Cuban Missile Crisis in Florida, warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union may be constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy administration of covering up a major threat to the US, thereby starting the crisis. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, and spy flights and minor military harassment from US forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the US government. The first consignment of R-12 missiles arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The R-12
Cuban Missile Crisis Jupiter missiles as obsolescent and already supplanted by the Polaris nuclear ballistic submarine missiles. On the morning of October 27, a U-2F (the third CIA U-2A, modified for air-to-air refueling) piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, departed its forward operating location at McCoy AFB, Florida. At approximately 12:00 pm EDT, the aircraft was struck by a S-75 Dvina (NATO designation "SA-2 Guideline") surface-to-air missile launched from Cuba. The aircraft was shot down, and Anderson was killed. The stress in negotiations between the Soviets and the US intensified; it was only later believed that the decision to fire the missile was