CIA UNABLE TO ANSWER JFK'S URGENT QUESTION
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty-five years ago in late October 1962, at the same time John F. Kennedy was considering a course of action in the missile crisis, the CIA could not tell the President whether or not Soviet missiles in Cuba were armed with nuclear warheads. This is important because the President's military advisers were recommending an armed invasion of the island 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?
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...
36 one megaton for medium range R-12 missiles
*note: 1 megaton - 1 million tons of TNT, 1 kilaton - 1000 tons of TNT
SOURCE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty-five years ago in late October 1962, at the same time John F. Kennedy was considering a course of action in the missile crisis, the CIA could not tell the President whether or not Soviet missiles in Cuba were armed with nuclear warheads. This is important because the President's military advisers were recommending an armed invasion of the island 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?
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...
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
