Cuban Missile Crisis Events

1961 Nov 30 President Kennedy Authorizes Operation Mongoose
The Cuban Project (also known as Operation Mongoose or the Special Group or the Special Group Augmented) was a program of CIA covert operations developed during the early years of US Pres...
1962 United States Military Plans Operation Ortsac to Disrupt Castro's Rule in Cuba
Operation Ortsac was the project name of a possible invasion of Cuba planned by the United States military in 1962. The codename was derived from former Cuban President Fidel Castro by sp...
1962 Feb United States Economic Blockade Against Cuba Becomes Near-Total Embargo
The United States Embargo against Cuba (described in Cuba as el bloqueo, Spanish for "the blockade") is a commercial, economic, and financial embargo partially imposed on Cuba in October ...
1962 Sep 8 First Nuclear Ballistic Missiles Arrive in Cuba
The first consignment of SS-3 MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The Soviets were building nine sites — six...
1962 Oct Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in October 1962, during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the "Caribbean Crisis" (Ru...
1962 Oct 14 United States U-2 Reconnaissance Mission Discovers SS-4 Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) Sites in Varying Stages of Readiness
The first consignment of SS-3 MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The Soviets were building nine sites — six...
1962 Oct 16 President Kennedy Assembles EXCOMM Upon Viewing Photographs of Soviet Missiles in Cuba
Kennedy saw the photographs on October 16; he assembled the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM), fourteen key officials and his brother Robert, at 9.00 a.m. The ...
1962 Oct 17 U-2 Photograph of First IRBM Site Under Construction is Taken
U-2 flights identify the first of three Soviet SS-5 missile sites. The SS-5s have ranges of up to 2,200 nautical miles. The military estimates that as many as 32 medium range missiles cou...
1962 Oct 18 Kennedy Meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko
On October 18th the President ordered a build up of arms along the southern border of the United States, just in case war breaks out. No one suspected anything because training exercises ...
1962 Oct 21 John F. Kennedy Decides to "Quarantine" Cuba in Response to Nuclear Threat
On October 21st, ExComm, and President Kennedy decided that a quarantine was the best course of action. The administration called it a quarantine, because the term "blockade" would symbol...
1962 Oct 22 President Kennedy Delivers First Speech on the Nuclear Buildup in Cuba
"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full ret..." —John F. Kennedy
1962 Oct 23 Joint Chiefs of Staff Instructed Strategic Air Command to go to DEFCON 2 for the Only Confirmed Time in History
On the night of October 23, the Joint Chiefs of Staff instructed Strategic Air Command to go to DEFCON 2, for the only confirmed time in history. The message, and the response, were delib...
1962 Oct 23 President Kennedy signs the Proclamation for Interdiction of the Delivery of Offensive Weapons to Cuba
Only an hour [after Kennedy's address to the nation], at 11:24 a.m. a cable drafted by George Ball to the U.S. Ambassador in Turkey and the U.S. Ambassador to NATO notified them that they...
1962 Oct 25 Kennedy Issues Security Action Memorandum 199, Authorizing that Nuclear Weapons be Loaded onto Aircraft
At 1:45 a.m. on October 25, Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's telegram, stating that the U.S. was forced into action after receiving repeated assurances that no offensive missiles were be...
1962 Oct 26 Fidel Castro Writes Letter to Khruschev in which he Urges the Soviet Union to Attack the US if it Invades Cuba
"I would like to briefly express my own personal opinion. If [an invasion of Cuba] takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggres..." —Fidel Castro
1962 Oct 26 John A. Scali of ABC Surreptitiously Meets with KGB Station Chief, Aleksandr Fomin
At 1:00 p.m., John A. Scali of ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin at Fomin's request. Fomin noted that "war seems about to break out" and asked Scali to use his contacts to talk to h...
1962 Oct 27 Rudolf Anderson, Jr., USAF Pilot, is Shot Down Over Banes, Cuba
While the meeting progressed, at 11:03 a.m. a new message began to arrive from Khrushchev. The message stated, in part, "You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you becaus...
1962 Oct 28
9:00AM
 Khruschev Announces Soviet Union will Remove Missiles from Cuba in Radio Moscow Address
After much deliberation between the Soviet Union and Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in Turkey on the border of the Soviet Union in exchange for Khru...