📡 The Cuban Missile Crisis

What you’ll learn

1. What the photographs could proveShow that the 14 October U-2 film became a crisis only when analysts named it and Kennedy was briefed on 16 October — and that evidence still left the response open.A Sunday flight, a Monday reading, a Tuesday briefing. The pictures proved construction, not a plan.
2. A squeeze named a quarantineCompare ExComm's options and explain why Kennedy chose a naval quarantine rather than a wartime blockade, a strike, or a warning alone.The word kept the first move short of a declared war and helped win hemispheric cover, while strike plans stayed on the table.
3. A pause that could still explodeTrace how the quarantine, continuing site work, two Khrushchev letters, a downed U-2, and the Dobrynin meeting formed one bargaining process.Ships turned or were passed. Sites still rose. Friday's letter and Saturday's letter had to be answered in two rooms.
4. A public deal and a private missileSeparate the public non-invasion bargain from the secret Jupiter withdrawal, then place the 20 November quarantine lift and the 1963 hotline and test ban on their dates.Sunday ended the headline. Bombers ended the quarantine. Turkey waited until April. A teletype and a limited test ban followed.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 'The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.' July 1962 Khrushchev-Castro agreement after the Bay of Pigs and during planning for Operation Mongoose; 4 September warning against offensive weapons; 14 October U-2 photographs of MRBM and IRBM sites; images processed and presented to the White House the next day; ExComm options including JCS preference for strike then invasion; 22 October quarantine (word chosen to distinguish it from a wartime blockade and to enable OAS support); television address treating a launch from Cuba as a Soviet attack on the United States; 24–25 October some ships turn back, others stopped with no offensive weapons and allowed to proceed; sites nearing operational readiness; DEFCON 2; 26 October Scali channel and Khrushchev's first letter; 27 October second letter on Jupiter missiles in Turkey and a U-2 shot down; Kennedy answers the first letter publicly; Robert Kennedy tells Dobrynin the Jupiters will come out but not as a public term; 28 October Khrushchev announces removal; quarantine continues until IL-28 bombers are pledged out, lifted 20 November 1962; Jupiters removed from Turkey April 1963; later hotline and movement toward a test-ban treaty. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 'Cuban Missile Crisis.' Thirteen days; U-2 discovery; secret ExComm meetings; quarantine announced 22 October; public deal of Soviet dismantling for a U.S. non-invasion pledge; separate Turkey-missile deal kept secret for more than twenty-five years; 1963 teletype hotline and Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, World on the Brink, 16 October 1962. The thirteen most dangerous days begin; Kennedy and principal officials briefed on the U-2 findings; two principal courses offered: air strike and invasion, or a naval quarantine with the threat of further military action. https://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct16/
• U.S. National Archives, Prologue, Fall 2002, 'Forty Years Ago: The Cuban Missile Crisis.' Cloudless 14 October U-2 flight; ExComm options including Turkey trade, blockade, air strike, invasion; Gromyko 18 October 'by no means offensive'; 22 October speech text (quarantine; launch from Cuba as a Soviet attack; the greatest danger would be to do nothing); some Soviet vessels turn back; UN photographic presentation; 26 October first letter and Scali clarification; second letter on Turkey; 28 October Soviet agreement; 20 November IL-28 pledge and quarantine lifted; 1963 test-ban treaty and first hotline. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/fall/cuban-missiles.html
• U.S. National Archives, Cuban Missile Crisis research guide. Thirteen days framed as 16–28 October; 22 October address; 23 October signing of the quarantine order; links to the aerial-photograph milestone and Kennedy-Khrushchev correspondence. https://www.archives.gov/news/topics/cuban-missile-crisis
• U.S. Department of State, 'Memorandum of Understanding… Regarding the Establishment of a Direct Communications Link' (Hot Line Agreement), signed at Geneva 20 June 1963. Establishes the teletype Direct Communications Link later called the hotline. https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4785.htm
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 'Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.' Agreement 25 July 1963; Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed in Moscow 5 August 1963 by Rusk, Gromyko, and Lord Home. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/nuclear-test-ban-treaty

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