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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)

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)

Sailors from USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. board the Soviet-chartered freighter Marucla, find no weapons and let her pass. In the evening a long personal letter from Khrushchev offers to remove the missiles if the US promises not to invade Cuba.

• The first and only boarding of the quarantine.
• Work on the missile sites in Cuba speeds up.

The Marucla is boarded (26 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

The first ship is let through (25 October 1962)

Process details

Map

Impact summary