Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60

Featured Posting

Jupiter, Deactivation, Missile Site

The Jupiter Missiles and the Cuban Missile Crisis Endgame

Washington, D.C., April 20, 2023 - Sixty years ago, during April 1963, the U.S.

Apr 20, 2023

Previous Postings

Castro and Khrushchev

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
POSTMORTEMS

Che Guevara on Cuban Banknote

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
Getting to Know the Cubans: Part Two

One of the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey that Kennedy secretly traded for the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
The Cuban Missile Crisis Cover-Up

October 27, 1962: Cuban anti-aircraft gunners open fire on low-level reconnaissance planes over San Cristobal site no. 1 (a Soviet SA-2 missile shoots down Maj. Rudolf Anderson’s U-2 on this day).

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
The Most Dangerous Day

President Kennedy with his close friend British Ambassador David Ormsby-Gore

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
Briefing NATO Allies

Stevenson and J.Kennedy

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60
How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor

collage Raul Fidel Castro and Khrushchev

Getting to Know the Cubans: Khrushchev Meets the Castro Brothers

The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis at 60

A “Harsh and Terrible … Solution”

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 55

More Postings >>

Photo Gallery

The photographs that make up the vast majority of this section come from the Dino A. Brugioni collection at the National Security Archive. Brugioni was a career CIA officer in charge of "all-source" intelligence and briefing preparation at the National Photographic Interpretation Center in 1962. He later authored Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, (New York: Random House, 1991).

Moree photos >>

The U-2 plane

The U-2 plane

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph showing no construction at San Cristobal

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph showing no construction at San Cristobal

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph showing no construction at Guanajay

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph showing no construction at Guanajay

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph of SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) site under construction at La Coloma

August 29, 1962: U-2 photograph of SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) site under construction at La Coloma

Completed SA-2 missile site showing characteristic Star of David pattern.

Completed SA-2 missile site showing characteristic Star of David pattern.

October 5, 1962: CIA chart of “reconnaissance objectives in Cuba.”

October 5, 1962: CIA chart of “reconnaissance objectives in Cuba.”

Inside the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), Washington D.C., 1962.

Inside the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), Washington D.C., 1962.

September 15, 1962: photograph of the Soviet large-hatch ship Poltava on its way to Cuba.

September 15, 1962: photograph of the Soviet large-hatch ship Poltava on its way to Cuba.