SIX SOVIET SHIPS STOP OR REVERSE DIRECTION AT QUARANTINE LINE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On October 24, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was informed by CIA Director John McCone*, at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, that 22 Soviet ships were headed toward the "Quarantine Line" 500 miles East of Cuba.
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, with additional information, said that two of these ships were approaching the line with a Soviet submarine in between.
This was a critical point in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Updates were being sent in during the meeting, and McCone was alerted that six of the Soviet ships had stopped or reversed direction.
With that, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said these memorable words...
"We stood eyeball to eyeball and the other fellow just blinked."
*John Alexander McCone (1902-1991) was born in San Francisco, CA & educated at University of California Berkely. JAM was Under Secretary of the Air Force under Truman & Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission under Eisenhower. He was Director of CIA (1961-1965) & was awarded the Hoover Medal in 1964.
SOURCE
"One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro On the Brink of Nuclear War," by Michael Dobbs, Alfred Knopf, 2008.
