22 Oct 1962: JFK enacts Cuban quarantine

On this day in 1962, in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy announced a naval blockade of Cuba, designed to prevent the Communist country from completing its nuclear arsenal. He termed it a “quarantine.”

Here is some more trivia about the crisis:

• it was the first time in history the U.S. military dropped to defense readiness condition state (DEFCON) 2
  • level 1 means “nuclear war is imminent”
  • the only other time was at the launch of Operation Desert Storm in 1991
• mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell urged JFK and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to hold a summit to resolve their differences
• Secretary of State Dean Rusk said: “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked”
• 1958’s Our Man in Havana, by Robert Greene, seemed to predict the situation
• Dr. Strangelove, released in 1964, made fun of the situation
• the film Thirteen Days, starring Kevin Costner, was based on the crisis

Image: newspaper propaganda showing distances from Cuba to various “free” cities