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...Command (CINCLANT), "to be prepared to institute a [military] blockade against Cuba." The commanders-in-chief of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force under the Atlantic Command are directed to position their
forces to execute the first stage of the airstrike, and ready themselves for a full-scale invasion of Cuba.
On October 8, 1962, Cuban President Dorticós, addressing the U.N. General Assembly, calls upon the United Nations to condemn the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Near the end of his address, Dortic´s declares, "If we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons which we would have preferred not to acquire and which we do not wish to employ." The speech is interrupted four times by U.S. diplomats.
In the early morning of October 14, 1962, A U-2 spy aircraft flies over western Cuba, revealing MRBM sites in Cuba. Two days later, Kennedy learns about the data collected on the missile deployments. The U.S. government discusses several options from a surgical airstrike on the missile bases to a full-scale invasion. As discussions continue on proposals to destroy the missiles by an all-out surprise air strike, Robert Kennedy passes a note to the president, "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor."
On October 16, 1962, the U.S. Guided Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee (GMAIC) concludes that there is no evidence that nuclear warheads are present in Cuba and that the missile installations do not appear to be operational. On the same day the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Foy Kohler meets with Khrushchev, who insists that all Soviet activity in Cuba is defensive and counters with criticism of the U.S. nuclear missles already in Turkey (the full extent of U.S. nuclear proliferation around the world...
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