Thirteen Days, pgs. 35-61 Summary and Analysis

At Tuesday's OAS meeting, the U.S. fears it will be hard to get the two-thirds needed to go along with quarantine, but Latin America rallies to give unanimous support and several countries contribute men and materiel. Ex Comm meets with JFK in the morning, in a relaxed mood, having survived the first step, but this mood soon vanishes, as John McCloy, an advisor on European affairs, reports that Soviet forces have not gone on alert and in Cuba, no non-Russian has entered the missile bases. JFK orders preparations to deal with a blockade of Berlin, retaliation for any verified U-2 downings, and anything necessary should the Russians opt to use force.

Meeting at 6 PM and learning of OAS support, JFK prepares to announce that quarantine goes into effect at 10 AM. Russian ships on course...