union nor the U.S.
possessed any nuclear weapons, would the
crisis have been avoided?

16. The Cuban Missile Crisis