Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Kennedy came to see it, Khrushchev planned to say something like this: We are going to go right ahead and take Berlin, and just in case you are rash enough to resist, I can now inform you that we have several scores of megatons zeroed in on you from Cuba...
...course but to squash the Soviet missile buildup. But how? In his long, soul-trying talks with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, State Secretary Dean Rusk, the CIA's McCone and other top civilian and military officials, the plan was arduously worked out. Direct invasion of Cuba was discarded-for the time being. So was a surprise bombing attack on the missile sites. Both methods might cause Khrushchev to strike back instinctively and plunge the world into thermonuclear war. More than anything else, Kennedy wanted to give Khrushchev time to understand that he was at last being faced...
...Answer. The best answer seemed to be "quarantine"-a Navy blockade against ships carrying offensive weapons to Cuba. That would give the Premier time and food for thought. It would offer the U.S. flexibility for future, harsher action. It seemed the solution most likely to win support from the U.S.'s NATO allies and the Organization of American States. And it confronted the Soviet Union with a showdown where it is weakest and the U.S. is mighty: on the high seas. For the U.S. Navy, under Chief of Naval Operations George Anderson, 55, has no rival...
Speed was vital. Already plowing through the Atlantic were at least 25 Soviet or satellite cargo ships, many of them bringing more missiles and bombers for Cuba. They were shadowed by Navy planes from bases along the East Coast...
Kennedy explained that the quarantine would cut off offensive weapons from Cuba without stopping "the necessities of life." He warned that "any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere" would be regarded by the U.S. as an attack by the Soviet Union and would bring full-scale nuclear reprisal against Russia...