ARE THESE MISSILES ARMED WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS?

JFK+50:  Volume 6, No. 2107

CIA COULDN'T ANSWER JFK'S QUESTION ON MISSILES IN CUBA

In October 1962, at the same time JFK was considering a course of action in the Missile Crisis, the Central Intelligence Agency could not tell him for certain if the Soviet missiles in Cuba were armed with nuclear warheads.  This is important because the President's military advisers were favoring an armed invasion of Cuba by American forces.

Michael Dobbs writes:

"A week after the discovery of the Soviet missiles, CIA analysts were still unable to answer the president's most urgent question: where are the nuclear warheads?"

Dobbs continues....

"The Soviet nuclear arsenal...far exceeded the worst nightmares of anyone in Washington.    It included....(not only) the ballistic missiles...but (also) an array of smaller weapons that could wipe out an invading army..."

Mr. Dobbs also lists the nuclear warheads that were in Cuba as follows...

36 one megaton for medium range R-12 missiles

36 fourteen kilaton for cruise missiles

12 two kilaton for Lunas

6 twelve kilaton for IL28s

*note: 1 megaton - 1 million tons of TNT, 1 kilaton - 1000 tons of TNT

            the a-bomb dropped on Hiroshima = 15 kilatons

SOURCE

 "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War," by Michael Dobbs, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2008.

Soviet R-12 Nuclear Missile

Red Square, Moscow, USSR

CIA Photo