Thirteen Days in October

A day-by-day examination of the world's most dangerous nuclear standoff.

BY MICHAEL DOBBS, RACHEL DOBBS | OCTOBER 8, 2012

On Oct. 1, 1962, U.S. intelligence alerts Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to the possibility that medium-range ballistic missiles have been positioned in Pinar del Río province, Cuba. The CIA also pinpoints San Cristóbal in Cuba, shown above, as a suspected medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) site. McNamara then directs the heads of the U.S. Navy and Air Force to prepare for both a blockade and an airstrike against Cuba.

At the same time, the Soviet cargo ship Omsk leaves Nikolaev in the Black Sea, bound for Cuba with seven R-12 missiles.

National Security Archive

 

Michael Dobbs is a prizewinning foreign correspondent and the author of a bestselling book about the Cuban missile crisis, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. He writes Foreign Policy's On the Brink blog.

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