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The Nazi Scheme to Bombard New York City With Rockets and Other Unfinished Military Plans

Khalid Elhassan January 16, 2020 32 min

South Vietnam - United States — American troops in South Vietnam. USA Today

3. The 1962 American Invasion of Cuba

President Kennedy and Curtis LeMay. Politico

In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Pentagon strongly urged John F. Kennedy to invade Cuba in order to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from the island. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were in unanimous agreement that a full-scale invasion was the only solution. They presented the Presidents with two versions: Oplan 316 for a full invasion, and Oplan 312 for aerial strikes to take out the missiles, followed by an invasion if necessary.

The hawks, led by Air Force general Curtis LeMay, had a clear preference for Oplan 316. They contended that there was no guarantee that air strikes alone would take out all the missiles, or that one or more of the missiles would not be fired at the US. Fortunately for everybody then and now, JFK had the moral backbone to resist getting railroaded into a military solution, and managed to solve the crisis without an invasion.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.