![The Cuban Missile Crisis: 13 Days That Mattered](https://cdn.slatesource.com/4/1/6/41638b43-1f42-4972-a2db-73dcc70726f7.webp) # The Cuban Missile Crisis: 13 Days That Mattered - [Made in Slatesource](https://slatesource.com/@steph/the-cuban-missile-crisis-13-days-that-mattered) - By [Steph](https://slatesource.com/@steph) - Created on Oct 19, 2026 Duration 13 days: October 16 to 28, 1962 US nuclear warheads 27,000 vs USSR 3,600 (a 7.5 to 1 advantage) ExComm members briefed 14 senior officials in secret Distance from Cuba to Washington 1,440 km (under 10 minutes by MRBM) Declassified: how close nuclear war came 3 officers on B-59 needed to agree; 2 said yes Secret deal kept classified 27 years, revealed publicly in 1989 ## The Most Dangerous 13 Days in History On the morning of October 16, 1962, a CIA analyst placed a set of U-2 aerial photographs on President Kennedy's desk. They showed Soviet medium-range ballistic missile launch sites under active construction near San Cristobal, Cuba. Missile erectors, fuel tankers, and blast deflectors were visible. Kennedy had 72 hours before the sites would be operational. For the next 13 days, the United States and the Soviet Union came closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history. Both sides later admitted they were frightened. Neither side was entirely in control of events. A single Soviet submarine officer may have been the reason this ended without catastrophe. ![](https://cdn.slatesource.com/4/1/6/41638b43-1f42-4972-a2db-73dcc70726f7.webp) President Kennedy with Defense Secretary McNamara, October 1962. Cecil Stoughton (NARA, public domain). ## Why the Soviets Put Missiles in Cuba The decision to place missiles in Cuba was Nikita Khrushchev's, made in July 1962 after months of deliberation. His reasoning was strategic, not impulsive. The United States held a 7.5-to-1 advantage in nuclear warheads: 27,000 American to 3,600 Soviet. Worse, from Moscow's perspective, the US had already placed Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Turkey and Italy, pointing at the USSR. Khrushchev calculated that missiles in Cuba would close the gap, deter a US invasion of the island following the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, and demonstrate Soviet resolve to allies and rivals alike. The operation was codenamed Anadyr, disguised as an agricultural assistance programme. By October 1962, 42,000 Soviet troops, 36 medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Washington in 10 minutes, and 24 intermediate-range missiles capable of hitting any US city were either in Cuba or at sea. The US had no idea. ## The ExComm Decision: Blockade Over Air Strike Kennedy did not bring the discovery to Congress or the UN. He convened a secret group of 14 advisers, known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm. They met in the Cabinet Room and, for six days, debated in secret while Kennedy maintained his public schedule. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended air strikes to destroy the sites, followed by a full invasion of Cuba. Kennedy was sceptical. His experience in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs had taught him to distrust military guarantees. An air strike that missed even one missile would leave a nuclear weapon intact and its Soviet operators with no instruction but to use it. He chose a naval quarantine instead. The word was chosen carefully: a "blockade" is technically an act of war under international law. A quarantine was confrontational without being an irrevocable act. It gave Khrushchev time to reconsider, and it gave diplomacy a corridor to operate. [JFK Library: The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 27 (primary source, declassified ExComm records)](https://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct27/?utm_source=slatesource) Oct 14, 1962 | U-2 spy plane photographs Soviet MRBM sites under construction near San Cristobal, Cuba Kennedy briefed at 8:45 AM. ExComm convenes in secret. Joint Chiefs urge air strikes and invasion. Kennedy addresses the nation at 7 PM. Announces quarantine. Soviet ships at sea are ordered to hold. Soviet ships approach the quarantine line and turn back. US Navy begins intercepting vessels. Khrushchev sends first letter: missiles for a US pledge not to invade Cuba. Black Saturday. U-2 shot down over Cuba. Soviet sub B-59 nearly launches nuclear torpedo. Robert Kennedy meets Soviet ambassador Dobrynin secretly. A second deal is quietly struck. Khrushchev broadcasts publicly: Soviet missiles will be dismantled and removed from Cuba. ## Black Saturday: Two Incidents, One Day October 27, 1962 was the most dangerous day of the Cold War. Two separate incidents almost triggered a nuclear exchange that neither side intended. At 10:22 AM, a US U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down over Cuba by a Soviet SA-2 missile. Kennedy's advisers assumed the order came from Moscow and treated it as deliberate escalation. Kennedy refused to authorise retaliatory air strikes. The order to fire had in fact come from a local Soviet commander acting without authorisation from the Kremlin. ## The Man Who Refused the Order That same afternoon, deep in the Atlantic, Soviet submarine B-59 came under attack from US Navy depth charges. The captain, Valentin Savitsky, had been out of radio contact for days. He believed war had started and ordered the submarine's nuclear torpedo, with a yield equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb, to be armed for launch. Soviet protocol required three senior officers to agree before firing. Two agreed. The third, Vasili Arkhipov, the flotilla's chief of staff, refused. He argued for surfacing to confirm the situation first. Savitsky relented. B-59 surfaced without firing. Arkhipov's refusal was not known publicly until 2002, when former US and Soviet officials gathered for the 40th anniversary and confirmed how close it had come. [National Security Archive: The Jupiter Missiles and the Endgame of the Cuban Missile Crisis](https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuban-missile-crisis-nuclear-vault/2023-02-16/jupiter-missiles-and-endgame-cuban?utm_source=slatesource) ## The Resolution: Two Deals Khrushchev sent two letters. The first, on October 26, offered to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for a US pledge not to invade the island. The second, on October 27, added a demand: the US must also remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Kennedy's advisers devised the "Trollope Ploy": respond publicly only to the first letter and ignore the second. But Kennedy knew the Turkey demand was not unreasonable. The Jupiters were obsolete, and he had privately asked the State Department to remove them months earlier, only to be told the Turks objected. ## The Secret That Lasted 27 Years On the night of October 27, Attorney General Robert Kennedy met secretly with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. The public deal was confirmed: Soviet missiles out, US non-invasion pledge. Privately, Robert Kennedy told Dobrynin that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey would be removed within four to five months. It could not be any part of the official resolution. Khrushchev accepted. On October 28, he broadcast publicly that the Soviet missiles would be dismantled. US Jupiter missiles were quietly removed from Turkey in April 1963. Only nine American officials knew of the private deal. It remained classified for 27 years, until Dobrynin described it in his 1989 memoirs. ## What the Declassified Record Shows The classified documents changed how historians understand 1962. Three facts stand out. The Soviets had already deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba that the US did not know about. If Kennedy had ordered the air strikes the Joint Chiefs recommended, those weapons would almost certainly have been used against the invading force. The war the ExComm was trying to prevent would have started anyway. Several Soviet submarines carrying nuclear weapons were inside the quarantine zone for the entire crisis. The US Navy had no reliable method for intercepting all of them. The confidence that the quarantine was airtight was partly false. ## Khrushchev Was Frightened Too Khrushchev's private letters show genuine fear. On October 26 he wrote: "If there is no intention to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot." The crisis ended not because either side was in full control. It ended because both leaders chose, at the critical moment, not to escalate. Arkhipov's refusal on B-59 was not policy. It was one officer's judgement, in a dark submarine, out of contact with Moscow. That judgement held. [US State Department Office of the Historian: Cuban Missile Crisis (primary source)](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis?utm_source=slatesource) The Moscow-Washington hotline, colloquially known as the "red phone," was established in June 1963, eight months after the crisis. It was a direct teletype link, not a telephone. Its creation was a direct result of both sides recognising that the inability to communicate quickly had made the 13 days more dangerous than they needed to be. Kennedy's own delay in reaching Khrushchev directly on October 27 cost hours.