Kennedy is shown U-2 photos: Soviet missiles, ninety miles from Florida

For months, American officials had suspected something was moving through Cuba, shipped in secret and denied by Moscow. On October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was brought photographs taken two days earlier by a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, showing Soviet medium-range nuclear missile sites under construction on the island. Kennedy convened a small group of advisers that morning, the start of what became thirteen days of secret deliberation before he told the public anything. The Cuban Missile Crisis was underway…