This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crises.
On 14th Oct 1962, a U-2 flown over Cuba photographed Soviet nuclear
missile sites. President John F. Kennedy was briefed on 16th October,
which was the start of the infamous "Thirteen Days in October".
During the crises and up to Nov 15, the US Strategic Air Command (SAC)
readiness condition was raised to
DEFCON 2, the highest it has ever been.
Combined arsenals by both US and Soviet forces, totaling several thousand
thermonuclear warheads, were poised for deployment. US B-52's flew orbits
within strike distance of the USSR waiting for the "go code".
On October 27th, a USAF pilot was killed when his CIA U-2 overflying
Cuba was shot down by a SAM. Despite a previous decision by the
US that should such an incident occur that it would launch an attack,
cool-heads prevailed.
Read more about the Cuban Missile Crises at the CIA web site here -
https://www.cia.gov/news-information...le-crisis.html
and at Wikipedia here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_m...s#cite_note-51
