The Cuban Missile Crisis

This file photo shows Cuban President Fidel Castro replying to U.S. President John F. Kennedy's naval blockade via Cuban radio and television on October 23, 1962.

This is a low level photograph released by the U.S. Defense Department made October 23, 1962 of the medium range ballistic missile site under construction in the San Cristobal area of Cuba.

In this October 25, 1962 file photo, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, far right, describes aerial photographs of launching sites for intermediate range missiles in Cuba during an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council at U.N. Headquarter

This aerial reconnaissance photo is of the San Cristobal medium range ballistic missile site No. 3 in Cuba. The U.S. Department of Defense says, shows the site at its maximum readiness on October 27, 1962.

This file photo shows pictures released by the U.S.Defense Department of Mariel naval port in Cuba on November 4, 1962.  The department identified the ships at dockside as Soviet freighters. Photo at upper left is a blowup of missile equipment in outline

Then-Major Richard ``Steve'' Heyser, left, and General Curtis LeMay, then Air Force chief of staff, center, meet with President John F. Kennedy in the White House in Washington in this 1962 picture, to discuss U-2 spy plane flights over Cuba.

Radar towers fill the area near the Dan Beard Research Center near the Nike missile site inside the Everglades National Park, Florida, as seen in a photo from 1968.