After nearly two weeks of secret negotiations, naval blockade, and mounting fear of nuclear catastrophe, Khrushchev announced over Radio Moscow that the USSR would dismantle its missile installations in Cuba in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade the island. The resolution, achieved partly through a back-channel deal involving U.S. missiles in Turkey, marked a turning point toward détente between the superpowers.
For thirteen days in October 1962, the world had watched, largely without knowing the full details, as American U-2 spy planes revealed Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida. President Kennedy's administration debated airstrikes and invasion before settling on a naval quarantine, and Soviet ships loaded with military material steamed toward the blockade line while the world held its breath.
The resolution came together through parallel channels of communication, some public and some intensely private. Attorney General Robert Kennedy met secretly with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and conveyed a critical, unpublicized concession: the United States would quietly remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey, though this could never be announced as a quid pro quo, and Kennedy would pledge not to invade Cuba.
On the morning of October 28, Radio Moscow broadcast Khrushchev's message announcing the missiles would be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union, catching even some Soviet officials in Cuba off guard, including Fidel Castro, who felt humiliated at not being consulted. American U-2 photography soon confirmed disassembly had begun. The crisis had pushed both leaders to grasp, viscerally, how easily miscalculation could trigger a war neither wanted, planting seeds for the 1963 hotline agreement and subsequent arms control efforts.
Key people: Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy