ONLY THE HIGHEST-RANKING officers in the Soviet military knew the full extent of the mission in Cuba, which they called Operation Anadyr. Troops boarding ships had no idea of their true destination and received winter clothes and skis in an effort to heighten the deception. Even the captains did not know where they were headed until they left port and later opened a sealed envelope in the presence of a KGB agent. While the Soviets knew they could not keep the military buildup on Cuba a secret from the United States forever, Nikita Khrushchev was gambling that the Americans would not detect the nuclear missiles until they were operational. Whenever pressed about his military intentions regarding the island, Khrushchev merely stated that the United States had tried to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and that Moscow was sending defensive weapons to the island. He assured the United States that the Kremlin would place no nuclear weapons in Cuba.
The first missiles, delivered inside the belly of two freighters, the Poltava and the Omsk, probably arrived in Cuba on September 8. Although US surveillance photos of the ships revealed oversized hatches and that the vessels were riding high (indicating their cargo was not bulk but rather lightweight and large), no one in the intelligence community could prove they carried ballistic missiles, and most US government officials thought the ships were bringing additional conventional military equipment. The Soviets were careful when unloading the ballistic missiles at the Mariel Naval Port. They did so at night and made sure they were covered in canvas. All civilian and nonessential Cubans and Soviets were prohibited from the area. And Soviet soldiers were directed always to wear civilian clothes in public.
Cuba was being turned into one big Soviet military base faster and more extensively than the CIA ever calculated. Approximately 40,000 Soviet troops were there by October.
RAUL CASTRO, FIDEL’S brother, was instrumental in the alliance with the Soviets. Raul had flown to Moscow in July to hammer out the final details of the defense pact between the two nations. Raul, who was the Cuban minister of defense, was also Fidel’s closest advisor along with the famed revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Both Raul and Che were ardent Communists, even before Fidel had committed to that path. Raul was responsible for the protection of a large section of the island and, in the event of war, was also tasked with coordinating plans for the destruction of the US naval base at Guantánamo, on the southeastern end of Cuba. Raul worked closely with the Soviet military leadership in Cuba, and the plan to wipe out Guantánamo could potentially involve the tactical nuclear weapons the Soviets had brought to the island. Incredibly, the Americans at Guantánamo employed Cuban civilians for nonmilitary service work, and some of them were spies relaying information about the base and the activity there to Raul and the Ministry of Defense.
Fidel Castro believed he had every right to put missiles in his country and wanted to do so openly to avoid perception of the operation as underhanded. Khrushchev, however, thinking the United States would never stand for this, insisted it be done secretly, gambling that he could get the missiles in place and operational before the United States discovered them. And once they were up and running, the United States would put itself at great risk if it tried to destroy them. He would have nuclear missiles within ninety miles of Florida, ready to launch, if the United States attacked.
IF THE SOVIETS were installing nuclear missiles capable of reaching most or all of the United States, Kennedy, as commander in chief, needed proof to implement a plan to stop them before the weapons were ready for firing. But he and the military were operating in the dark: there had not been a single U-2 flight over western Cuba in a month and a half—perhaps enough time for the Soviets not only to mount the missiles on the launchpads but also to equip them with nuclear warheads. Thus the planned U-2 flight over San Cristobal was a matter of enormous national and international importance. Increasing the urgency was a recent opinion from image interpreter John White, who noticed an ominous detail that others had missed. In a photo taken weeks earlier, he discerned that the San Cristobal surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) were arranged in the same trapezoidal pattern as in the Soviet Union wherever they protected a ballistic missile site.
The air force and CIA worked out a plan to instruct three air force pilots on the U-2C, the CIA version of the spy plane, which had more thrust (a J-75 engine), allowing it to climb a little faster and about 3,000 feet higher than the standard U-2. The thinking was that this additional altitude just might save a pilot’s life. Major Rudy Anderson, Major Richard “Steve” Heyser, and Captain Jerry McIlmoyle, all part of the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, were chosen for this extra training to be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base. Heyser and Anderson had prior experience flying the CIA model but had not been in one in several months.
ON OCTOBER 11, 1962, with Cuba turning into a security nightmare, the three air force pilots were whisked to Edwards Air Force Base in California. Heyser and Anderson would refamiliarize themselves with the CIA model, and McIlmoyle would learn the differences between the CIA and air force U-2s. The pilots would then fly three of the CIA’s spy planes to McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando, Florida, and fly over western Cuba as soon as possible. McCoy had several advantages over both Edwards and Laughlin with regard to the Cuba mission. With its close proximity to Cuba, pilots would not only be in the air for a shorter period but could also count on more up-to-date weather forecasts for the island at launch time. And once the mission was completed, the film could get to Washington, DC, for examination more quickly. To expedite the U-2’s photo shipments to Washington, a T-39 aircraft would be standing by on the McCoy tarmac, engines running, to jet the photos to the National Photographic Interpretation Center for processing and analysis, before delivery to the White House.
Anderson, Heyser, and McIlmoyle felt they didn’t need much training on an aircraft so similar to their own. After all, every U-2, whether CIA or air force, was built by hand, with patterns (“jigs” in aircraft jargon) used to cut the metal and shape the wings, tail, and body of the bird. Consequently no two aircraft were identical or flew exactly alike. But the CIA was taking no chances, and when the pilots arrived at Edwards, they attended a ground school on the differences between the two spy planes. Shortly after that session on October 12, it became apparent that one of the three U-2Cs needed maintenance and could not be flown to McCoy. McIlmoyle, being of lower rank than thirty-six-year-old Steve Heyser and thirty-five-year-old Rudy Anderson, was therefore sent back to Del Rio, while the other two air force pilots took orientation flights on the afternoon of October 12 and all the next day. The two men practiced mostly takeoffs and landings.
Heyser, outranking Anderson by date of rank, was chosen to make the critical first flight over San Cristobal on October 14 if the weather cooperated. Anderson was also battling bursitis after a recent fall that had bruised his shoulder. Ordered not to fly until at least October 15,1 he would join Heyser for more interior flights the following day.
The original plan to have the pilots first fly the planes from Edwards to McCoy was quickly scrapped in the interest of time. Instead Heyser would launch from Edwards directly to Cuba, while Anderson rode as a passenger on an air force jet headed to McCoy, allowing him much-needed rest. CIA pilot James Barnes would fly the spy plane that Anderson would be guiding over Cuba to McCoy the day after Heyser’s flight.
Future missions would require more pilots besides Heyser and Anderson to fly the two CIA aircraft loaned to Strategic Air Command (SAC). That problem was solved when McIlmoyle did an orientation flight a couple days later at McCoy, as did fellow air force pilot Buddy Brown. This meant four air force pilots were qualified to fly the two CIA U-2s. The remaining air force spy plane pilots would fly their own U-2s when needed.
AT 2:30 A.M. Pacific time on October 14, Steve Heyser launched from Edwards Air Force Base for the nearly five-hour flight to Cuba. There was minimal cloud cover during takeoff as Heyser, with his dark hair tucked away neatly into his helmet, propelled the aircraft into the sky. For flights in the U-2, he had to will his body to ignore the need for food and water or to relieve himself. Yet he remained hyperaware of his surroundings and his mission.
“Your mind never relaxes,” Heyser later recalled. “If it does, you’re dead.”2
The pilot first approached the Yucatán Channel between Mexico and Cuba from a southeasterly direction. Then, after the channel, south of the western tip of Cuba, Heyser turned the plane in a north-northeasterly direction so that he would pass directly over San Cristobal and not have to turn the plane again until he was on the north side of the island on his way to McCoy Air Force Base. He planned to make a quick pass over the narrow width of the island to minimize his exposure to SAMs but allow for detailed photos of San Cristobal.
Alone in the cockpit, Heyser must have wondered about the danger he was in. He was penetrating Cuba’s sovereign airspace, a violation of international law. The Soviets were likely following him on radar, pointing their SAMs directly at him. Would they fire? The Cubans certainly could claim they had the right, and the international community would agree: there was little tolerance for espionage. Even if Heyser somehow survived a SAM hit and then the parachute ride down through the thin air, the Cubans would likely try him as a spy and execute him.
Heyser could not dwell on this unpleasant subject for long. Approaching the island, he first scanned the sky for MiG jet fighters streaking toward him, but none appeared. As he was about to fly over land, at 7:31 eastern standard time, he flipped the camera switch on. The weather was crystal clear; the pilot need not worry about cloud cover ruining his pictures. Although he tried to view the flight as just another day’s work, his mind raced. He focused on the task at hand but also knew that, as he piloted the first U-2 to cross the island in over a month and a half, anything was possible. He watched alertly for the contrail of a missile racing toward him. Nobody knew what the Soviets would do, and Heyser was aware he was putting his life on the line. But he had total confidence in his aircraft and his own capabilities.
Once he had passed San Cristobal, he glanced in his rearview mirror to see if SAMs were coming up. But this was a short flight, and after just fourteen minutes over Cuba, his U-2 was now over the ocean. Heyser knew the Soviets were highly unlikely to fire into international air space. He hoped the film in the belly of the camera turned out to be worth the risk.
Steve Heyser’s flight all the way from California for a fourteen-minute photo shoot was one of the most important in history. That same day National Security Advisor Mac Bundy appeared on a Sunday talk show asserting there was no present evidence or likelihood that the Soviets and Cubans were planning to build a major offensive capability on the island. His outlook would soon change.