AS DAWN BROKE on Thursday, October 25, the Soviet tanker Bucharest edged the quarantine line. The time was 7:15 a.m. The tanker, traveling at seventeen knots, was roughly five hundred miles from Cuba. Expected to arrive in Havana the next day, the Bucharest was intercepted by several American ships, including the destroyer Gearing, which signaled the tanker’s captain to provide the ship’s name, destination, point of origin, and the type of cargo on board. The Bucharest’s captain explained that his ship had come from the Black Sea, bound for Havana, and carried nothing but petroleum products. There was no visible suspicious cargo on deck and little room belowdecks to hide nuclear materials. The destroyer was instructed to let the ship pass but maintain close surveillance. The blockade had exempted tankers like the Bucharest, but some members of ExComm insisted that the large vessel be inspected.
TED SORENSEN: If it’s important to board a Russian ship, and it seems to me it is, this may be the best chance you’ll have with them. They’ll never let you board a ship that really has something serious on it.
President John F. Kennedy pondered the thought. Boarding a Soviet tanker that had no military use might put the United States at odds with other countries. The United States had already won the first round in this test of wills as fourteen Soviet ships had turned around the previous day. By allowing the Bucharest to pass through, he would be giving Nikita Khrushchev “sufficient grace” and more time to negotiate a way out. JFK decided to let the Bucharest pass for now.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY—This is not the appropriate time to blow up a ship.… If I wrote back to Khrushchev, we could justify withholding the action until about five this afternoon, if that’s the way. Let’s think a little more about it.
The Bucharest would arrive in Cuba the next day with no intervention from the US Navy. Upon learning that the Soviet tanker had made it through the quarantine line unmolested, the Cuban people took to Havana’s streets in celebration.1
But President Kennedy knew that to show resolve the United States would have to make good on its promise to board a Soviet vessel. The most likely candidate for that action was the tanker Grozny. Secretary Robert McNamara told the president that the Grozny had behaved “rather peculiarly” over the past twenty-four to thirty-six hours as it deviated from its established course to Cuba. Instead of moving directly east, the tanker had moved northwest for a period before resuming its course.
MCNAMARA—It’s of great interest to us because it’s not only a tanker, but it has a deck load. And it declared a deck load of, as I recall, of ammonia tanks. But these could very well be, and as a matter of fact probably are, missile fuel tanks on deck.
The Grozny was expected to reach the quarantine line by 8 p.m. on Friday night, and the US Navy planned to intercept it. Members of ExComm were also very concerned with the latest developments on the island of Cuba, where Soviet and Cuban troops were going to great lengths to conceal missile sites from view. Low-level surveillance photos from the Crusader flights over the island had spotted large camouflage nets drying on the ground after a heavy rain.
“As soon as it [the camouflage netting] dries, they put it on everything in sight,” McNamara explained. “They’re camouflaging trucks; they’re camouflaging erectors; they’re camouflaging missiles. It’s really a fantastic sequence of action.”2
But by camouflaging the missile sites, the Soviets had reduced their readiness to initiate or respond to attack. Pulling the large nets off would use up critical time. Defense Secretary McNamara told President Kennedy that he believed the Americans could conduct more low-level surveillance with “little risk of an incident.”
A couple hours later, a Crusader piloted by Lieutenant Gerald “Jerry” Coffee flew over Cuba. This was Coffee’s second reconnaissance mission over the island. He was a UCLA graduate from Modesto, California, and happily married to his high school sweetheart, Bea. Together they had four children. Coffee earned his navy wings in 1959 and had been flying Crusaders out of Cecil Field in Florida with two deployments on the USS Saratoga, where he made two hundred landings.
Now the former Eagle Scout was photographing medium-range missile sites near Sagua la Grande, along Cuba’s northern coast. Flying at a speed of 460 mph, Coffee was en route to an intermediate-range missile site at Remedios when he spotted a military encampment and motor pool just north of his intended target. The camp was unlike anything he’d seen so far, so he took a strip of photographs before heading back to his base in Florida. The decision to grab the pictures proved significant. After close inspection, analysts determined for the first time that the Soviets had deployed mobile, nuclear-tipped SAMs, or FROGs (Free Rockets over Ground), on the island.3 These missiles could have annihilated an invasion force of US marines and forced Pentagon strategists to reconfigure plans for an all-out assault on the island. The commandant of the Marine Corps later wrote a letter of appreciation to Coffee, praising him for providing “the most important and most timely information for the amphibious forces which has ever been acquired in the history of this famous Navy-Marines fighting team.”4
Thick cloud cover forced the U-2 pilots to wait for better weather to return to the skies over Cuba. Some of the airmen, like Charlie Kern, tried to keep loose during nonflying hours. Kern, an Arizona State University graduate, had flown a high-altitude reconnaissance mission over the island on October 20. A skilled pilot with nearly a decade of flying time, Kern checked out in the U-2 in 1961 and was now among a group of elite US airmen tasked with gathering evidence of the Soviets’ nuclear buildup on Cuba. Still an affable fellow who enjoyed hunting and fishing in his free time, he socialized frequently with his fellow pilots while each man waited for his name to be called for the next mission. While Kern and others “hoisted a few” at the officers’ club at McCoy Air Force Base, Rudy Anderson spent most of his time alone in his quarters.
“Rudy Anderson was a very serious guy and didn’t participate in much of the partying like the rest of us,” Kern later recalled.5
Instead, Anderson focused vigilantly on the opportunities and even the dangers that lay ahead.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY DID not like Adlai Stevenson, and the feeling was mutual. The two politicians had been at odds since 1956, when Stevenson had spurned JFK’s attempt to join the Democratic ticket as the nominee for vice president. Four years later, Stevenson drew Kennedy’s ire again with his reluctance to endorse him before the Democratic National Convention. JFK had referred to Stevenson as an “old woman.”6
Still, Stevenson maintained great influence over the Democratic Party base, so Kennedy could not shut him out of his administration altogether. Stevenson thought he deserved the post of secretary of state, but in Kennedy’s view that was out of the question—Stevenson would have to pay for his perceived mistreatment of Kennedy in the past. Instead, the president sent him to the United Nations, where as US ambassador he would handle diplomatic disputes and international bickering of no great consequence.
But the events and circumstances of October 1962 had elevated Stevenson’s importance to the Kennedy administration. A battle was raging inside the United Nations. UN secretary-general U Thant of Burma had proposed a suspension of up to three weeks of both the US quarantine and the Soviet arms shipments to Cuba. Khrushchev approved U Thant’s plan unconditionally as he had nothing to lose. President Kennedy knew the plan would put him at a huge disadvantage with his Soviet counterpart because it did not address the fact that nuclear weapons had already arrived on the island and that work would continue to make them operational and therefore a clear and present danger to the United States. The time had come to show the world evidence of the Soviet Union’s great deception.
The UN Security Council was set to meet at 4 p.m. on October 25. Customarily, these meetings were attended by reporters working the diplomatic beat, their stories often buried in the back pages of newspapers. On this day, the meeting would be broadcast live. American citizens gathered around their television sets and radios. The wives of the U-2 airmen huddled in groups in tiny living rooms at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas. Jane Anderson had not heard from her husband in several days. She had hoped the broadcast might provide her with some more information as to what he was doing and maybe when he would be coming home to her, their boys, and the baby now growing inside her.
Earlier that afternoon, U Thant had appealed to both sides once again. He urged Khrushchev to ensure that Soviet ships sailing toward Cuba would keep away from the quarantine line. The secretary-general also pleaded with President Kennedy to order all US ships to avoid confrontation with Russian vessels over the next few days to allow all parties to work toward a peaceful resolution.
Adlai Stevenson entered the Security Council chamber as cameras rolled. He sat down, took off his eyeglasses, fidgeted with his earpiece, and moved his microphone closer so that everyone could hear him clearly. President Kennedy, his brother Bobby, and the other members of ExComm watched the meeting on a television screen in the White House Situation Room. Few, including JFK, had confidence that Stevenson would deliver a forceful message on behalf of the United States. But it was Stevenson’s show now, and all had to watch and wait. Unlike a meeting of the UN General Assembly, the gathering of members of the Security Council was an intimate affair. The twenty council members took their seats around a semicircular dais; more diplomats and interpreters sat behind the council members or at a table in the middle of the room. An overflow of diplomats, UN staffers, and reporters fought for position and a better view at the chamber entrances.
Soviet ambassador Valerian Zorin chaired the meeting. Time had not treated the aging Russian statesman well. Zorin had experienced bouts of forgetfulness and had even stopped meetings to ask what year it was.7
Ambassador Stevenson asked for the floor. He put his glasses on again and began to read his statement aloud.
“Today we must address our attention to the realities of the situation posed by the build-up of nuclear striking power in Cuba,” Stevenson told the council and the world.
Stevenson took a moment to praise the Soviets for turning their ships around the previous day and avoiding direct confrontations at the quarantine line. He then thanked Khrushchev himself for his assurance that the Soviets would not make any “reckless decisions” with regard to the crisis. Following these brief pleasantries, Stevenson then went on the attack, pressing Ambassador Zorin about whether he would deny that the USSR had placed offensive weapons in Cuba.
“Yes or no?” Stevenson demanded. “Don’t wait for the translation. Yes or no?”
Zorin smiled nervously as uneasy laughter filled the chamber. He then reminded Stevenson that he was not in an American courtroom and that the American diplomat was not a prosecutor. In reality, Khrushchev and others may not have told Zorin the truth, or he may have simply forgotten it due to his declining mental state.
“In due course, sir, you’ll have your reply,” Zorin added.
“You are in the court of world opinion right now,” Stevenson countered. “I’m prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over if that’s your decision. I’m also prepared to present the evidence in this room.”
Adlai Stevenson then brought in the aerial photos captured by the American reconnaissance pilots and set them up on easels for the UN Security Council and the world to see. He had initially objected to such a display, thinking it circus-like. But in this moment, he sought to make a show of strength with the whole world watching. In the vein of a courtroom prosecutor, Stevenson pointed out each of the missile sites and described them in great detail.
The first series of black-and-white photographs showed the rapid transformation of an area north of the village of Candelaria, near San Cristobal. The first photo, taken by a U-2 in late August, showed nothing but a peaceful Cuban countryside. The next photo of the same area, taken in October, showed tents and trucks. The third photo, captured twenty-four hours later, showed several tents large enough to house up to five hundred troops and, more importantly, seven mobile nuclear missile trailers and four erector-launcher mechanisms in firing position. The next display included three successive photographic enlargements of a missile base in the area of San Cristobal. The diplomats all stood for a closer look.
“These enlarged photographs clearly show six of these missiles on trailers and three erect,” the ambassador explained. The trailers were designed for intermediate-range missiles that could travel 2,200 miles—far enough to reach Washington, DC, and New York City.
Stevenson displayed and described more photos taken by the U-2s and the Crusaders that showed concrete launch sites, bunkers, buildings to store the missiles, and trucks to move the missiles to the launchpad.
“These weapons… these launching pads… are a part of a much larger weapons system,” Stevenson warned. “To support this build-up, to operate these advanced weapons systems, the Soviet Union has sent a large number of military personnel to Cuba, a force now amounting to several thousand men.”
The evidence was irrefutable. The photographs clearly illustrated that the Soviets were lying. “We know the facts here and so do you,” Stevenson told Zorin. “Our job here is not to score debating points. Our job, Mr. Zorin, is to save the peace. And if you are ready to try, we are.”
The American surveillance pilots were glued to the television as they saw, for the first time, the images they had captured during both high-and low-level flights over Cuba. The men understood fully for the first time that their president, their government, and the people of the United States were all counting on them. They also knew that they would soon be called upon to return to the skies over Cuba.