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Return to Press Release, 11 October 2002, 1 PM EST
The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
A National Security Archive Documents Reader
Edited by Laurence Chang and Peter Kornbluh
Ordering information for this book is available at the W.W. Norton & Co. website. Or by phone:
800-233-4830 (U.S.)
717-346-2029 (Outside U.S.)
Reconnaissance photos and other images from the crisis leading up to the discovery of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) in Cuba on 14 October 1962.
More images from the height of the crisis, 24-28 October 1962.
Images from the November crisis, 29 October - 9 November 1962.
Listen to audio clips on the Cuban Missile Crisis from the Kennedy White House.
 
Listed below are links to reconnaissance photos and other images from the crisis, including U-2 and US Navy low-level photos of Soviet MRBM's and nuclear warhead bunkers from 14-23 October 1962. The photographs that make up the vast majority of this section come from the Dino A. Brugioni collection at the National Security Archive. Brugioni was a career CIA officer in charge of "all-source" intelligence and briefing preparation at the National Photographic Interpretation Center in 1962. He later authored Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, (New York: Random House, 1990).

 

  1. October 14, 1962: U-2 photograph of MRBM site two nautical miles away from the Los Palacios deployment – the second set of MRBMs found in Cuba.  This site was subsequently named San Cristobal no. 1 (the photo is labeled 15 October for the day it was analyzed and printed).
  1. CIA reference photograph of Soviet medium-range ballistic missile (SS-4 in U.S. documents, R-12 in Soviet documents) in Red Square, Moscow.
  1. CIA briefing board for JFK showing range of Soviet MRBMs (Bobby Kennedy on 16 October jokingly asked whether the missiles could hit Oxford, Mississippi, where federal marshals had intervened only two weeks earlier, so Oxford was included).  PSALM was the special codeword for intelligence data on missiles in Cuba, a compartment created at President Kennedy’s insistence for greater control of this sensitive information.
  1. October 15, 1962: U-2 photograph of IL-28 bomber crates at San Julian airfield.
  1. October 17, 1962: U-2 photograph of first IRBM site found under construction.
  1. October 18, 1962: White House photograph of President Kennedy meeting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin – in which JFK does not reveal he knows about the missiles, and Gromyko asserts that Soviet military assistance is purely defensive.
  1. October 23, 1962: U.S. Navy low-level photograph of San Cristobal MRBM site no. 1 (mission led by Commander William Ecker).
  1. October 23, 1962: U.S. Navy low-level photograph of nuclear warhead bunker under construction at San Cristobal no. 1.
  1. NPIC drawing of nuclear warhead bunker under construction.
  1.  October 23, 1962: U.S. Navy low-level photograph of Sagua la Grande MRBM site.

Return to Press Release, 11 October 2002, 1 PM EST
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About the National Security ArchiveSearch the Archive WebsiteArchive NewsDeclassified Documents OnlineArchive PublicationsFreedom of Information ActInternship OpportunitiesDoing Research at the Archive