Defcon system full#
Defcon system free#

15-22, 1962), along with those from low-level U.S. The photos from daily U-2 Cuban overflights (24 between Oct. However, a number of factors began to push the senior leaders in Moscow, Havana, and Washington, D.C.

What Kennedy immediately realized was that his goal in the crisis would be to find a way to force the Soviets to withdraw the missiles, while not getting into a shooting war with the USSR and its allies that might spawn a wider global nuclear conflict. Kennedy, Speech to the Nation, Evening of Oct.

Defcon system full#

“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.” Airstrikes and an invasion of Cuba however, would place Americans in direct combat with Soviet and Cuban forces. The problem was that diplomacy alone was unlikely to dislodge the Soviet strategic ballistic missiles from Cuba given Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s bombast and bluster. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, who wanted to pursue an all-diplomatic course of action, to the military and intelligence leadership, who wanted to initiate an immediate air campaign followed up by an invasion per the existing Cuban operation plans, OPLANs 314/316. Suggested responses varied widely, from U.N.

The first order of business for the EXCOM, along with the ordering of more U-2 flights over Cuba to cover the whole island, was a discussion of the meaning of the Soviet missile deployment and possible response scenarios. He preferred cabinet-level meetings be more like the Harvard debates of his youth, instead of the “chairman of the board” style that had been favored by Presidents Dwight D.

Defcon system free#

These briefings would then be followed by a general roundtable and free discussion, a favorite technique of Kennedy’s. with their ubiquitous briefing boards and bound daily intelligence documents. The briefings were normally delivered by either Art Lundahl and/or Dino Brugioni of NPIC. Kennedy, various cabinet secretaries, agency heads, senior staff and the vice president, along with members of the military and intelligence community. Kennedy, his brother Attorney General Robert F. Called the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM), the meetings were attended by President John F. The morning of October 16, and almost every other morning during the following weeks, began with a meeting at the White House to review the previous day’s take of photographic and other intelligence that had been processed overnight. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum photo

Kennedy Addresses the Nation on the Crisis in Cuba, Oct. But in Moscow and Cuba, the U-2 flights and obvious monitoring of the merchant ships arriving from the USSR left the Soviet and Cuban leadership wondering, “what did the Americans know?”īut in Moscow and Cuba, the U-2 flights and obvious monitoring of the merchant ships arriving from the USSR left the Soviet and Cuban leadership wondering, “what did the Americans know?”Īs it turned out, the Americans knew a great deal more than the Soviets and Cubans suspected. The two R-14/SS-5 Skean Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) regiments were still at sea, as they were among the last of the Anadyr units scheduled to arrive and required a great deal of site preparation to be ready to fire. In Cuba itself, the Soviets were working hard to complete the Anadyr deployment, with particular emphasis on finishing the assembly and setup of the three MRBM regiments by the target date of Oct. The two weeks following the discovery of a Soviet R-12/SS-4 Sandal Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) regiment in Western Cuba of rapid, albeit discreet actions, negotiations and decisions, not all of which were helpful and/or productive in solving the Cuban Missile Crisis.