Fifty Years Ago Today: Approaching the Nuclear Brink

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

Day 8 of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Tuesday, October 23

At about 1:16 AM ET, six hours after the President’s speech, the National Security Agency (NSA) begins notifying addressees that Soviet ships at sea are receiving high priority messages from Moscow and Odessa.

3 AM (10 AM Moscow): Moscow orders its four attack submarines sailing to Cuba to remain at sea.

5:45 AM ET: Aleksandrovsk docks at La Isabella carrying nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles and FKR cruise missiles. Warheads for the cruise missiles and the medium range ballistics are unloaded. Warheads for the intermediate range ballistics stay aboard: the ships carrying the IRBMs have been ordered back to the USSR.

Morning: reactions to Kennedy’s speech range from Bertrand Russell’s cabled denunciation, “Your action desperate…no conceivable justification” to conservatives at Madison Square Garden chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Members of Congress express support.

A New York Times article began, “The White House announced tonight that President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson would make no further political appearances in the Congressional campaigns because of the Cuban crisis.”

Indeed, the President’s speech had sucked most of the energy out of the Republican campaign to convict the Kennedy administration of passivity in the face of the Soviets’ Caribbean threat. After Kennedy’s detailed confrontation of the Soviets, Senator Keating and other Republican critics could do little now but offer him their support. This was not the development they had hoped for.

Morning: low-level photo reconnaissance missions flown from Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West photograph the already identified missile sites in Cuba. The resulting pictures are so clear that analysts can now identify specific types of equipment (see low-level shots above of San Cristobal site taken on the 23rd).

During the day: NSA’s eavesdroppers determine that a number of Soviet ships sailing toward Cuba have either stopped or reversed course.

During the day: U.S. Navy forces take station on the Quarantine line and on ASW patrol to seaward. Marines and soldiers go aboard transport ships; other transports loaded with troops and weapons put to sea. More troops are coming from the West Coast via the Panama Canal.

10 AM: EXCOM meets. The President approves a contingency plan if a U-2 is attacked by a surface to air site in Cuba: “immediate retaliation” against the site most likely responsible.

5 PM: The Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously approves the U.S. Quarantine of Cuba.

7:05 PM: JFK signs the two-page proclamation authorizing the U.S. Navy to intercept and, if necessary, seize any Soviet ships sailing for Cuba with offensive weapons. The proclamation will take effect at 10 AM ET on Wednesday, October 24. JFK had waited to sign the proclamation until OAS had approved the Quarantine.

Immediately after this signing ceremony, CNO George Anderson orders U.S. Navy surface and air units to track the Soviet Foxtrots closely and orders U.S. submarines to track a Soviet oiler approaching the Quarantine line. Orders are prepared for sinking the Foxtrots and the oiler upon command, as well as sinking Soviet ELINT trawlers which are shadowing the U.S. Navy Quarantine forces.

This is the first time Soviet submarines have ever come so close to the US coastline. U.S. Navy ASW elements are on high alert. Indeed, The entire U.S. military is very close to wartime footing.

10:10 PM. The US Navy and the State Department broadcast Special Warning 30 (emphasis added):

“The President of the United States has proclaimed a Quarantine of offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba. Reactions may make the Windward Passage, Yucatan Channel, and Florida Straits dangerous waters. Ships are advised to use Mona Passage. Ships transiting the Straits of Florida are advised to navigate in proximity to the Florida Keys. Ships passing through Yucatan Channel are advised to favor the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.”

Day 9: Wednesday, October 24

6 AM (1 PM Moscow): A CIA report with this date-time stamp reports that Latin American reaction to the Quarantine is generally favorable. MRBM and IRBM sites in Cuba are quickly approaching operational status, however.

As of 6 AM Eastern, NSA intercepts show that 16 of the 19 Soviet vessels bound for Cuba have started back toward the USSR. Five of them are large-hatch vessels later determined to have been carrying the 2,200 nautical-mile-range IRBMs.

@ 9 AM: Navy Flag Plot at the Pentagon receives the first word from NSA that directional fixes suggest that some Soviet ships bound for Cuba have reversed course. Because these initial indications are “inconclusive,” Flag Plot does not inform the Secretary of Defense.

This is an important detail. It means that when SECDEF McNamara attends the 10 AM EXCOM meeting, he does not know that most of the Soviet ships still at sea have reversed course. As a result, at the moment the Quarantine takes effect, according to Chang and Kornbluh (p. 382), “McNamara tells the group that Soviet ships approaching the Quarantine line show no indication of stopping and that two Soviet ships…are within a few miles of the line.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Soviet ships still at sea had reversed course and started for home the morning of the 23rd, well over 24 hours before this meeting.

10 AM: The Quarantine takes effect. EXCOM meets and discusses the latest inaccurate intelligence reports that 22 Soviet vessels are still sailing for Cuba. Several are suspected to be carrying missiles. Radio signals in unbreakable code have been sent from Moscow to the ships. Two of the ships are reportedly near the Quarantine line, a giant arc swinging 500 nautical miles out into the Atlantic from the eastern tip of Cuba (see map at head of this chapter).

10 AM: At precisely the moment that the Naval Quarantine takes effect, General Thomas Power, commander-in-chief of SAC, orders SAC to DEFCON-2 for the first time in the DEFCON system’s existence. This meant that all of SAC was either in the air and armed with nuclear weapons or on 15-minute alert. According to Dobbs, the SAC arsenal at Power’s disposal includes

• 2,962 nuclear weapons
• 1,479 bombers
• 1,003 refueling tankers
• 182 ballistic missiles

Power intentionally announced DEFCON-2 by voice radio, in the clear, so that Moscow would have no doubts about what the U.S. Air Force was doing.

“Eyeball-to-Eyeball” Myth 

At 10:25 EXCOM receives word, apparently via the CIA, that some Soviet ships have stopped. Dean Rusk, thinking the report means that the ships have stopped at, and because of, the Quarantine line, says into McGeorge Bundy’s ear, “We’re eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked.”

Nothing of the sort has happened. If “the other fellow” had indeed blinked, he had blinked more than 24 hours earlier, not when the Quarantine took effect. EXCOM is finally getting the news that NSA had been disseminating since the earliest hours on the 23rd: that Moscow has ordered its remaining ships at sea to turn back. But EXCOM, including McNamara, does not know there has been a nearly 36 hour delay between NSA’s first intercepts and their getting the news. Apparently, as the CNO history suggests, the Joint Chiefs had deliberately sat on this news, for reasons best known to themselves.

In any event, those recalled Soviet ships are now hundreds of miles east of the Quarantine line and headed for home. The Quarantine line had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, a full day-and-a-half before it became effective—and even before the President announced it during his televised speech.

To this day, however, Dean Rusk’s “eyeball to eyeball” statement still lives as Cuban Missile Crisis mythology: a supposed hair-rising show-down at the Quarantine line, with Soviet ships shying away at the last moment before the might of the U.S. Navy.

The show-down never happened. The USSR and the USA were certainly at loggerheads on the 24th, and maybe even “eyeball to eyeball” somewhere, but it wasn’t at the Quarantine line that morning.

11:04 AM: The Navy has been tracking the Soviet Foxtrot attack submarines ever since they left the Kola Peninsula on or about 1 October. Now, a Navy patrol plane spots a submarine snorkel about 500 miles south of Bermuda.

This is B-130, commanded by Capt. Nikolai Shumkov. Like the other three Foxtrots, B-130 is carrying a nuclear torpedo.

 An anti-submarine Hunter-Killer group attached to the antisubmarine carrier Essex (CVS-9) heads for B-130’s position.

10:30 PM. A long, rambling telegram from Khrushchev accuses Kennedy of piratical practices and “pushing mankind to the abyss of a nuclear war.” The Soviet premier tells JFK, “We will be forced to take the measures we deem necessary and adequate to protect our rights.”

The Status Quo at Midnight, Wednesday, Oct. 24th

 Castro has 300,000 armed troops under his direct command.

42,000 Soviet troops equipped with T-54 tanks, field guns, the deadly SA-2 antiaircraft missile, MiG-21 fighters, and tactical nuclear weapons are deployed near Guantanamo and the landing beaches in the Havana area. The Americans have underestimated the size of the Soviet force by more than half and they remain completely unaware of the presence of the tactical nuclear weapons.

During the night in Cuba: messengers fan out to the MRBM sites in Cuba carrying the coordinates of these missiles’ U.S. targets.

During the night, Soviet troops align their rockets on their American targets and practice their firing drills. Low-level pictures taken the next day clearly show the tracks made by the missiles’ prime movers during these night-time drills.

Email your questions to phufstader@sbcglobal.net or post a comment.

Sources and Notes

The Events of Tuesday October 23rd

The photographs of the Soviet missile sites at the head of this chapter come from the Dino A. Brugioni Collection, National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/photos.htm 

The NSA’s intercept messages, with addresses blacked out, were downloaded from the NSA’s website: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/index.htm. I have created a table available to readers listing the date-time of each of NSA’s intercepts, the Soviet station where the message originated, and the position of the addressee at that time.

Orders to the Soviet ships still at sea to turn back and to the Soviet Foxtrots to break off their approach to Cuba originated with the Presidium meeting convened at the Kremlin by Khrushchev at about 10 PM Moscow on Monday 22 October. The minutes of this meeting read,

“The ships that are taking a course to the Mediterranean Sea should be returned to the Black Sea.

“Armament and forces should not be sent for the time being, return them.
Submarines should be held in the approaches {of Cuba}.” Minutes obtained from the Kremlin Decision-Making Project at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia.

Orders to the Foxtrots are also described in Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 55ff.

A number of other authors describe NSA’s discovery that Soviet ships sailing for Cuba had reversed course, among them James Bamford in Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century. New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 114ff.

The arrival of Aleksandrovsk in La Isabella is described on p. 62 of Michael Dobbs’s One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

Reactions to the President’s speech are described in Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991, p. 486ff.

The Times article reporting that Kennedy and Johnson would refrain from active campaigning for the balance of the race was by Cabell Phillips: “Kennedy Cancels Campaign Talks. He and Johnson Take Step to Concentrate on Crisis.” New York Times, October 13, 1962, p. 1.

Orders to the Foxtrots are described in Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 55ff.

Low-level missions were flown by F8 Crusaders of the Navy’s VFP-62 squadron. The F8s had been modified to carry cameras and film, not guns. See One Minute and Eyeball for details of this day’s and other days’ missions.

The best official source of information about Navy operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis is probably Chief of Naval Operations, “Quarantine, 22-26 October [1962].” Report on the Naval Quarantine of Cuba. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq90-5a.htm.

The contingency plan if a U-2 is attacked appears in document 47 in Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XI, Missile Crisis and Aftermath (http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusXI/26_50.html).

The OAS vote is summarized in document 49 in FRUS XI (URL above). See also Tad Szulc, “Council Vote 19-0. Latins Act Quickly on Plea by Rusk—Use of Force Endorsed.” New York Times, Oct. 24, 1962, p. 1. There was one abstention from the 19-0 vote: The ambassador from Uruguay did not receive his government’s instructions in time to vote). This vote is Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s finest hour during the Crisis.

The President’s signing the Quarantine Proclamation is describe on p. 380 of Lawrence Chang and Peter Kornbluh, eds., The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Document Reader. New York: The New Press, 1998.

CNO Anderson’s orders to his forces are described in Eyeball, p. 386. Special Warning 30 is described in Eyeball, p. 387. I do not have an official, primary-source copy of this warning. The Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico would allow ships to avoid Cuba when entering the Caribbean.

The Events of Wednesday, October 24

The 6 AM CIA report and the course reversal of Soviet ships at sea are described on p. 381 of Chang and Kornbluh. The CIA document itself is no. 87 in Mary McAuliffe, ed., CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. Washington, D.C.: October 1992.

The details of Navy Flag Plot receiving word from NSA appears on p. 7 of Chief of Naval Operations, “Quarantine, 22-26 October [1962].” Report on the Naval Quarantine of Cuba. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq90-5a.htm.

The Quarantine line’s shape is described on p. 382 of Chang and Kornbluh. The map at the head of this chapter illustrates the Quarantine line’s shape early in its existence. Its shape was changed several times thereafter. See this page as well for a description of the 10 AM EXCOM meeting.

General Power’s DEFCON-2 broadcast is described on pp. 245-6 of Norman Polmar and John D. Gresham, DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2006, and on pp. 95-6 of One Minute.

Michael Dobbs beautifully debunks the Dean Rusk “eyeball” myth in Chapter Four of his One Minute to Midnight, p. 84ff.

Dobbs describes the Navy patrol plane’s sighting of Shumkov’s B-130 on p. 93ff.

Khrushchev’s letter to JFK is printed as document 61 in Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XI, Missile Crisis and Aftermath (http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusXI/51_75.html).

Details of the status quo at the end of Oct. 24th come from Dobbs’s One Minute, p. 104ff.