ABSTRACT
On Wednesday, 24 October 1962, some 500 miles from the shores of Cuba, two Soviet merchant vessels, the Gagarin and Komiles, escorted by Soviet submarines, were heading for the Caribbean island. At 10.15 a.m. precisely they encountered patrolling US warships. The Essex had orders to sink the Soviet submarine escorts if they should refuse to surface when challenged. Two days earlier President Kennedy had announced a naval blockade of Cuba after the discovery of Soviet missile sites on the island. On the US mainland, aircraft armed with nuclear weapons were on maximum alert. Special strike forces were readied for an invasion of Cuba. The world held its breath. Was civilised life on the brink of destruction, on the threshold of a nuclear holocaust? What if the White House or the Kremlin in this dreadful trial of strength miscalculated?
