July in Focus

The events leading up to the Cuban missile crisis as the Soviet military buildup in Cuba gathered momentum exactly half a century ago.

BY RACHEL DOBBS | JULY 17, 2012

July 19, 1962

In the United States, the National Security Agency proposes deploying the SIGINT ship Oxford to Havana to monitor Soviet military activity.

This is accompanied by a memorandum from the U.S. Navy which requests greater coverage of Cuba "in response to highest priority intelligence requirements."

National Security Archive 

 

Rachel Dobbs is a research assistant with the Cuban Missile Crisis +50 project. You can follow the project on Twitter at @missilecrisis62.