Ski Boots for a Tropical Island
The Soviet troops sent to Cuba in 1962 were told they were heading somewhere cold. They were handed ski boots, fleece-lined parkas and other winter gear. It was all part of Operation Anadyr, a plan kept so secret that it was written out by hand. Missile builders arrived dressed up as machine operators and farm experts, and in the end 43,000 troops came to the island.
Each side saw a threat. The US had placed Thor missiles in England and Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey, all within range of Moscow. In 1962 the Soviets had only 20 missiles able to reach the US from home. Cuba expected an American invasion. In July 1962, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro agreed to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter one.
The tropics were hard on the gear. Soldiers reported failing fuses, heavy rust, oil use far above normal and generator blackouts in the first days of setting up.
Trucks That Could Not Turn Corners
Cubans watched the missiles arrive, and hundreds of reports reached Miami. Most were vague and easy to dismiss. Only five worried US analysts. They described huge trucks rolling through towns at night, carrying very long cylinders under canvas. The trucks could not turn corners without backing up and trying again.
Spy flights had paused for five weeks, a stretch historians call the Photo Gap. Then, on 14 October 1962, Major Richard Heyser flew a U-2 spy plane over western Cuba and took 928 pictures. Analysts spotted a missile site under construction at San Cristobal.
President John F. Kennedy saw the photos on the morning of 16 October. That evening he gathered his top advisers into a group later named the Executive Committee, or EXCOMM. Without telling them, he tape-recorded all of their meetings. The Soviet sites being built were for ballistic missiles with ranges of about 2,000 and 4,500 kilometres.
A Blockade by Another Name
Kennedy's advisers weighed two main options: bomb the missile sites or block ships from reaching Cuba. Most came to favour a naval blockade. There was a catch. Under international law, a blockade is an act of war. So Kennedy called it a "quarantine" of offensive weapons, and won the backing of the Organization of American States.
On 22 October, Kennedy told the nation on live television. During the speech, US forces worldwide moved to DEFCON 3. Soon the bomber forces went to DEFCON 2, and for the only confirmed time in US history, B-52 bombers flew on nonstop airborne alert.
Then ships began to change course. A Soviet cargo ship called Kislovodsk turned back towards the Baltic, and more followed, fourteen in all. A tanker was let through, and a freighter named Marucla was boarded, checked and cleared.
One Officer Said No
The most dangerous moment stayed hidden for forty years. On 27 October, US destroyers found the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba. To force it up, they dropped practice depth charges about the size of hand grenades. The Americans did not know the submarine carried a nuclear torpedo.
Down below, the crew had heard nothing from Moscow for days. The boat was too deep to pick up radio, and its air was running low. Captain Valentin Savitsky feared a war had already started and ordered the torpedo made ready.
Firing it needed the consent of three senior officers. One of them, Vasily Arkhipov, refused. A year earlier he had exposed himself to heavy radiation to save a submarine with an overheating reactor, and his standing counted in the argument. The torpedo stayed put and the submarine surfaced. The story only came out at a conference in Havana in 2002, where the head of the National Security Archive said Arkhipov "saved the world".
Letters, Radio and a Secret Swap
Much of the talking happened through long letters. One from Khrushchev, which Robert Kennedy called "very long and emotional", took several minutes just to arrive, and more time to translate. It said that if the US promised not to invade Cuba, the need for Soviet military experts there would disappear. A second message, read out on Radio Moscow, asked for the Jupiter missiles in Turkey too. Emissaries from both leaders even met at the Yenching Palace, a Chinese restaurant in Washington.
The final deal had a public half and a secret half. In public, the Soviets would remove their missiles and the US would pledge not to invade Cuba. In private, the US agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey. On 28 October, Khrushchev accepted on Radio Moscow. "This is a pretty good play of his," Kennedy said.
The secret was known to only nine US officials and was first officially confirmed in 1989. Afterwards, the two powers set up the Moscow-Washington hotline so their leaders could speak directly in any future crisis.
