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Bay of Pigs Invasion
Led to the Soviet putting missiles in Cuba to protect Cuba from the U.S. -
Discovery of Cuban Missiles
A U-2 aircraft discovered several nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy and principal foreign policy and national defense officials are briefed on the U-2 findings. -
Movement of military units
American military units begin moving to bases in the Southeastern U.S. as intelligence photos from another U-2 flight show additional sites. -
Kennedy Meets with the Soviets
President Kennedy is visited by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who asserts that Soviet aid to Cuba is purely defensive and does not represent a threat to the United States. -
Navy Plans
Plans for deploying naval units are drawn and work is begun on a speech to notify the American people. -
Day 7 of the Crisis
President Kennedy phones former Presidents Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower to brief them on the situation. Meetings to coordinate all actions continue. Kennedy formally establishes the Executive Committee of the National Security Council and instructs it to meet daily during the crisis. Kennedy briefs the cabinet and congressional leaders on the situation. Kennedy also informs British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of the situation by telephone. -
Day 8
Ships of the naval quarantine fleet move into place around Cuba. Soviet submarines threaten the quarantine by moving into the Caribbean area. Soviet freighters bound for Cuba with military supplies stop dead in the water, but the oil tanker Bucharest continues towards Cuba. Robert Kennedy meets with Ambassador Dobrynin at the Soviet Embassy. President Kennedy asked Khrushchev to halt any Russian ships heading toward Cuba. -
Khrushchev Responds
Chairman Khrushchev replies indignantly to President Kennedy's October 23 letter. -
Day 10
Knowing that some missiles in Cuba were now operational, the president personally drafted a letter to Premier Khrushchev, again urging him to change the course of events. -
Day 11
Khrushchev writes a letter to Kennedy. He made an offer: removal of the missiles in exchange for lifting the quarantine and a pledge that the U.S. will not invade Cuba. In a private letter, Fidel Castro urges Nikita Khrushchev to initiate a nuclear first strike against the United States in the event of an American invasion of Cuba. -
Day 12
An American U-2 plane is shot down by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile and the pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, is killed. A second letter from Moscow demanding tougher terms, including the removal of obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey, is received in Washington. -
Day 12
Robert Kennedy meets secretly with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. They agreed that the Soviet Union will withdraw the missiles from Cuba under United Nations supervision in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba. The United States agrees to eventually remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. -
Day 13
The Soviet Union accepted the proposed solution and released the text of a Khrushchev letter affirming that the missiles would be removed in exchange for a non-invasion pledge from the United States.