Document Deep Dive: What Did Analysts Find in the Recon Photographs From the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Dino Brugioni explains how he and other CIA photo analysts located Soviet missiles just 90 miles away from the United States
- Smithsonian.com, October 10, 2012, Subscribe
At his home outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Dino Brugioni, a sharp 91 year old, gives me a lesson in photo interpretation. On his kitchen table are some of the most consequential reconnaissance photographs from the 13 tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Brugioni was charged with preparing annotated briefing boards for the president during the events that played out 50 years ago this week. As a founding officer of the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, secretly headquartered in downtown D.C. on the floors above a car dealership, Brugioni and his fellow photo analysts carefully scanned the black-and-white landscapes taken by U-2 spy planes 70,000 feet above Cuba. They pinpointed any missiles, launch pads and other equipment found on the ground.
“When you look at the photography, you are looking for anything that is alien to that environment,” says Brugioni.
At the peak of the crisis, Brugioni and other photo interpreters were reviewing 30 to 40 rolls of film per day. They were familiar with Cuba’s sugarcane fields, ranch land, railroads and baseball diamonds, so Soviet tents and missile trailers stood out. Analysts were also trained to spot certain “signatures,” or man-made patterns in the earth indicative of missile sites.
The National Air and Space Museum has in its collection hundreds of reconnaissance photographs from the Cuban Missile Crisis, many donated by Brugioni himself. The following images are some of the most incriminating. Click on the yellow tabs on the photographs to see how Brugioni and his colleagues gathered intelligence about the nuclear buildup in Cuba.
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Comments (7)
Very interesting stuff. Out of curiosity, what are the black boxes in the third photo?
Posted by Lisa Witte on October 13,2012 | 12:46 PM
Mr. Grimes is correct in all aspects except the last sentence. Secy. Khrushchev folded after we removed our missiles pointed into the Soviet Union from our partners and made our partners very unhappy and mistrustful of our commitment. We knew the Soviet missiles being moved into Cuba were unarmed. We were threatened not by the missiles but by the nuclear equipped subs were the real threat and the people were never told of their existence because we could take all of them out the second they started a firing procedure.
Posted by Jim Southerland on October 12,2012 | 08:57 PM
I was 13 yrs old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember it well. It was a very scary time. Our neighbors were panicking, grocery stores were empty, F-4 Phantom jets were flying overhead 24 hrs a day. But my parents had a lot of faith in our President. They knew that Mr. Kennedy would end this time of terror. Their faith, along with a lot of rosaries and other prayers, eased my fears. I hope that this fearful time is never repeated. But the 9/11/01 Attack came very close.
Posted by Wendy on October 12,2012 | 06:16 PM
Intelligence sources knew the location of these missiles before being removed from the Warsaw Pack nations and loaded on ships that were tracked sailing to Cuba. We also knew there were no warhead or detonators with the missiles. Most importantly, because of the work of these photo interpreters, we learned where they were to be located on Cuba. There was a much more dangerous crisis from the Russian Subs stationed in the Caribbean than from the unarmed missiles. The subs were fully armed. Thanks ti some very good intelligence work we knew where each sub was located and the navy had ships on top of each one. The Russians turned back with the missiles and the subs departed after we stripped our allies of the missiles aimed at Russia.
Posted by Jim Southerland on October 12,2012 | 04:11 PM
I was stationed at the underground Pentagon during this time and it interesting, to say the least, to hear all of this going on in real time. It was close but it turned into a game of poker between Washington & Moscow. The big K folded his hand.
Posted by John J. Grimes on October 12,2012 | 01:46 PM
We were days from disaster in the U.S. of A. Strong leadership held ground. The heat shield held.
Posted by dave on October 11,2012 | 12:42 AM
I lived in College Park, MD while in high school and was close to several of the TIROS weather folks.....we sure did a bunch of sleuthing using those missles, too.
Posted by Nancy Stein Miller on October 11,2012 | 09:32 PM