At 6:40 p.m. Washington time, 1:40 a.m. Sunday in Moscow, the Pentagon announced that an American military reconnaissance aircraft had gone missing over Cuba and was “presumed lost.” The Pentagon statement did not make clear whether the plane had been shot down, but the implications for the Kremlin were deeply disturbing. While Khrushchev had authorized his commanders on Cuba to fight back in self-defense, he had not ordered attacks on unarmed reconnaissance planes.
