<text id=00he1510><title>The Missiles Go Home</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>The Missiles Go Home</hdr><body>
<p>The missiles were trucked to the harbors and loaded on cargo ships. At-sea inspections were made from the air, as reconnaissance aircraft tracked the departing vessels and photographed their opened hatches and uncovered deck cargos. Back on the airfields, the bombers remained, and Kennedy decided to twist the screws a little harder.
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<p>So did Castro. It was clear that Khrushchev had not consulted him before agreeing to remove the missiles. The Il-28 aircraft were Cuban, Castro said, and he was not going to give them up. But on 20 November, Khrushchev agreed with Kennedy and the planes were recrated and shipped as deck cargo from Cuba. By 4 December, San Julian airfield had been cleared of Il-28s; they were the last remnants of Soviet offensive weaponry in Cuba. The confrontation was over.
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<p>In retrospect, it was a very close thing. The Russians, it must be said, had as much right on their side as the United States had. American Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles were emplaced in Turkey, a country sharing a border with Russia, and to Russian eyes they were just as threatening as Russian missiles in Cuba were to US eyes.
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<p>Intelligence analysts had first speculated that Khrushchev was attempting to work out a trade of the Cuba-based missiles for the Turkey-based ones. Kennedy and the administration denied any such compromise with the chairman, yet within three months after the Russian withdrawal of their missiles the US brought back its Thor IRBMs from England, and announced that the Jupiter missiles would be leaving Italy. The Turkish government announced a few days later that Jupiters would depart from that country also.
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<p>The Cuban crisis emphasized the high value of current and continuing reconnaissance and surveillance. That was the most outstanding performance of the whole Cuban maneuver. McNamara admitted later that there was neither enough airlift capacity nor tactical fighter strength to have supported the planned invasion properly.
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<p>By 28 November, the regulars had gone back to the routine of USAF life, and the Reserve units were released that day. Some time later, Congress asked McNamara for a cost estimate for the Cuban affair. The Secretary, in his inimitable fashion, put together a lengthy table, allocating so many dollars to each of the services for operations, research and development, procurement, maintenance and salaries. The total came to $183,259,048.
