Cuban Project by late August, the Soviet military build-up in Cuba disgruntled the Kennedy administration. The fear of open military retaliation against the United States and Berlin for the US covert operations in Cuba slowed down the operation. By October, as the Cuban Missile Crisis heated up, President Kennedy demanded the cessation of Operation Mongoose. Operation Mongoose formally ceased its activities at the end of 1962. The first assassination plots began in the late summer of 1960, according to the Church Committee’s documentation. Some of the plots and ideas ranged from “poisoned pills, an exploding seashell, and a planned gift of a
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