Cuban Missile Crisis into Cuba. On October 13, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets planned to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans. On October 17, Soviet embassy official Georgy Bolshakov brought President Kennedy a personal message from Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba." As early as August 1962, the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of Russian-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spyplanes found
Cuban Missile Crisis the balance of power. It would have appeared to, and appearances contribute to reality." On October 18, Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Not wanting to expose what he already knew and to avoid panicking the American public, Kennedy did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile buildup. By October 19, frequent U-2 spy flights showed four operational sites. On the night of October 19 at 23:56 a helicopter from USS Essex CVS-9 squadron HSS-2 crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. Lt. Cmdr. James