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Airpower and the Cuban Missile Crisis

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Airpower and the Cuban Missile Crisis This “smoking gun” reconnaissance photo of San Cristobal, Cuba (above), revealed the presence of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles. It was obtained by a high-flying U-2 spyplane such as the one at far right. A low-flying Air Force RF-101 or Navy RF-8 snapped the close-up at right of anti-aircraft artillery and radars being erected near the missile sites. Airpower and the Cuban Missile Crisis The Russians hoped to have their missiles in operation before the Americans discovered them. They almost made it. 78 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 N THE summer of 1962, a conspicu- simply upgrades from the older MiGs ous military buildup was under way the Cubans already possessed. in Cuba. US aerial surveillance in CIA director John A. McCone was IJuly reported an exceptional number of suspicious. In an Aug. 10 memo to Soviet ships moving toward the island. President Kennedy, he guessed that They rode high in the water, suggest- Russia was about to introduce ballistic ing military cargo—such as missiles, missiles into Cuba. Why, he asked, Airpower which occupied considerable space in would they be deploying SAMs, except relation to their weight. to protect something important, like In August, US intelligence received offensive missile sites? reports of sightings by ground observers For Kennedy, the question had politi- of Russian-built MiG-21 fighters and cal as well as military implications. and the Cuban Missile Crisis Il-28 light bombers. In late August, Sen. Kenneth B. CIA U-2 spyplanes overflew Cuba Keating (R-N.Y.)—whose sources were twice a month. On Aug. 29, they found probably Cuban exiles in Florida—said SA-2 surface-to-air missile sites at eight there was evidence of Soviet “rocket different locations. That was of interest installations” in Cuba and urged Ken- but of no great concern. SAMs were nedy to act. Others, notably Sen. Homer By John T. Correll defensive weapons. E. Capehart (R-Ind.), joined in the call The U-2s also found MiG-21s, con- for action. firming the earlier sighting reports. Strangely, U-2 flights ceased for Possibly, though, these aircraft were more than a month, from Sept. 5 to AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 79 medium-range ballistic missiles, about 700 of them. The United States had 170 ICBMs, and the number was rising rapidly. It also had eight ballistic missile sub- marines with 128 Polaris missiles. To make matters worse for Khrushchev, the Soviet missiles were of inferior quality. Khrushchev had added to the percep- tion of a missile gap by his loud and untruthful boasting that the USSR was turning out missiles “like sausages” and his claims of long-range missile capabilities he was nowhere close to having. The US Air Force had deployed Thor and Jupiter intermediate-range missiles to Europe as a direct counter to Soviet MRBMs and IRBMs. The Jupiters Maj. Rudolf Anderson Jr. was shot down while piloting a U-2A like this one. The U-2 had been operational in Turkey since Cuba mission had been passed from the CIA to the Air Force. Kennedy didn’t want April 1962. another Gary Powers-like flap if a CIA airplane went down. Fidel Castro agreed readily to accept the Soviet missiles in his country. He Oct. 14. One reason was bad weather, told it later, the crisis began the previ- did not see a need for them for Cuba’s but another was anxiety on part of ous April. defense, but he was eager to be part of the President’s advisors, who wor- “It was during my visit to Bulgaria the communist team, the point man in ried about the consequences of a U-2 that I had the idea of installing mis- the Western Hemisphere. shootdown. siles with nuclear warheads in Cuba The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion To the dismay of the CIA, the Air without letting the United States find in 1961 had failed to oust Castro, but Force took over the U-2 missions when out they were there until it was too late he remained on Washington’s hit list. they resumed. The first flight was by to do anything about them,” he said “Operation Mongoose,” a scheme to Maj. Richard S. Heyser on Oct. 14. in Khrushchev Remembers, published undercut the Castro regime, was still When CIA analysts on the next day in 1970. running. pored over Heyser’s reconnaissance He was reacting, superficially at Castro welcomed the installation of film, they found SS-4 medium-range least, to the Jupiter intermediate-range the Russian missiles as an opportunity ballistic missiles. Senior Administra- ballistic missiles the United States to stick it to the Yanquis. tion officials were told that night. The had recently installed in Turkey. More A survey team, led by Marshal Sergei President was notified early on the important, though, Khrushchev wanted Biryuzov, chief of the Soviet Rocket morning of Oct. 16. to compensate for Russia’s strategic Forces, visited Cuba prior to the de- The Cuban missile crisis had begun. disadvantage in long-range missiles. ployments. Upon his return, Biryuzov By the time the public was informed one “In addition to protecting Cuba,” he assured Khrushchev that the missiles week later, the U-2s had also discovered acknowledged in his memoirs, “our would be concealed and camouflaged an SS-5 intermediate-range ballistic missiles would have equalized what by the palm trees. Khrushchev believed missile site and Il-28 bombers. the West likes to call ‘the balance of him. President Kennedy spoke to the power.’ ” The force proposed for Cuba in- nation on television Oct. 22 and an- Protecting Cuba had little to do with cluded 24 MRBM launchers and 16 nounced “unmistakable evidence” of it. Khrushchev saw the possibility of IRBM launchers. There were two mis- Russian missiles in Cuba. He declared an instant strategic adjustment. IRBMs siles (one as a spare) and one nuclear a naval “quarantine” and said any mis- based in Cuba could reach US targets warhead for each launcher. There would sile fired from Cuba would be treated as easily—and faster—as ICBMs from also be four combat regiments, 24 SA-2 as a Soviet attack on America. launch sites in the Soviet Union. batteries, 42 MiG-21 interceptors, and On Oct. 27, a Russian SAM crew shot Missiles had recently taken center 42 Il-28 bombers. down a U-2, killing the pilot, Air Force stage in the Cold War. Ironically, one The ships began moving from the Maj. Rudolf Anderson Jr. The White of Kennedy’s issues in the 1960 elec- Black Sea in the middle of July. The first House decided not to retaliate. tion was an alleged “missile gap,” with MRBMs arrived at the Cuban port of On Oct. 28, the Russians bowed to the Russians ahead. There was indeed Mariel aboard Poltava on Sept. 15. overwhelming US strategic power and a missile gap, but it was in favor of the “Soon, hell will break loose,” Khrush- agreed to withdraw their missiles. United States. chev told an aide at the end of Sep- It was as close as the Cold War ever The Russians had only four ICBMs in tember. came to World War III. 1961. By the time of the Cuban missile crisis, they probably had several dozen, The U-2 Khrushchev’s Gambit although some estimates went as high The state of the art in aerial photo As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as 75. What the Russians did have was intelligence was the Lockheed U-2. 80 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 Reconnaissance satellites were coming porter wrote after interviewing Air semimonthly passes over Cuba in the along, but the technology was not yet Force pilot Heyser. “If he flew too fast, summer of 1962. At that point, two fully mature. the fragile [aircraft] would fall apart. events, neither of them the doing of The U-2 was developed in the 1950s If he flew too slow, the engine would the CIA, intervened. by the fabled Lockheed Skunk Works stall, and he would nose-dive.” On Aug. 30, a SAC U-2 on a mission under the direction of the equally At the end of each wing of the U-2 unrelated to Cuba overflew Sakhalin fabled Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. was a “pogo,” an outrigger with a wheel Island in the Far East by mistake. The The prime customer was the CIA, but on it, to keep the wingtips from drag- Soviets protested and the US apolo- the Air Force was also offered a share ging on takeoff. When the aircraft broke gized. On Sept. 9, a Taiwanese U-2 was of the program. ground, the pogos dropped away. The lost, probably to a SAM, over western At first, according to a declassified wingtips had skids for landing. China. Taiwan had bought its own U-2s CIA history of the U-2, Gen. Curtis E. from Lockheed. LeMay, commander in chief of Strategic USAF Takes the Flights Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Air Command, said that “if he wanted The U-2 cameras carried 5,000 feet National Security Advisor McGeorge high-altitude photographs, he would of film. Had it all been spooled on the Bundy became concerned that one of put cameras in his B-36 bombers and same side of the camera, the weight of the SAMs in Cuba might shoot down a added that he was not interested in a the film—about 300 pounds—would U-2, setting off an international contro- plane that had no wheels or guns.” have thrown the airplane out of balance.
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