U-2 Photos Reveal Soviet Missiles in Cuba

Major Richard Heyser flew his U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over western Cuba on the morning of October 14, 1962, and his camera captured 928 photographs that brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation than it had ever been. The images showed Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile sites under construction near San Cristóbal, capable of striking Washington, D.C., and most major American cities with nuclear warheads within minutes of launch. American intelligence had been tracking a Soviet military buildup in Cuba for months, but a five-week gap in U-2 overflights — caused by diplomatic caution after a U-2 was shot down over China and concerns about provoking an incident — had left analysts blind to the most dangerous development. The pause, known as the "Photo Gap," allowed Soviet technicians to make significant progress on the missile installations without detection. When Heyser's film was developed and analyzed by photo interpreters at the National Photographic Interpretation Center on October 15, the implications were immediately clear. President John F. Kennedy was informed on the morning of October 16, and the Cuban Missile Crisis — the most perilous thirteen days of the Cold War — began. Kennedy assembled a secret advisory group called the Executive Committee (ExComm), which debated responses ranging from diplomatic protest to full-scale invasion of Cuba. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended airstrikes, but Kennedy chose a naval quarantine of Cuba while pursuing back-channel negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The crisis ended on October 28, when Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a public American pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret agreement to remove U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Heyser's photographs had exposed a Soviet gamble that, if undetected for a few more weeks, might have presented the United States with a fait accompli — operational nuclear missiles 90 miles from Florida. The crisis led directly to the installation of the Moscow-Washington hotline and the first serious arms control negotiations between the superpowers.