Cuban Gunners Fire on RF-101 After Thirteen-Day Nuclear Standoff
By Roy Castellano ·
US pilots flew into lethal gunfire while Washington pushed for neutral Red Cross monitors to verify that Soviet missiles were actually leaving the island.
At 10:50 p.m. on October 29, 1962, the Department of State sent a confidential telegram to the Mission to the United Nations. The message, found in Volume XI of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) records, arrived at a moment when the world was attempting to breathe again after thirteen days of nuclear brinkmanship. The crisis, as established in the public record, had brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the precipice of full-scale war over the deployment of missiles in Cuba.
"Neutral or Soviet Ships"
The telegram centers on a proposal from Khrushchev to employ the International Red Cross (ICRC) as a monitoring body. The objective was to ensure that no further arms were arriving from the Soviet Union to Cuba. The logistics were precise: inspections would occur either in the port of entry, provided Cuba agreed, or at sea. If the latter was chosen, the record specifies that "Red Cross personnel should board from neutral or Soviet ships, not American vessels." Furthermore, the personnel themselves were required to be citizens of neutral or non-aligned countries.
From a tradecraft perspective, the insistence on neutral boarding vessels is a calculated move to avoid direct friction. When you are managing a volatile asset or a tense border, the last thing you want is a misunderstanding involving a US Navy deck and a Red Cross observer. The State Department found this arrangement "satisfactory," though they expressed a preference that the ICRC act as an executive agent for the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SYG), mirroring the work the League of International Red Cross Societies had performed in refugee operations.
RF-101 Reconnaissance
While the diplomatic channels were negotiating the role of the Red Cross, the actual verification of the missile withdrawal remained a matter of hard intelligence. The telegram is blunt about this necessity: "Some continuing reconnaissance from the air seems essential, during period of dismantling and withdrawal of missiles and other major weapons."
The record suggests that the United States was not entirely confident in the ability of the United Nations to provide technically competent reconnaissance. To solve this, the State Department sought to pursue a "Canadian offer of pilots for RF-101s." The RF-101 Voodoo was the primary tactical reconnaissance aircraft of the era, capable of high-speed, high-altitude photography that could strip away the fog of Soviet claims.
There was, however, a violent reality accompanying these diplomatic maneuvers. The telegram includes a brief, almost casual notification: "FYI . One of U.S. planes on today’s reconnaissance was fired on by Cubans." This detail serves as a reminder that while the principals in Washington and Moscow were speaking through telegrams and UN intermediaries, the situation on the ground in Cuba remained lethal. The risk of an accidental escalation—a pilot shot down or a missile launched in panic—had not vanished simply because a deal had been struck.
Photographs of Missiles
The telegram also addresses the temporary suspension of the naval quarantine. The White House approved a statement announcing that, at the request of Acting Secretary General U Thant, the enforcement of the quarantine would be "voluntarily suspended" during Thant's visit to Cuba. Yet, the State Department remained cautious. The record notes that no decision had yet been made on whether to suspend the US aerial reconnaissance during that same visit, pending the results of the day's flights.
For the men in the State Department, a verbal agreement or a Red Cross report was insufficient. The document emphasizes the need for "assurance, including if possible photographs, of missiles being packed up and actually leaving on ships." They suggested that the ICRC should not only monitor what was coming into the ports but should "likewise monitor export of major weapons.
Verification is the only currency that matters in a confrontation between superpowers. The desire for photographs reflects a fundamental distrust of the adversary's willingness to comply without a camera pointed at them. This telegram, drafted by an official named Cleveland, cleared through the Department of Defense, and approved by U. Alexis Johnson, was repeated to Moscow.
Whether those specific photographs provided the finality the State Department sought, or if the ICRC's monitoring was ever fully realized in the ports, remains a question for the subsequent files. The record leaves us with the image of an RF-101 flying over a hostile island, with a Cuban gunner firing at it, and a group of diplomats in Washington waiting for the film to be developed.