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Home , Francis Gary Powers, McCoy Air Force Base, Missile gap, Rudolf Anderson

This “smoking gun” reconnaissance photo of San Cristobal, (above), revealed the presence of Soviet medium-range ballistic . 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 sites.

Airpower and the

The Russians hoped to have their missiles in operation before the Americans disco vered 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 . 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 had 170 ICBMs, and the number was rising rapidly. It also had eight 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 as a direct counter to Soviet MRBMs and IRBMs. The Jupiters Maj. Jr. was shot down while piloting a U-2A like this one. The U-2 had been operational in 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. 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 . 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 . 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 as 75. What the Russians did have was intelligence was the Lockheed U-2.

80 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 Reconnaissance 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 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. versy. So—just as the missile shipments The Air Force bought some U-2s Thus the film was divided into two were approaching port in Cuba—the anyway. They were assigned to SAC’s strips, each nine inches wide, feeding U-2 missions stopped. There were no 4080th Bomb Wing at Laughlin Air from opposite directions. It would be overflights from Sept. 5 to Oct. 14, Force Base, near Del Rio, Tex. The recombined in the laboratory to produce although the CIA was allowed to fly aircraft began arriving in June 1957. images 18 inches square. peripheral runs, taking pictures from Mostly, the Air Force U-2 pilots flew Each U-2 mission took about 4,000 slant range, 15 miles offshore. missions around the Soviet periphery pictures. On Sept. 28, Navy reconnaissance and in the Far East. The U-2’s free run of crossing Soviet aircraft photographed large crates on The U-2 was built to go high and far. territory came to an end on May 1, 1960, the deck of the Soviet ship Kasimov, on The wingspan was 80 feet, almost twice when CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers, its way to Cuba. The size and shape of the length of the body of the aircraft, flying out of , was shot down the crates indicated that they contained which was not quite 50 feet. It flew at over Sverdlovsk by a Russian SA-2 Il-28 light bombers, which was later 72,500 feet, more than 13 miles high. SAM and captured. confirmed. To get range, altitude, and endur- There was great political uproar, On Oct. 12, the Administration trans- ance, the Skunk Works had traded off both in the United States and abroad. ferred responsibility for U-2 overflights everything else. The U-2 was not very President Eisenhower, who had detailed of Cuba to the Air Force. Various rea- fast. Cruise speed was 460 mph. knowledge of the overflights and who sons were given, but the real explanation “One unusual design feature was approved the missions, denied his in- was that the Administration did not want the tail assembly, which—to save volvement and canceled the overflights another CIA U-2 flap and believed that weight—was attached to the main of Russia. it would be easier to concoct a cover body with just three tension bolts,” The CIA U-2s continued to fly other story if the missions over Cuba were the CIA history said. “The wings reconnaissance missions, including the flown by the Air Force. were also unique. Unlike conventional aircraft, whose main wing spar passes through the fuselage to give the wings continuity and strength, the U-2 had two separate wing panels, which were attached to the fuselage sides with tension bolts. “The fragility of the wings and tail section, which were only bolted to the fuselage, forced to look for a way to protect the aircraft from gusts of wind at altitudes below 35,000 feet, which otherwise might cause the aircraft to disintegrate. ... The U-2 remained a very fragile aircraft that required great skill and concentration from its pilots.” Flying the U-2 at altitude also de- manded precision. “The air was so thin it could barely support the weight of the plane, and MISSILE ERECTOR CAMOUFLAGE NETTING the difference between maximum and Anatomy of a crisis: At the top are the SS-5 missiles, housed in long tents. At the minimum speeds was a scant six knots center is a launch control building, surrounded by service roads, missile erectors, (seven mph),” a Washington Post re- and camouflage netting.

AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 81 There is also some indication that derson flew the first Air Force mission Com,” an executive committee of the the Department of Defense and the over Cuba, the one that found the mis- National Security Council, was formed Air Force pressed hard to get the siles, or that he and Heyser both flew to work the crisis. mission. McCone was away when it that day. That was a public relations On Oct. 17, the U-2s found an happened. maneuver instigated by the Pentagon SS-5 IRBM site (the first of three to According to the CIA history, “The after Anderson was shot down. The be identified). The range of the SS-5 acting DCI [director of central intel- fact is, Heyser flew the first mission was 2,531 miles, double that of the ligence], Lt. Gen. Marshall S. Carter, alone, from Edwards. Anderson was SS-4. It could reach any point in the US Army, reacted strongly to the Air the backup. United States except for the Pacific Force takeover of a major CIA opera- Heyser took off from California in Northwest. (Although the sites were tion. At one point, he remarked, ‘I think the middle of the night on a schedule under construction, no SS-5s reached it’s a hell of a way to run a railroad. It’s that would put him over Cuba an hour Cuba. They were on ships that turned perfectly obviously a geared operation after sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 14. back.) to get SAC in the act.’ ” It took five hours for him to reach By Oct. 19, US intelligence had dis- Dino A. Brugioni, whose book Eye- the Gulf of Mexico. He swung wide covered 16 operational SS-4 launchers, ball to Eyeball is a detailed remem- around the western end of Cuba and 22 Il-28 bombers, 24 SA-2 SAM sites, brance from inside the CIA, said Carter approached the island from the south. and a nuclear warhead storage bunker. was surprised to learn that McCone had He crossed the Isle of Pines at 7:31 In his memoirs, Khrushchev blus- previously mentioned to the President a.m. and turned on the cameras. tered, “We hadn’t had time to deliver “that the U-2 missions were getting Heyser flew north, across San Cris- all our shipments to Cuba, but we had progressively hazardous and he might tobal, west of . San Julian installed enough missiles already to de- want to consider a transfer of the re- airfield was off to his left. He exited stroy New York, Chicago, and the other sponsibilities to the military.” Cuban airspace at 7:43 a.m. He landed huge industrial cities, not to mention No matter how Carter and the CIA at McCoy Air Force Base at Orlando, the little village of Washington.” felt about it, the Air Force had the job, Fla., where an airplane was waiting to Some Administration advisors ago- and the missions would be flown in the take the film to Washington, D.C. At nized that Cuba was within its rights best models of the U-2, which the CIA the debriefing, Heyser described the as a sovereign nation in permitting an had and the Air Force didn’t. mission as “a milk run.” ally to install nuclear missiles. Kennedy In 1962, the most experienced pilots The film was delivered to the CIA’s understood, however, that a nuclear at Laughlin were Heyser, of Apalachi- National Photographic Interpretation missile threat 90 miles off the Florida cola, Fla., and Anderson, of Greenville, Center. Analysis on Oct. 15 revealed coast could not be tolerated. S.C. They went to Edwards AFB, Calif., components of SS-4 missile batteries at for familiarization in the U-2Cs and to San Cristobal and Il-28 bombers at San Showdown bring back two of them, which the Air Julian. No nuclear warheads were seen. The public learned of the crisis when Force was borrowing from the CIA. That evening, Administration officials President Kennedy spoke to the nation The U-2C could fly 5,000 feet higher were tracked down and notified. on televison. He said that the United than the Air Force’s U-2As. President Kennedy was informed at States would “regard any nuclear mis- 8:45 a.m. on Oct. 16. On his orders, the sile launched from Cuba against any Finding Missile Sites Air Force U-2s began flying as many nation in the Western Hemisphere as It is sometimes reported that An- as six missions a day over Cuba. “Ex- an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response against the Soviet Union.” He also announced a naval “quar- antine” of Cuba, avoiding the term “blockade,” which is an act of war. The Organization of American States supported the quarantine. For the first time in history, Strategic AP photo by Marty Lederhandler Air Command went to DEFCON 2, one step short of general war. Up to a third of the B-52s were on airborne alert, and the rest of the fleet was ready to take off in 15 minutes. The North Ameri- can Air Defense Command moved fighter-interceptors and Hawk and Nike Hercules anti-aircraft battalions to the southeastern United States. While the U-2s continued to work at high altitude, other Air Force and Navy aircraft flew photo missions over Cuba at lower altitudes. The Air Castro (left) knew the missiles might provoke a US invasion of his country, but he Force RF-101 used six cameras that was anxious to be a player on the world stage. Khrushchev (right) believed the mis- could photograph the missile sites siles could be installed and hidden before the US knew what was happening. from treetop level.

82 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2005 Khrushchev pulled back from the confrontation in a Radio Moscow broadcast Oct. 28, declaring that he AP staff photo had ordered “the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as ‘of- fensive,’ and their crating, and return to the Soviet Union.” “Eyeball to eyeball, they blinked first,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a reporter. That was so, but the United States also made a concession, which was not announced. The Jupiter missiles would be pulled out of Turkey. Attorney General Robert F. Ken- nedy told Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, back-channel, that “within a short time after this crisis was over, those missiles would be gone.” It was no great loss to the United States or NATO. The Jupiters were obsolete, President Kennedy (right) and his brother Robert, the attorney general, confer and the mission they were perform- during the 1962 crisis. Kennedy recognized the courageous efforts of the recon- ing was taken over by Polaris nuclear naissance pilots and crews for helping resolve the crisis. submarines. Photoreconnaissance on Nov. 1 con- There was some talk of a “surgical open fire, and the Cubans shot down an firmed that the MRBM sites had been strike” to take the missiles out, but with American U-2 reconnaissance plane,” bulldozed. Ships began taking missiles the capabilities and bombing accuracies he said in his memoirs. and other equipment back to the Soviet of the day, that was not to be. The Air ExCom had decided earlier that if Union on Nov. 5. SAC went back to its Force told the President that it would a U-2 were shot down, the SAM site normal alert posture on Nov. 20, and take hundreds of sorties to be sure of would be attacked and destroyed. Ac- the naval quarantine ended. getting 90 percent of the missiles. cordingly, the Air Force prepared an Khrushchev was removed from pow- That was a no go. F-100 strike on Banes, but President er in 1964. The reasons were mostly Meanwhile, Castro—who had been Kennedy would not allow it. domestic, but the Cuban missile fiasco steadily ignored by both the Russians A week after the shootdown, the Cu- had cost him support. and the Americans—was growing im- bans turned over Anderson’s body to a Years later, it was revealed that, in patient. He had anti-aircraft guns of his representative. Kennedy addition to the missiles, there had been own scattered around the island, and personally ordered the Air Force to award 40,000 Soviet troops in Cuba, many he ordered the Cuban gunners to shoot posthumously to Anderson the Air Force more than the US had estimated. There down the American airplanes. The Soviet Cross—the first ever presented. were also about 20 nuclear warheads in ambassador tried to persuade Castro to Cuba, although none of them had been cancel his order, but he refused. End Game mounted on the missiles. That was the situation on the morn- On Oct. 27, the same day Anderson On Nov. 26, at Homestead AFB, Fla., ing of Oct. 27, when Anderson took was shot down, the Air Force put its Kennedy presented the Presidential off from McCoy Air Force Base in a first 10 Minuteman I missiles on alert at Unit Citation to the 4080th Strategic U-2. He crossed the northern coast- Malmstrom AFB, Mont. It was another Wing and the 363rd Tactical Reconnais- line of Cuba at 9:15 a.m., flew south, reminder to Khrushchev that he was sance Wing. He also visited and thanked over Guantanamo Bay, and then back years away from achieving strategic Navy fliers at Key West, Fla. northward. The SAM site at Banes, on parity with the United States, and he “I may say, gentlemen, that you take the northeastern coast, picked him up knew it. excellent pictures and I have seen a about 10 a.m. “We could see that we had to reori- good many of them, beginning with the The Cuban gunners couldn’t reach ent our position swiftly,” he said in photographs which were taken on the Anderson at the altitude he was flying, Khrushchev Remembers, claiming fear weekend in the middle of October which so the Soviet SAM crewmen at Banes that Kennedy would not be able to gave us the conclusive proof of the decided they ought to help their allies. control the warlike US military lead- buildup of offensive weapons in Cuba,” The overall Soviet commander, Gen. ers. He notified Kennedy, “We agree to Kennedy said to the U-2 crews. Issa Pliyev, could not be found at that remove our missiles and bombers on “The 4080th contributed as much critical moment. The SAM battery the condition that the President give to the security of the United States as fired three rockets, two of which hit us his assurance that there would be any unit in our history and any group Anderson’s U-2 and knocked it out no invasion of Cuba.” of men in our history.” ■ of the sky. There were mild reprimands from Moscow and orders not to shoot down John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years and is now a any more U-2s. Khrushchev lied about contributing editor. His most recent article, “How the Air Force Got the ICBM,” ap- it, of course. “Castro gave an order to peared in the July issue.

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