Cuban Missile Crisis

The President’s Decision

The discovery of tubular like objects in surveillance photos of a U-2 spy plane taken over Cuba caused a stir in the CIA. What could they be? This was the question furiously trying to be answered by officials. After over thirty-six hours of gruesome investigation, the CIA was able to measure the length of the tubes in the photos using a top secret comparator, the Mann Model 621. It computed that the tubes were sixty-seven feet long which matched the same footprint of a photo of an R-12 nuclear weapon in Moscow (Dobbs 4). The CIA found their answer. The Soviets were transporting offensive nuclear weapons to Cuba and pointed them towards the United States. They were not using Cuba as a storage area; it appeared they were using it as a launch pad for a nuclear assault on the United States. This affair has infamously become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis personnel of the White House had varying opinions of how to take care of the Soviets. Some opinions could have and would have ultimately led to the eruption of nuclear war. Fortunately, due to the decisions made by President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, recommendations for immediate military action were never executed and the world avoided nuclear war.

The President was shown three black and white photographs by Arthur Lundahl, who was the CIA’s chief photo interpreter. Using a pointer, he pointed to the tube like objects in the photographs and white ovals what appeared to be clearing for the construction of launch pads (Dobbs 4). Now the question of how the United States would respond to the threat surfaced. Once the nuclear weapons were setup and ready to launch, they could reach any major city in the United States within five to fifteen minutes. This would barely give the United States time to return fire if the Soviet missiles were ever launched. Early in the process of figuring out what the reaction of the United States would...