IN THE LATE summer of 1962, President John F. Kennedy found himself under increasing pressure to take action regarding the Soviet Union’s military buildup in Cuba, and his opponents were calling him weak and ineffective. The US government knew that Soviet ships had delivered all manner of military equipment and advisors to Cuba starting in July. Before then, based on Russia’s training and practice in other countries like Indonesia and Egypt, the CIA had estimated that the Soviets had about five hundred advisors and technicians in Cuba. That number had ballooned to approximately 4,000 in late summer. As the buildup of Soviet military personnel and weapons continued, so did US surveillance of the island. The CIA had ordered five U-2 overflights of Cuba in June and July.
When confronted, the Russians responded that the weapons were entirely for the purposes of defending the island. Through surrogates, Nikita Khrushchev also let President Kennedy know that the Soviet Union would take no action in any of the Cold War pressure points around the globe before the American congressional elections to be held in November; he even floated the idea of an official state visit to Washington later in the year. This was a clear deception as the Soviets had installed several surface-to-air missile (SAM) and radar-tracking sites, transforming Cuba from a low-tech adversary to one with sophisticated weaponry and warning systems. They were even at work creating what they called a major fishing port that the United States considered a naval base, all within one hundred miles of Key West, Florida.
The first SAMs were definitively identified on August 29, when a U-2 overflight of Cuba produced film examined at the National Photographic Interpretation Center. The eight missiles detected in the western half of the island were SA-2s, the same model that brought down U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers over the USSR in 1960.
On August 30, a U-2 flew for nine minutes high above Soviet-controlled Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific Ocean. The Pentagon claimed the plane had simply blown off course. In an attempt at the transparency lacking in the Eisenhower administration’s handling of the Powers situation, Kennedy’s White House immediately acknowledged the mistake. Khrushchev didn’t believe the American story that a U-2 pilot had accidentally flown over an island of vital importance to Russia’s Pacific fleet. The Soviet Union issued a formal protest, stating, “What is this, a rebirth of the former government’s bandit practice, which President Kennedy himself condemned?”1
A September 5 overflight of Cuba discovered more SAM sites as well as Soviet fighter aircrafts (MiG-21s). President Kennedy ordered that the information be “nailed right back into the box”2—that is, not made public—to give him more time to monitor the situation and consider how to respond. Kennedy also worried that a U-2 might be shot down, exposing US incursions over Cuban airspace. His fears grew on September 9 when a Taiwanese pilot, as part of a CIA reconnaissance program, was shot down over the People’s Republic of China and captured. The pilot, who was never heard from again, flew an American-made U-2, and the missile that crippled the aircraft was a Soviet SAM SA-2. Any illusion on the part of Kennedy and his military advisors that a lucky shot had brought down Gary Powers’s U-2 gave way to the reality that the Soviet SAMs were indeed accurate even at thirteen miles above the earth.
The U-2s were vulnerable, but they were still essential: no other aircraft could cover such large geographic areas, searching for missiles across the 110,000 square miles of Cuba. A U-2 could travel over the entire length of the island and come away with enough photographs to cover a 125-mile-wide strip. The photographs could then be enlarged with enough clarity to show people on the ground. The United States had another reliable reconnaissance aircraft, the Crusader, but it could not cover as much territory as a U-2. The Crusader would play the useful role of securing close-up photos of sites that the U-2s had already discovered. Flying at 480 knots, sometimes just above the treetops at 350 feet, the Crusaders were an excellent low-level companion to the high-flying U-2s, but first the U-2s had to locate the target. And like the U-2s, the Crusaders had their vulnerabilities. They could be destroyed by traditional antiaircraft. (Despite this risk, pilots flew the streaking jets around the periphery of the island and then, beginning on October 23, performed surveillance by swooping directly over heavily defended Soviet sites.)
Although the United States did have spy satellites, designed by Colonel Richard Leghorn’s new company, ITEK, and code-named CORONA—the first one launched in August 1960—they could not capture photographs with nearly the clarity and definition of those taken by U-2s, nor could drones or balloons. Only the high-flying spy plane could give Kennedy the information he so desperately needed. Yet the president was in an uncomfortable position: should one of the U-2s be shot down over sovereign Cuban airspace, the world of public opinion might focus on the United States as the provocateur and view the Soviet buildup as secondary.
Concerned about international blowback, the Kennedy administration—over the objections of John McCone, the new CIA director—began discussing implementing a more cautious approach to reconnaissance flights. In particular, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy advocated limited short and quick overflights of Cuba to reduce risk of a hit by a SAM. Rusk had not been Kennedy’s first choice to lead State, but JFK’s selection, Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, had voted with segregationists on civil rights and was too controversial. Rusk, a career diplomat from Georgia, proved a safe and competent pick. He also had the support of the president’s brother Bobby. “Mac” Bundy, a native Bostonian, had been the youngest Harvard dean in history.
Kennedy trusted both men, and each knew the critical importance of the U-2s as the United States’ only reliable information source, but they worried that one shoot-down could jeopardize the whole U-2 program. McCone, on the other hand, argued that the SAMs were intended to “blind our reconnaissance eye,”3 perhaps allowing the Soviets to install something more ominous than SAMs—nuclear missiles. He advocated continued U-2 overflights as essential for detecting the presence of nuclear missiles that could easily reach most of the United States. But the Kennedy administration was inclined to believe the SAMs were there to defend the island after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Although McCone was correct in his assumption, the Kennedys had grown to distrust the California Republican. McCone had not been JFK’s first choice to replace Allen Dulles at CIA. The president initially wanted to slide his brother Bobby into the position, which would have required him to relinquish his post as attorney general. But RFK backed McCone for the position despite the millionaire’s close relationship to Kennedy rival Richard Nixon. Director McCone had first warned the president that the Soviets might be installing nuclear missiles in Cuba in late August. But instead of continuing to press the matter, McCone, a sixty-year-old widower, decided to sail off to the south of France with his new wife for a three-week honeymoon—an ill-timed decision that incensed Bobby Kennedy and others.
“As far as ever putting anything in writing, as far as ever communicating his thought to President Kennedy or to anyone else, he [McCone] didn’t,” Bobby Kennedy later told an oral historian during a 1965 interview. “And to indicate the fact that he wasn’t really concerned about it himself, he went to Europe for a honeymoon during that period of time.… He should have come home and worked at it, not be sending a letter from Cannes, France.”4
On September 4, Bobby Kennedy met with Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin at the Justice Department to tell him that President Kennedy was deeply concerned about the amount of military hardware moving from Russia to Cuba. Dobrynin assured Bobby that the Soviets would place no offensive or ground-to-ground missiles on the island.
The administration could only call Moscow’s bluff by sending more U-2s high over Cuba, a plan fraught with danger. There had to be a compromise. Four days later, on September 8, Dean Rusk, Mac Bundy, and CIA deputy director Marshall Carter (sitting in for the honeymooning McCone) agreed to advise President Kennedy to limit the amount of time any single U-2 was directly over Cuba. Kennedy concurred and ordered flights to stick to the island’s periphery or make the briefest of in-and-out inland patrols rather than flying over the heart of the interior. They hoped this approach would still produce intelligence but minimize the danger of U-2s flying over known SAM sites.
Because of this precaution, the subsequent U-2 flights gathered far fewer useful photographs than in the past, slowing the entire reconnaissance process. In addition, pilots avoided some areas of the island completely because of known SAM sites. While the U-2s were safer (and Cuban/Soviet leaders could not prove to the world that US spy planes were entering their sovereign airspace), the photographs gathered were inadequate to ascertain if the Soviets were installing nuclear ballistic missiles. Though clearly establishing an arsenal of weapons on Cuba, the Kremlin maintained they were defensive only, and the United States could not prove otherwise. The CIA was in a bind, and in a sense it was a blind bind. To keep the spy planes relatively safe meant reduced monitoring of Soviet activity, at the very time McCone suspected medium-range missiles were being installed.
Besides a handful of U-2 peripheral and “in-and-out” flights, other aircraft, such as F8U Crusaders and F3D Skynights launched by the navy and RB-47s launched by the air force, also flew along the Cuban coast to gather photographs. The Crusader photos were too limited in scope, and the photos from the other aircraft were mostly blurry; in some cases even the shoreline was hardly visible. U-2s were by far the best aircraft for gathering visual intelligence over a broad area.
A scattering of reports coming out of Cuba from informants and spies indicated the potential presence of missiles, but nobody knew for sure. An eyewitness observed large trucks, their cargo covered in canvas, rolling out of ports in both Mariel and Casilda under the cloak of darkness. The observers noted the estimated length of the cargo, the incredibly tight security, and other factors that might lead the CIA to conclude they were witnessing the transportation of medium-range missiles, but the cargo on the truck could also have been other military equipment. One thing was certain: in September the Soviets were working around the clock, installing weapons, radar, and “advisors” in all parts of Cuba.
Compounding the intelligence-gathering challenge from the air was a period of rainy weather. The cameras on U-2s could not penetrate cloud cover, and flights were cancelled whenever the skies were more than 25 percent overcast. In fact, no missions were flown from September 6 through 16. With decreased capacity for surveillance, the United States was basically in the dark during one of the most crucial periods in the country’s history.
Further weakening the CIA’s push for more overflights was the fact that McCone was still on his honeymoon rather than in Washington to press his case. He did not return to the nation’s capital until September 24. Acting CIA director Marshall Carter lacked McCone’s clout, and the limited surveillance flights continued.
When McCone returned to Langley, he viewed a map prepared by his staff showing the areas of Cuba photographed since implementation of the flight limits. Alarmed by the gaps in the map, McCone snapped, “I’ll take this,”5 and used it to make his case for more overflights in a meeting with Bobby Kennedy.
McCone was not alone in sounding the alarm. Republican senator Kenneth Keating of New York claimed to have information that the Soviets had indeed installed offensive weapons in Cuba. Keating had been ratcheting up his rhetoric since he first announced publicly on August 31 that the Soviets had rocket installations in Cuba, requiring “immediate action.” He continued sounding the alarm throughout September but refused to divulge his sources. The president was in the awkward position of seeming to know less about Russian intentions than a senator.
The president did address the situation in a news conference at the State Department Auditorium on September 13. By now, some sixty-five Soviet Bloc ships had arrived in Cuba, at least ten of them known to have carried military equipment and troops. President Kennedy told members of the White House Press Corps that movement of Soviet military and technical personnel into Cuba had increased and was under America’s “most careful surveillance.”
“These new shipments do not constitute a serious threat to any other part of this hemisphere,” Kennedy announced. “If the United States ever should find it necessary to take military action against communism in Cuba, all of Castro’s communist-supplied weapons and technicians would not change the result.… However unilateral military intervention on the part of the United States cannot currently be required or justified. And it is regrettable that loose talk about such action in this country might serve to give a thin color of legitimacy that such a threat exists.”6
That line in Kennedy’s speech sent a warning to Senator Keating and others inside the US government who were beating the war drums. The president went on to stress that if at any time the military buildup threatened the United States in any way, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect the nation’s security and that of its allies. JFK had won congressional approval to call up 150,000 reservists to defend US interests if the Soviet military buildup in Cuba continued to escalate. US marines began training for amphibious landings in the Caribbean against a fictitious dictator named Ortsac—Castro spelled backward.
As September rolled into October, CIA director McCone’s lobbying for U-2 overflights gained traction. Spies on the ground in Cuba reported seeing missile transports heading west from Havana toward San Cristobal. Other observations cited very secretive and “important work” in the area. In addition, the few peripheral U-2 flights made in the prior two weeks uncovered more SAM sites, bringing the total to nineteen. During an October 9 meeting of the Special Group Augmented (SGA) for Operation Mongoose (tasked with covertly overthrowing the Castro regime and including far-fetched plots to assassinate Fidel Castro with such things as exploding cigars and poisoned milk shakes), McCone bolstered his case with the chairman of the group, Bobby Kennedy. McCone, along with air force colonel Jack Ledford, explained that a vulnerability analysis indicated a one-in-six chance that the SA-2s in Cuba would shoot down a U-2. Not the best odds if you were the pilot, but McCone made a convincing case that the United States needed to find out about the installation of any ballistic missiles before they became operational. The SGA group concurred. Especially concerned about the lack of intelligence about western Cuba—and San Cristobal in particular—its members recommended to the president that a U-2 fly over this section of island. JFK agreed. Whatever the Soviets were doing in Cuba, they were going to extraordinary lengths to keep it a secret from US intelligence both from the air and from the limited spies on the ground. Only a U-2 pilot had a chance of discovering just what was going on.
Another discussion at the end of the October 9 SGA meeting concerned who would fly these high-risk U-2 missions. For prior reconnaissance flights over Cuba, the CIA had controlled the U-2 planes, and CIA employees had flown them. The cover story—should one crash or be shot down over Cuba—was that the pilots were employees of Lockheed (the company that manufactured the U-2) going to or coming from Puerto Rico. The story seemed weak to the SGA, and the air force suggested that its pilots, rather than the CIA’s, should man the spy planes. A new cover story would state that the downed plane had gone off course during surveillance along the outer edge of Cuba. McCone agreed with the suggestion, but there was one problem—the air force’s U-2s were not the latest models.
A dangerous mission over San Cristobal required the best planes, and those belonged to the CIA. Called U-2Cs, they had better electronic countermeasures and could fly a bit higher than the air force’s models. The air force decided that only its elite pilots would undergo immediate familiarization training on the CIA aircraft. President Kennedy saw the wisdom of the plan and was more than happy to transfer control of the flights from the CIA to the air force. Still smarting from what he considered CIA deception and misinformation regarding the Bay of Pigs invasion, he felt more comfortable dealing with the air force and Department of Defense, despite knowing he would have to tame fiery and impulsive air force head General Curtis LeMay.
Not all agreed with this transfer. Deputy CIA director Marshall Carter thought the decision was purely political, orchestrated to get the air force “in the act,”7 and said that a transfer at such a critical time was “a hell of a way to run a railroad.” He had a point. A flight was needed right away to ascertain just what was happening at San Cristobal, and Carter objected that to “completely disrupt the command and control and communication and ground support” on such short notice made no sense. He suggested a much simpler solution: “Let’s take one of my boys and put him in a blue suit,” referring to the air force’s uniform. But Carter was fighting a losing battle—the air force wanted complete control, and Kennedy had already consented to the reassignment.
Weather delayed the approved flight, but finally on October 14, with blue skies forecasted over Cuba, the mission was cleared for takeoff. This was a high-risk overflight: several SAMs were known to be operational in the San Cristobal area. Would the Soviets or Cubans risk war by shooting down a U-2 to protect their secret?