Presidents and Russia: John F. Kennedy and The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Kennedy administration did not get off to a great start on the international state. It had been publicly embarrassed by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in April 1961. Former President Dwight Eisenhower warned Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev had concluded that Kennedy was indecisive and was "too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations, and too weak".
Khrushchev's impression of Kennedy's weaknesses grew stronger during the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961. Khrushchev would tell his advisers, "I know for certain that Kennedy doesn't have a strong background", adding that Kennedy "does he have the courage to stand up to a serious challenge." He told his son Sergei that when it came to Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree".
The US continued with its plans to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba, first with a top-secret program (declassified in 1989), known as Operation Mongoose. In February 1962, the US launched an embargo against Cuba. US Army General Edward Lansdale prepared a 26-page, top-secret timetable for implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban government, calling fir guerrilla operations to begin in August and September.
When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election themes concerned an alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets. This was false, and in fact the US at that time led the Soviets by a wide margin that would only increase. In 1961, the Soviets had only four intercontinental ballistic missiles, while the US had anywhere between a few dozen and perhaps even 75. The US also had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight ballistic missile submarines, with the capability to launch 16 Polaris missiles, each with a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km). Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy's fear-mongering by loudly boasting the Soviets were building missiles "like sausages" even though this was a gross exaggeration. The Soviet Union had medium-range ballistic missiles in quantity, about 700 of them, but they were unreliable and inaccurate. The US had a considerable advantage in total number of nuclear warheads (27,000 against 3,600) and in the technology required for their accurate delivery. The US also led in missile defensive capabilities, naval and air power. The Soviet advantage was in conventional ground forces, and in more field guns and tanks.
In May 1962, Khrushchev decided to countering the Americans' growing lead in strategic missiles by placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 was such that its missiles could hit American allies and most of Alaska from Soviet territory but not the Contiguous United States. Khrushchev believed that if the US did nothing about the missile deployments in Cuba, he could then intimidate the West out of Berlin using the missiles in Cuba as a deterrent. Khrushchev hoped to demand trading the missiles for West Berlin for those in Cuba.
More than 100 US-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads had been placed in Italy and Turkey in 1961. America had the capability to launch nuclear missiles from Turkey and destroy the USSR before they would have a chance to react. With missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev established mutually assured destruction, meaning that if the U.S. decided to launch a nuclear strike against the USSR, the Soviets would react by launching a retaliatory nuclear strike against the U.S.
In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists secretly accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They met with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. Castro had a fear that the US would invade Cuba again and enthusiastically supported the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba.
On September 11, 1962, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to the island would mean war. Earlier, on September 7, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin had falsely assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the Soviet Union was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. Further denials from ranking Soviet officials followed. But the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities on the island. US intelligence services had gathered information about sightings of Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone reasoned that sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States".
On August 31, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba and he accused the Kennedy administration with covering up this major threat to the US. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September. The first consignment of Soviet R-12 missiles arrived on September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The threat became more apparent when on October 7, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado spoke at the UN General Assembly and warned that if Cuba was attacked, "we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves."
The US first obtained U-2 photographic evidence of the missiles on October 14, when a U-2 flight piloted by Major Richard Heyser took 928 pictures on a path selected by Department of Defense analysts. On October 15, the CIA reviewed the U-2 photographs and identified objects that they interpreted as medium range ballistic missiles. The next morning, Kennedy was shown the U-2 photographs and briefed on the CIA's analysis of the images. That evening Kennedy convened a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers. Without informing the members of the group, Kennedy tape-recorded all of their proceedings, and Sheldon M. Stern, head of the Kennedy library has transcribed some of them.
On October 16, President Kennedy informed Attorney General Robert Kennedy that he was convinced the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba. Robert Kennedy in turn contacted Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin. Dobrynin was instructed by Khrushchev to assure President Kennedy that no ground-to-ground missiles or offensive weapons were placed in Cuba by the Soviets.
President Kennedy meets in the Oval Office with General Curtis LeMay and the reconnaissance pilots. Kennedy discussed several possible courses of action with his advisors. The options included doing nothing, pursuing a diplomatic solution, attempt to convince Castro to betray the Soviets, invade Cuba or launch air strikes. Another option was to use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended a full-scale attack and invasion of Cuba. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the US from conquering Cuba, but Kennedy was skeptical. He said "They can't, after all their statements, permit us to take out their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they don't take action in Cuba, they certainly will in Berlin." He concluded that attacking Cuba by air would cause the Soviets to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also feared a loss of allies.
On October 18, Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Kennedy continued to meet with his advisers throughout October 21. Kennedy did not think that the Soviets would be provoked to attack by a naval blockade. Because the term "blockade" was considered an act of war, the proposed action was termed a "quarantine" of offensive weapons and of all supportive materials. Since it would take place in international waters, Kennedy obtained the approval of the Organization of American States.
At 5:00 pm EDT on October 22, President Kennedy met with Congressional leaders who opposed a blockade and demanded a stronger response. US diplomats met with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles de Gaulle and Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, José Antonio Mora to brief them on the US intelligence and their proposed response. All were supportive of the US position. Kennedy also consulted with former President Dwight Eisenhower. The two also anticipated that Khrushchev would respond by offering to trade off Berlin.
On October 22 at 7:00 pm EDT, Kennedy delivered a nationwide televised address on all of the major networks announcing the discovery of the missiles. He said "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 by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." He added, "To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948."
US forces worldwide, placing them on DEFCON 3. On the evening of October 24, the Soviet TASS news agency broadcast a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy in which Khrushchev warned that the United States' "outright piracy" would lead to war. That was followed at 9:24 pm by a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy, received at 10:52 pm EDT, in which Khrushchev stated, "if you weigh the present situation with a cool head without giving way to passion, you will understand that the Soviet Union cannot afford not to decline the despotic demands of the USA" and that the Soviet Union views the blockade as "an act of aggression" and their ships will be instructed to ignore it.
The US requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 25. US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin in an emergency meeting of the Security Council, challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer. The next day at 10:00 pm EDT, the US raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2.
On October 26, Kennedy informed the EXCOMM that he believed only an invasion would remove the missiles from Cuba. At this point, the crisis was at a stalemate. The Soviets had shown no indication that they would back down and had made public statements to that effect. The US had no reason to believe otherwise and was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, along with a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union if it responded militarily. Kennedy had no intention of keeping these plans secret and Khrushchev was well aware of this looming danger.
At 1:00 pm EDT on October 26, John A. Scali of ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin, the KGB station chief in Washington, at Fomin's request. Fomin told Scali that "War seems about to break out." He asked Scali to to talk to his "high-level friends" at the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a diplomatic solution. He proposed a deal in which the Soviet Union would remove the weapons under UN supervision and that Castro would publicly announce that he would not accept such weapons again in exchange for a public statement by the US that it would not invade Cuba. The US responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Castro that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles were removed.
In a letter sent by Khrushchev, he reiterated the basic terms that had been stated to Scali earlier in the day: "I propose: we, for our part, will declare that our ships bound for Cuba are not carrying any armaments. You will declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces which might intend to invade Cuba. Then the necessity of the presence of our military specialists in Cuba will disappear."
Castro was still convinced that an invasion of Cuba was soon at hand, and on October 26, he sent a telegram to Khrushchev calling for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US. Castro also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any US aircraft. At 6:00 am EDT on October 27, the CIA delivered a memo reporting that three of the four missile sites at San Cristobal and both sites at Sagua la Grande appeared to be fully operational.
At 9:00 am EDT on October 27, Radio Moscow began broadcasting a message from Khrushchev offering a new deal: the missiles on Cuba would be removed in exchange for the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. At 10:00 am EDT, the executive committee met again to discuss the situation and came to the conclusion that the change in the message was because of internal debate between Khrushchev and other party officials in the Kremlin. At 11:03 am EDT a new message began to arrive from Khrushchev. The message stated, in part: "You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is ninety-nine miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But you have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Italy and Turkey, literally next to us. I therefore make this proposal: We are willing to remove from Cuba the means which you regard as offensive. Your representatives will make a declaration to the effect that the United States will remove its analogous means from Turkey and after that, persons entrusted by the United Nations Security Council could inspect on the spot the fulfillment of the pledges made."
Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the Jupiter missiles were removed, but Italy's Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani offered to allow withdrawal of the missiles in his country. Unknown to the Soviets, the US regarded the Jupiter missiles as obsolete and already supplanted by the Polaris nuclear ballistic submarine missiles.
On the morning of October 27, a U-2F (the third CIA U-2A, modified for air-to-air refuelling) piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, departed its forward operating location at McCoy AFB, Florida. At approximately 12:00 pm EDT, the aircraft was struck by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile launched from Cuba. The aircraft crashed, and Anderson was killed. The decision to fire the missile was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander, acting on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 pm EDT, several US Navy RF-8A Crusader aircraft, on low-level photo-reconnaissance missions, were fired upon.
At 4:00 pm EDT, Kennedy recalled members of EXCOMM to the White House and ordered that a message should immediately be sent to UN Secretary-General U Thant requiring the Soviets to suspend work on the missiles while negotiations were carried out. During the meeting, General Maxwell Taylor delivered the news that the U-2 had been shot down.
On October 27, Khrushchev also received a letter from Castro, which urged the use of nuclear force in the event of an attack on Cuba. Later that same day, the US Navy dropped a series of depth charges on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was damaged by depth charges or surface fire. The captain of the B-59 believed that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, the commander of the submarine Flotilla was also aboard B-59 and he objected and thus a nuclear launch was narrowly averted.
On Saturday, October 27, after much deliberation between the Soviet Union and Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in Turkey in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba. Kennedy had been told in early 1961 that a nuclear war would likely kill a third of humanity, with most or all of those deaths concentrated in the US, the USSR, Europe and China. Khrushchev had received similar reports from his military.
Khrushchev immediately drafted his acceptance of Kennedy's latest terms without involving the Politburo, as he had previously. He had them immediately broadcast over Radio Moscow. In that broadcast at 9:00 am EST, on October 28, Khrushchev stated that "the Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as 'offensive' and their crating and return to the Soviet Union." At 10:00 am, October 28, Kennedy learned that Khrushchev had made the offer in a public statement for the world to hear. Despite significant opposition from his senior advisers, Kennedy accepted the Soviet offer. Vice President Lyndon Johnson agreed with the decision. Kennedy immediately responded to Khrushchev's letter, issuing a statement calling it "an important and constructive contribution to peace".
On November 2, 1962, Kennedy addressed the US on radio and television broadcasts about the dismantling of the Soviet R-12 missile bases. The US made a final visual check as each of the ships passed the blockade line. Further diplomatic efforts were required to remove the Soviet Il-28 bombers, and they were loaded on three Soviet ships on December 5 and 6. The US government announced the end of the blockade from 6:45 pm EST on November 20, 1962.
Khrushchev's impression of Kennedy's weaknesses grew stronger during the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961. Khrushchev would tell his advisers, "I know for certain that Kennedy doesn't have a strong background", adding that Kennedy "does he have the courage to stand up to a serious challenge." He told his son Sergei that when it came to Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree".
The US continued with its plans to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba, first with a top-secret program (declassified in 1989), known as Operation Mongoose. In February 1962, the US launched an embargo against Cuba. US Army General Edward Lansdale prepared a 26-page, top-secret timetable for implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban government, calling fir guerrilla operations to begin in August and September.
When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election themes concerned an alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets. This was false, and in fact the US at that time led the Soviets by a wide margin that would only increase. In 1961, the Soviets had only four intercontinental ballistic missiles, while the US had anywhere between a few dozen and perhaps even 75. The US also had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight ballistic missile submarines, with the capability to launch 16 Polaris missiles, each with a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km). Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy's fear-mongering by loudly boasting the Soviets were building missiles "like sausages" even though this was a gross exaggeration. The Soviet Union had medium-range ballistic missiles in quantity, about 700 of them, but they were unreliable and inaccurate. The US had a considerable advantage in total number of nuclear warheads (27,000 against 3,600) and in the technology required for their accurate delivery. The US also led in missile defensive capabilities, naval and air power. The Soviet advantage was in conventional ground forces, and in more field guns and tanks.
In May 1962, Khrushchev decided to countering the Americans' growing lead in strategic missiles by placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 was such that its missiles could hit American allies and most of Alaska from Soviet territory but not the Contiguous United States. Khrushchev believed that if the US did nothing about the missile deployments in Cuba, he could then intimidate the West out of Berlin using the missiles in Cuba as a deterrent. Khrushchev hoped to demand trading the missiles for West Berlin for those in Cuba.
More than 100 US-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads had been placed in Italy and Turkey in 1961. America had the capability to launch nuclear missiles from Turkey and destroy the USSR before they would have a chance to react. With missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev established mutually assured destruction, meaning that if the U.S. decided to launch a nuclear strike against the USSR, the Soviets would react by launching a retaliatory nuclear strike against the U.S.
In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists secretly accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They met with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. Castro had a fear that the US would invade Cuba again and enthusiastically supported the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba.
On September 11, 1962, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to the island would mean war. Earlier, on September 7, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin had falsely assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the Soviet Union was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. Further denials from ranking Soviet officials followed. But the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities on the island. US intelligence services had gathered information about sightings of Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone reasoned that sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States".
On August 31, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba and he accused the Kennedy administration with covering up this major threat to the US. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September. The first consignment of Soviet R-12 missiles arrived on September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The threat became more apparent when on October 7, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado spoke at the UN General Assembly and warned that if Cuba was attacked, "we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves."
The US first obtained U-2 photographic evidence of the missiles on October 14, when a U-2 flight piloted by Major Richard Heyser took 928 pictures on a path selected by Department of Defense analysts. On October 15, the CIA reviewed the U-2 photographs and identified objects that they interpreted as medium range ballistic missiles. The next morning, Kennedy was shown the U-2 photographs and briefed on the CIA's analysis of the images. That evening Kennedy convened a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers. Without informing the members of the group, Kennedy tape-recorded all of their proceedings, and Sheldon M. Stern, head of the Kennedy library has transcribed some of them.
On October 16, President Kennedy informed Attorney General Robert Kennedy that he was convinced the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba. Robert Kennedy in turn contacted Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin. Dobrynin was instructed by Khrushchev to assure President Kennedy that no ground-to-ground missiles or offensive weapons were placed in Cuba by the Soviets.
President Kennedy meets in the Oval Office with General Curtis LeMay and the reconnaissance pilots. Kennedy discussed several possible courses of action with his advisors. The options included doing nothing, pursuing a diplomatic solution, attempt to convince Castro to betray the Soviets, invade Cuba or launch air strikes. Another option was to use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended a full-scale attack and invasion of Cuba. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the US from conquering Cuba, but Kennedy was skeptical. He said "They can't, after all their statements, permit us to take out their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they don't take action in Cuba, they certainly will in Berlin." He concluded that attacking Cuba by air would cause the Soviets to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also feared a loss of allies.
On October 18, Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Kennedy continued to meet with his advisers throughout October 21. Kennedy did not think that the Soviets would be provoked to attack by a naval blockade. Because the term "blockade" was considered an act of war, the proposed action was termed a "quarantine" of offensive weapons and of all supportive materials. Since it would take place in international waters, Kennedy obtained the approval of the Organization of American States.
At 5:00 pm EDT on October 22, President Kennedy met with Congressional leaders who opposed a blockade and demanded a stronger response. US diplomats met with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles de Gaulle and Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, José Antonio Mora to brief them on the US intelligence and their proposed response. All were supportive of the US position. Kennedy also consulted with former President Dwight Eisenhower. The two also anticipated that Khrushchev would respond by offering to trade off Berlin.
On October 22 at 7:00 pm EDT, Kennedy delivered a nationwide televised address on all of the major networks announcing the discovery of the missiles. He said "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 by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." He added, "To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948."
US forces worldwide, placing them on DEFCON 3. On the evening of October 24, the Soviet TASS news agency broadcast a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy in which Khrushchev warned that the United States' "outright piracy" would lead to war. That was followed at 9:24 pm by a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy, received at 10:52 pm EDT, in which Khrushchev stated, "if you weigh the present situation with a cool head without giving way to passion, you will understand that the Soviet Union cannot afford not to decline the despotic demands of the USA" and that the Soviet Union views the blockade as "an act of aggression" and their ships will be instructed to ignore it.
The US requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 25. US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin in an emergency meeting of the Security Council, challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer. The next day at 10:00 pm EDT, the US raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2.
On October 26, Kennedy informed the EXCOMM that he believed only an invasion would remove the missiles from Cuba. At this point, the crisis was at a stalemate. The Soviets had shown no indication that they would back down and had made public statements to that effect. The US had no reason to believe otherwise and was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, along with a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union if it responded militarily. Kennedy had no intention of keeping these plans secret and Khrushchev was well aware of this looming danger.
At 1:00 pm EDT on October 26, John A. Scali of ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin, the KGB station chief in Washington, at Fomin's request. Fomin told Scali that "War seems about to break out." He asked Scali to to talk to his "high-level friends" at the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a diplomatic solution. He proposed a deal in which the Soviet Union would remove the weapons under UN supervision and that Castro would publicly announce that he would not accept such weapons again in exchange for a public statement by the US that it would not invade Cuba. The US responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Castro that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles were removed.
In a letter sent by Khrushchev, he reiterated the basic terms that had been stated to Scali earlier in the day: "I propose: we, for our part, will declare that our ships bound for Cuba are not carrying any armaments. You will declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces which might intend to invade Cuba. Then the necessity of the presence of our military specialists in Cuba will disappear."
Castro was still convinced that an invasion of Cuba was soon at hand, and on October 26, he sent a telegram to Khrushchev calling for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US. Castro also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any US aircraft. At 6:00 am EDT on October 27, the CIA delivered a memo reporting that three of the four missile sites at San Cristobal and both sites at Sagua la Grande appeared to be fully operational.
At 9:00 am EDT on October 27, Radio Moscow began broadcasting a message from Khrushchev offering a new deal: the missiles on Cuba would be removed in exchange for the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. At 10:00 am EDT, the executive committee met again to discuss the situation and came to the conclusion that the change in the message was because of internal debate between Khrushchev and other party officials in the Kremlin. At 11:03 am EDT a new message began to arrive from Khrushchev. The message stated, in part: "You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is ninety-nine miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But you have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Italy and Turkey, literally next to us. I therefore make this proposal: We are willing to remove from Cuba the means which you regard as offensive. Your representatives will make a declaration to the effect that the United States will remove its analogous means from Turkey and after that, persons entrusted by the United Nations Security Council could inspect on the spot the fulfillment of the pledges made."
Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the Jupiter missiles were removed, but Italy's Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani offered to allow withdrawal of the missiles in his country. Unknown to the Soviets, the US regarded the Jupiter missiles as obsolete and already supplanted by the Polaris nuclear ballistic submarine missiles.
On the morning of October 27, a U-2F (the third CIA U-2A, modified for air-to-air refuelling) piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, departed its forward operating location at McCoy AFB, Florida. At approximately 12:00 pm EDT, the aircraft was struck by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile launched from Cuba. The aircraft crashed, and Anderson was killed. The decision to fire the missile was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander, acting on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 pm EDT, several US Navy RF-8A Crusader aircraft, on low-level photo-reconnaissance missions, were fired upon.
At 4:00 pm EDT, Kennedy recalled members of EXCOMM to the White House and ordered that a message should immediately be sent to UN Secretary-General U Thant requiring the Soviets to suspend work on the missiles while negotiations were carried out. During the meeting, General Maxwell Taylor delivered the news that the U-2 had been shot down.
On October 27, Khrushchev also received a letter from Castro, which urged the use of nuclear force in the event of an attack on Cuba. Later that same day, the US Navy dropped a series of depth charges on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was damaged by depth charges or surface fire. The captain of the B-59 believed that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, the commander of the submarine Flotilla was also aboard B-59 and he objected and thus a nuclear launch was narrowly averted.
On Saturday, October 27, after much deliberation between the Soviet Union and Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in Turkey in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba. Kennedy had been told in early 1961 that a nuclear war would likely kill a third of humanity, with most or all of those deaths concentrated in the US, the USSR, Europe and China. Khrushchev had received similar reports from his military.
Khrushchev immediately drafted his acceptance of Kennedy's latest terms without involving the Politburo, as he had previously. He had them immediately broadcast over Radio Moscow. In that broadcast at 9:00 am EST, on October 28, Khrushchev stated that "the Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as 'offensive' and their crating and return to the Soviet Union." At 10:00 am, October 28, Kennedy learned that Khrushchev had made the offer in a public statement for the world to hear. Despite significant opposition from his senior advisers, Kennedy accepted the Soviet offer. Vice President Lyndon Johnson agreed with the decision. Kennedy immediately responded to Khrushchev's letter, issuing a statement calling it "an important and constructive contribution to peace".
On November 2, 1962, Kennedy addressed the US on radio and television broadcasts about the dismantling of the Soviet R-12 missile bases. The US made a final visual check as each of the ships passed the blockade line. Further diplomatic efforts were required to remove the Soviet Il-28 bombers, and they were loaded on three Soviet ships on December 5 and 6. The US government announced the end of the blockade from 6:45 pm EST on November 20, 1962.