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A U-2 is shot down over eastern Cuba and Major Rudolf Anderson is killed. US destroyers drop practice depth charges on submarine B-59, whose officers argue over firing a nuclear torpedo until Vasily Arkhipov refuses. A second Khrushchev letter asks for US missiles to leave Turkey.

• B-59 surfaces among US ships near the USS Randolph group.
• The tanker Grozny stops at the line.
• Robert Kennedy secretly tells Ambassador Dobrynin the Jupiter missiles in Turkey will go.

Black Saturday (27 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)

Radio Moscow broadcasts that the Soviet Union will dismantle the missiles and ship them home in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba. The quarantine stays in place while the removal is checked.

• The removal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey stays a secret part of the deal.
• Castro, left out of the talks, is furious.

Khrushchev backs down (28 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

Black Saturday (27 October 1962)

Process details

Map

Impact summary