October 16, 1962

Cuban Missile Crisis

Kennedy is briefed on Soviet missile sites in Cuba

The intelligence that opened the crisis was 928 photographs taken in about six minutes over Cuba — and Bundy sat on them overnight rather than wake the president.

16 October 1962, 8:45 a.m.

National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy had held the evidence since the evening of 15 October; he chose not to interrupt the president's night. At 8:45 a.m. on 16 October 1962 he told John F. Kennedy that U-2 photographs showed Soviet medium-range ballistic-missile sites under construction in western Cuba.

The photographs came from Major Richard D. Heyser's 14 October U-2 flight — 928 frames exposed in roughly six minutes over the island. Analysts at the National Photographic Interpretation Center identified three developing MRBM sites near San Cristóbal.

The first meeting

Kennedy assembled his senior national-security advisers at the White House at about 11:45 a.m. They examined the photographic evidence and debated the spread of responses — diplomacy, blockade, air strikes, invasion. The group is often called ExComm, but that committee was formally created only on 22 October; the label is retrospective for these first sessions.

Kennedy said the missiles had to be removed, ordered further analysis and whatever additional U-2 coverage was needed, and reconvened the advisers that evening. In the first recorded meeting, his practical question was how many mornings the military would need before it could destroy the sites.

A secret carried through a public day

Nothing was announced on the 16th. Kennedy kept his public schedule — receiving astronaut Walter Schirra, dining that evening at columnist Joseph Alsop's home — while a secret advisory process, expanded reconnaissance, and demands for military and political options took shape behind it.

The conventional 'thirteen days' runs from this briefing through Khrushchev's withdrawal announcement on 28 October. One caveat the photographs could not settle: they established missile sites and Soviet equipment, not warheads — the United States did not know during the crisis that nuclear warheads were already in Cuba.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 3 audit passes

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

October 16 is conventionally treated as the crisis’s beginning because that was when Kennedy learned of the missiles. The reconnaissance occurred October 14 and analysts identified the evidence October 15.
The photographs established missile sites and associated Soviet equipment, not by themselves the presence of nuclear warheads. The United States did not know during the crisis that nuclear warheads were already in Cuba.