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The quarantine takes effect at 10 am. Soviet ships approaching the line stop dead in the water or turn around. Strategic Air Command goes to DEFCON 2, the only time in US history.

• Kimovsk and Yuri Gagarin, carrying missiles, turn back before reaching the line.
• Dean Rusk: "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

Eyeball to eyeball (24 October 1962)

The Organization of American States backs the quarantine and Kennedy signs the proclamation. The Aleksandrovsk, carrying nuclear warheads, slips into the port of La Isabela. Khrushchev orders some of the missile ships to turn back.

• The line is pulled in from 800 to 500 nautical miles to give Moscow more time.
• Low-level reconnaissance flights over Cuba begin.

The quarantine is signed (23 October 1962)

The tanker Bucharest reaches the line. The destroyer USS Gearing hails her and, as she carries only fuel, lets her sail on to Cuba. At the UN, Adlai Stevenson shows the photos to the Soviet ambassador.

• Stevenson to Zorin: he is prepared to wait for an answer "until hell freezes over".
• Most Soviet missile ships are now sailing back east.

The first ship is let through (25 October 1962)

A 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. The US answered with a naval quarantine of the island; the crisis ended when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and, secretly, the removal of US missiles from Turkey.

Sections

Eyeball to eyeball (24 October 1962)

Process details

Map

Impact summary