At Last! Kennedy Approves One U-2 Over-flight of Cuba

Seventy-third Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

October 9th: One Short U-2 Over-flight Authorized

On October 9th, 1962, President Kennedy authorized one quick in-out U-2 over-flight of northwestern Cuba—the first over-flight of Cuba in over a month. This was the area where U.S. agents had reported a Soviet missile base under construction.

If that flight was not shot down, additional over-flights would follow. No one knew how big an “if” that was, however.

NSA Sends Alert: SA-2 Radars Active

The next day, October 10, 1962, the National Security Agency reported its first intercept of what appeared to be “air defense grid tracking reports” from inside Cuba.

An operational Soviet air defense grid tracking system meant a) that any aircraft in Cuba’s air space could be tracked by one or more of the 24 overlapping operational surface-to-air (SAM) antiaircraft sites on the island; and b) that the 24 SAM sites’ radars were connected not only to area command posts but also to a central air defense command center for the entire island at El Chico near Havana. When the grid system was operational, Central Command could shoot down any airplane flying above 3,000 feet within the “slant range” of any of those 24 SAM sites—including U-2s.

But would Soviet Central Command do so?

Why Were Those SAMs There? Two Possibilities

 1. According to Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, the SAM’s were not there to protect the sugar cane crop. They were there to protect Soviet ballistic missiles from aerial attack. But as of October 10th, the United States still had only agent reports that those missiles were there. Hence the U-2 mission authorized on the 9th.

2. The other possibility: the SAMs had been sent to Cuba to prevent the American U-2s’ all-seeing cameras from discovering the Soviet strategic missiles being installed in northwestern and central Cuba.

For that to happen, the Kremlin had to authorize a Soviet SAM to shoot down an American U-2 in the Western Hemisphere.

But Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and other fearful administration advisors had relieved the Soviets of that terrifying decision by keeping U-2 flights away from precisely the areas where those missiles were being sited.

To put it another way: U.S. policy-makers had done for the Kremlin what it could never have done for itself: blinded the U-2s—and the intelligence community—without a shot being fired.

But now the U-2s’ binders were coming off—at least briefly

The Big Question

Would the Soviets shoot down an unarmed photo reconnaissance aircraft, like the U-2? Or shoot down unarmed ELINT aircraft, like the Air Force RB-47s now flying three missions daily around Cuba, over international waters?

No one knew. The new U-2 mission authorized on the 9th was not only a photographic mission of extraordinary importance; it was also, like hundreds of other missions flown from 1950 onward, a test of the Soviet’s Rules of Engagement for their Air Defense command. The Rules either permitted the Cuban Air Defense command to fire at unarmed U-2s or they forbade such an action.

The Kennedy administration would have its answer if and when the newly-authorized mission landed in Florida with film—and pilot—intact.

How Dangerous Were those SA-2 Sites?

Max Holland states that the individual SAM sites in Cuba were operational but “still not functioning as an integrated SAM system.” This meant that their tracking and fire control radars were still not connected to each other and all controlled by a central command near Havana. Therefore, according to an Air Force Colonel on October 9th, the chances of a U-2 being shot down over Cuba were 1 in 6, or about 17 percent.

Well, we would see—when that mission flew.

Hurricane Season

October is hurricane season from the Caribbean northward to Maine. The intelligence community may propose U-2 missions over San Cristobal, and the President may approve one of them, but the weather forecasters will determine if the mission goes.

Bad weather forecasts delayed the San Cristobal mission until October 14th. The culprit was hurricane Daisy.

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Sources and Notes

The NSA message was obtained from the NSA website (http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/cuban_missile_crisis/1962.shtml).

“Slant range” is a circle centered on each SAM site within which the SA-2 missile is effective. The SA-2’s slant range was about 25 statute miles in any direction from the site. Any target flying at or under 60,000 feet and within 25 miles of an SA-2 site was toast. This was one deadly missile.

Max Holland’s appraisal of the operational status of the SAM radar grid in Cuba is discussed on pp. 10-11 of his “The ‘Photo Gap’ that Delayed Discovery of Missiles.” Central Intelligence Agency, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 94, No. 4, first posted on the CIA’s website at “Center for the Study of Intelligence” in April 2007. The Air Force colonel’s odds also appear on these pages.

Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to send the SA-2s to Cuba before the strategic missiles deployed is discussed in Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble.” Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997, p. 192.

General Gribkov provides a conflicting explanation for that decision in his and General Smith’s Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chicago: edition q, inc., 1994, 51-2.