Brenna Vaterlaus and Laura Seitz for the Deseret Information
President John F. Kennedy amid the Cuban missile crises, within the fall of 1962. Bettmann by way of Getty Photographs
Don Duff in Salt Lake Metropolis, July 2022, practically 60 years after he recognized a Soviet missile in a picture taken excessive above Cuba. Laura Seitz for the Deseret Information
Fidel Castro addresses his nation in 1962, warning Cuban residents of the measures taken by the U.S. on the peak of the missile disaster. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone by way of Getty Photographs
Fidel Castro, left, with the united states’s Common Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone by way of Getty Photographs
Three tales beneath the bottom, in a bunker outfitted with a thick steel door like a financial institution vault, a younger, blue-eyed Airman 1st Class reported for his standard midnight shift.
He knew this evening, October 15, 1962, could possibly be consequential, although loads of others had been, too. As a photograph interpreter with the Strategic Air Command stationed at Offutt Air Power Base exterior of Omaha, Nebraska, Don Duff had helped uncover beforehand unknown missile websites in Siberia and Mongolia utilizing photographs from the satellites that constituted America’s surveillance response to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik I — the primary profitable, Earth-orbiting satellite tv for pc, which marked the start of the house race and a brand new period of the Chilly Warfare.
President John F. Kennedy amid the Cuban missile crises, within the fall of 1962.
Bettmann by way of Getty Photographs
Now, 5 years later, the U.S. remained deeply distrustful of the Soviets. Together with the nation’s intelligence equipment, which for a number of years had taken a specific curiosity in Cuba. The 1959 Cuban revolution that introduced Fidel Castro to energy had revealed its Communist character, and the spectacular failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 had entrenched not solely Castro’s authorities however its alliance with Moscow. And Moscow, it had turn out to be clear, was ready to use that partnership.
A since-declassified CIA report dated August 22, 1962, detailed a navy buildup on the island beginning in at the very least late July. Informants reported that Soviet ships have been hauling in big quantities of navy gear in a short time — a primary exterior the Soviet bloc. “Clearly,” the report concluded, “one thing new and completely different is happening.” What precisely that one thing was, although, the U.S. authorities wasn’t positive.
To search out out, it started deploying U-2 spy planes to conduct surveillance of Cuba. On the evening of October 13, at 11:30 p.m., Pacific Time, U-2 pilot Richard Heyser took off from Edwards Air Power Base in California in a newly modified plane and flew over Arizona, New Mexico and Texas en path to western Cuba. With crystal-clear skies, he turned on his cameras as he darted out and in of Cuban airspace, hoping to keep away from the lethal penalties of Soviet anti-aircraft missiles. Six minutes and 928 images later, Heyser turned towards Florida and landed at McCoy Air Power Base. Representatives from the CIA, in addition to Strategic Air Command’s director of intelligence, Lt. Gen. Robert Smith, awaited him.
The Cuban missile disaster has renewed relevance this yr, with the battle in Ukraine arguably bringing the world the closest it’s been to nuclear battle since 1962.
Duff admits that is the place the historical past will get murky. Most textbooks and authorities reviews skip over how what occurred subsequent unfolded. However 60 years after these fateful days introduced the world to the brink of nuclear destruction, Duff, now 83, with just a few wispy strands of white hair jutting from his pink scalp and a slight shake in his palms, maintains his place in historical past.
That historical past has renewed relevance this yr, with the battle in Ukraine — and Russia not-so-subtly implying its potential use of nukes — arguably bringing the world the closest it’s been to nuclear battle since 1962. Duff sighs on the prospect. He is aware of higher than simply about any residing American how shut we’ve come prior to now, and stays very happy with what he did to stop such a disaster again in ’62. With a navy-blue veteran cap commemorating his service within the Cuban missile disaster perched atop his head — a cap he custom-made himself — the longtime Utah resident repeats what he’s been repeating for many years. He repeats what’s been taking part in on loop in his thoughts all that point, one thing that the authors of historical past books on the disaster by no means acknowledge: Don Duff discovered the missiles. He recognized them first.
Don Duff grew up within the shadow of World Warfare II — the period of that distinctive species of hero, the American G.I. Duff was fixated on such heroism from the time he was 5 or 6. “I used to have the ability to sing all of the songs,” he says with satisfaction. Maybe it began along with his older brother, who’d served within the Navy. Maybe it began by studying American historical past texts. Or perhaps he was impressed by his family’s historical past, which he says goes again to the American Revolution, the Warfare of 1812 and the Civil Warfare. “I had a powerful sense of patriotism,” he says, “so I figured it was my responsibility to enlist and serve my nation.”
Don Duff in Salt Lake Metropolis, July 2022, practically 60 years after he recognized a Soviet missile in a picture taken excessive above Cuba.
Laura Seitz for the Deseret Information
He did so at 20 years previous, choosing fundamental coaching at Lackland Air Power Base, exterior of San Antonio. On the experience down, so far as he might inform, he was the one particular person in his batch of recruits who’d volunteered; everybody else had been drafted or pressured into it by another means. Maybe that’s why his drill teacher made him the barracks chief, in control of 40 soon-to-be troopers. He didn’t love the concept; he was shy, he admits. However he agreed, and he can’t argue with the outcomes. “The navy made me communicate out,” he says, “and stand by my values.”
When the time got here to select a specialty, the drill instructors really useful he turn out to be one in all them. However he favored images, so he opted to specialise in aerial photograph interpretation as a substitute. That meant three months at Sheppard Air Power Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.
As soon as, in the course of a scorching Texas summer season, he was standing on the entrance of a line of stationary troopers and felt one thing hit him within the again. The man behind him had handed out from the warmth. Duff tried to assist him, however his teacher informed him to get again into place. “No sir, I can’t do this,” he remembers saying. “I deal with my males.” Such moments made him assured that ought to the time come up to say one thing necessary — one thing his commanders, his nation and even the world wanted to know — he’d be ready.
“That caught with me. I didn’t suppose I might communicate out like that,” he says. “However you be taught.”
Duff turned 24 years previous on the day Heyser’s U-2 flight snapped the primary images of western Cuba. His celebration was at a pal’s trailer home, off base, the place he loved a home-cooked dinner and a cake. “I suppose I’ll head again to the bottom and prepare for my midnight shift,” he informed his mates.
The power the place his unit processed images was among the many most safe within the nation. To achieve it, he wanted to stroll into the headquarters of Strategic Air Command and present identification to a watchful guard. That granted him entry to an elevator, which he took three flooring down into the earth. One other guard waited to carry out one other inspection, which granted him entry to a hallway. Down that hallway, he took a left flip towards the Command Heart. The photograph interpretation lab was proper beside it. To achieve entrance, an individual wanted not solely top-secret clearance, however entry to a rotating code phrase. Duff knew this process effectively. One time, whereas on guard responsibility contained in the financial institution vault-like door, he heard somebody buzzing in from the skin. “Who’s there?” Duff referred to as by a keyhole latch. “That is Common Smith,” got here the reply — Strategic Air Command’s director of intelligence.
“Oh, good morning normal,” Duff referred to as again. “What’s the password?”
“That is Common Smith, I don’t want a password,” he answered, adopted by a thunderstorm of expletives. “Who the hell do you suppose I'm,” Duff remembers him saying, “Mickey Mouse?”
Duff didn’t budge, and Smith left fuming, promising punishment to come back. Duff reported the incident to his commanding officer. “You most likely would’ve caught some hell if you happen to’d have let him in,” the colonel informed him. “I’ll deal with it.” Duff by no means heard about it once more.
“That was truly a significant motivator for guys like me. ‘If you happen to work arduous, you might be a hero like Don Duff.’” — Robert King, retired air drive lieutenant colonel
Fortunately, nobody would trouble them as October 14 wore on into the following day. Utilizing machines referred to as “Iteks” — think about a big-screen TV with a big hand-crank to roll the movie by and numerous knobs and joysticks to zoom in and modify — two crews pored over Heyser’s snapshots in a cramped darkroom.
Previous to Duff’s shift some lower-resolution movie had been despatched to Offutt, and one in all Duff’s colleagues, a former roommate, had taken a have a look at the picture through the day shift and recognized missile trailers. Now Duff instructed the technicians to give attention to that specific set up. At round 2 a.m., he seen one thing. “Let’s zoom in on this image,” he informed a fellow interpreter. “You see this missile trailer? It seems like a part of this missile is protruding of the trailer. Perhaps they’re unloading it.” The missile in query gave the impression to be coated with canvas, however his eyes have been effectively skilled; he might make out the uncovered edge. And utilizing data of Soviet weaponry, he recognized it as an SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile, able to delivering a nuclear warhead from Washington, D.C., to San Antonio, and wherever in between.
Within the quick aftermath, Duff had no approach of realizing what was occurring behind the scenes, on the highest ranges of American authorities. He had no approach of realizing that, at 8:45 within the morning on October 16 — at the very least in accordance with the official historical past — nationwide safety adviser McGeorge Bundy knowledgeable President John F. Kennedy of the missiles, main Kennedy to name an emergency assembly of his high advisers within the White Home Cupboard Room at 11:45 that very same morning. At that first “ExCom” assembly, that includes the secretaries of protection, treasury and state; the chairman of the joint chiefs of employees; and Lawyer Common Robert F. Kennedy, amongst others, President Kennedy determined that the missiles needed to be eliminated, with out query. Earlier than lengthy, the remainder of the world would know that crucial, too.
On October 22, at 7 p.m. Jap time, Kennedy addressed the nation from the Oval Workplace. “Throughout the previous week, unmistakable proof has established the truth that a sequence of offensive missile websites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island,” he informed the nation. “Upon receiving the primary preliminary arduous info of this nature final Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up.”
Duff, watching from a TV in a barracks breakroom at Offutt, seized on “unmistakable proof” and “preliminary arduous info.” He’d spent the previous week poring over extra images from Cuba, figuring out extra potential missile websites. “We knew it was fairly tense, and we knew that what he (Kennedy) was saying — ‘We've got found missile websites in Cuba’ — that was our work,” Duff says. In his head, he thought, “We’re those who gave him that.”
Over the following seven days, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev exchanged 9 official letters whereas additionally sparring by numerous backchannels. At Offutt and at navy bases across the nation, the U.S. ready for battle. Offutt had gone to DEFCON 3 on October 20 and to DEFCON 2 on October 24, that means that nuclear battle was close to.
Planes have been within the air always, heading towards Soviet territory, turning again close to the border till the order was given to proceed with an assault. Offutt was house to a refueling squadron, and one morning, after Duff had completed his shift at 8 a.m. and was strolling the quarter mile to the chow corridor, he seen a kind of planes — a large Boeing KC-135 — rumbling down the ten,000-foot runway. “It was actually going,” he remembers. “You could possibly hear the motors.” And it simply barely made it off the bottom, he recollects, given how closely loaded it was with gas. Nuclear battle loomed as closely because it ever had. The Strategic Air Command headquarters, he’d been assured, was very well-built; sturdy sufficient, in reality, to resist a direct hit if you happen to’re underground. “Yeah,” Duff thought, “however how do you get out from underground?”
“(The CIA) claims credit score for all the pieces. The Air Power was by no means given credit score for these things, and neither was our unit.” — Don Duff
On October 27, Russian forces shot down Rudolf Anderson Jr.’s U-2 throughout one other reconnaissance flight over Cuba, killing the pilot. To make issues worse, one other U-2 flying a mission in Alaska obtained astray and ended up in Soviet territory, prompting the Soviets to scramble their fighters, and prompting the Individuals to do the identical. What adopted turned often called “Black Saturday” — within the phrases of Kennedy aide Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., “essentially the most harmful second in human historical past.” Kennedy understood precisely what was occurring; his expertise as a veteran of World Warfare II had taught him that no matter a commander’s intentions, randomness — errors, misfires, disobeyed orders — have been endemic to warfare. On this scenario, although, the burden of that entropy might imply literal human extinction.
Duff, who believed an invasion of Cuba was imminent, made an uncommon request of his commanding officer the next day. With the disaster spiraling uncontrolled, he’d heard rumors that the invasion would happen round 9 a.m. “I do know we’re purported to get off at 8 o’clock,” he mentioned, “however with the tenseness exterior, can I keep in and clear the rooms for a pair hours?”
The Loss of life of Anderson, the U-2 pilot, proved a turning level. Each Kennedy and Khrushchev realized the scenario was evolving into one thing they couldn’t information. On October 28, they struck a deal: Kennedy pledged that the U.S. wouldn't invade Cuba; in change, the Soviets would dismantle and take away the missiles. (The U.S. additionally agreed to take away its personal missiles from Turkey at a later date, although that element wasn’t revealed till a long time later.) Duff personally breathed a sigh of reduction in early November, as he continued reviewing surveillance footage from Cuba. “We might see,” he recollects, “that they have been being dismantled.”
Kennedy visited Offutt that December to thank the Air Power for its contributions through the Cuban missile disaster. “The quantity of flights made throughout that time period, the quantity of males that have been concerned, was a document unparalleled by any nation within the historical past of air energy,” Kennedy mentioned throughout his public remarks. “There is no such thing as a doubt that it contributed drastically to the upkeep of the peace and the safety of the US and people nations related to us. … We're very a lot indebted to you all.” Duff couldn’t attend himself, however he did earn a particular ribbon that he nonetheless retains pinned to his Air Power Blues. And he additionally heard secondhand that in off-the-record remarks, Kennedy thanked the Air Power for locating the missiles.
If Kennedy did imagine the Air Power first noticed the missiles, that’s not what most historical past books recount. Most historical past books on the disaster say that the CIA, not Duff or his beloved Air Power unit, found the missiles.
Fidel Castro addresses his nation in 1962, warning Cuban residents of the measures taken by the U.S. on the peak of the missile disaster.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone by way of Getty Photographs
Phil Carradice’s guide, “The Cuban Missile Disaster,” sums up the query of missile identification in a single sentence: “The photographs have been studied by specialists on the CIA’s Nationwide Photographic Interpretation Centre.” A guide of declassified paperwork associated to the disaster, “The Cuban Missile Disaster, 1962,” provides: “By the next afternoon photographic interpreters would notify high CIA officers that the mission had obtained definitive photographic proof of Soviet medium-range ballistic missile bases.”
It frustrates Duff to no finish that his function by no means turned widespread data. He’s spent a long time combing by scholarship and analysis to seek out the proof he must show his place in historical past, however thus far, he hasn’t discovered it. “(The CIA) claims credit score for all the pieces,” he says. “The Air Power was by no means given credit score for these things, and neither was our unit.”
Even the Air Power’s personal account of the scenario, “Strategic Air Command Operations within the Cuban Disaster of 1962,” notes that when Heyser landed in Florida, the movie from his flight was “instantly unloaded and personally flown to Washington.” Duff doesn’t dispute that; he simply insists that there’s extra to the story. He insists that Heyser’s movie additionally made its technique to Offutt later that day, and that he shortly recognized the missile. He insists that Kennedy should have identified about them shortly thereafter, on condition that the CIA didn’t determine the weapons till some 14 hours later.
It frustrates Duff to no finish that his function by no means turned widespread data.
In his personal written recollections of the disaster, Duff mentioned that the official timeline “doesn’t jibe with my recollection of (Strategic Air Command) communications to D.C., on October 14 and 15.” It’s doable that the U.S. intelligence equipment waited to tell Kennedy till Duff’s discovering was confirmed; the spirit of rivalry between the CIA and Air Power intelligence was well-known in these days. Regardless, “The CIA and different folks deny that it ever occurred,” he explains.
“All I can inform you is that this sticks in your thoughts like something in life that you just bear in mind. At 2 o’clock within the morning on October 15, I noticed this missile,” he says. “I used to be there.”
Since-declassified Air Power images do present, with out query, Strategic Air Command personnel inspecting reconnaissance images through the Cuban missile disaster. And Duff’s discovery was at the very least well-known by phrase of mouth. Robert King, a retired Air Power lieutenant colonel who served as a photograph interpreter at Offutt in 1971 and ’72 and ultimately moved to Salt Lake Metropolis, explains the potential discrepancy within the official narrative this manner: “I can’t inform you who was first or not, as a result of one of many issues we did — that was very clever — was to create a contest between the CIA and Strategic Air Command,” he says. “That competitors drove guys to need to be the primary.” And even when he by no means obtained official credit score, the airmen who adopted Duff at Offutt knew his title and knew what he did. “That was truly a significant motivator for guys like me,” says King. “‘If you happen to work arduous, you might be a hero like Don Duff.’”
After retiring from the navy, Duff enrolled at Utah State College and started a notable profession in forestry and fisheries. Utilizing his expertise and Air Power connections, he managed to get U-2 pilots to conduct check flights over mountain ranges in Utah’s desert nation; they needed to do check flights anyway, he figured, so why not make them synergistic? Utilizing photographs from these flights, he discovered remoted streams that he then examined for the presence of sure strains of fish that have been considered extinct; he discovered two — Bonneville and Lahontan cutthroat trout. Ultimately, his efforts have been acknowledged by the Environmental Safety Company, and he received quite a few awards, together with from the American Fisheries Society and Trout Limitless. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service touted his achievements on its Fb web page simply final yr. However regardless of the notoriety gained by way of his profession’s success, he’s by no means forgotten his function within the Cuban missile disaster.
Richard Heyser, the pilot whose U-2 images of Cuba sparked the disaster, feared he could be blamed for it. “I type of felt like I used to be going to be checked out because the one who began the entire thing,” he informed The Related Press in 2005. “I wasn’t anxious to have that status.” Maybe it’s as a result of his title has largely been misplaced to historical past, however Duff by no means felt that approach. He was — and nonetheless is — completely satisfied to have performed a task. He did precisely what he was purported to do, and in so doing helped maintain the US safe.
Fidel Castro, left, with the united states’s Common Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone by way of Getty Photographs
Sixty years since his discovery, he’s seated in a small room at a library in Salt Lake Metropolis. He splits his time between a house close by and a cabin in Nevada. He nonetheless thinks concerning the missile disaster typically. Nonetheless wears the baseball cap he had custom-made, commemorating his service. Nonetheless talks about his involvement within the affair. He was as soon as invited to a panel on Kennedy on the College of Utah, the place he gave a presentation concerning the Chilly Warfare. He was disenchanted by how little the scholars knew of what occurred, though he might hardly blame them given their dates of delivery. However he needs them to know. Particularly now, with tensions so excessive in Ukraine and Russia.
“The youthful era … ought to understand what went on, and that it might occur once more,” Duff says, urgent his brown mountaineering boot up in opposition to the foot of a Formica desk. “We have been this near World Warfare III.” He holds his trembling fingertips about an inch aside. Duff isn't a person who startles simply, however now his blue eyes look up on the fluorescent-lit ceiling, then again down to supply a warning: “It was scary,” he says. “It was scary.”
Duff doesn’t know what number of extra anniversaries he’ll be capable of mark, however this yr, he’ll be touring to California in October for a 60-year reunion. Surrounded by U-2 pilots on the program’s Beale Air Power Base headquarters, he’s fairly positive he’ll be the one photograph interpreter left. He’ll spend the weekend attending keynote breakfasts, shows, speeches from pilots. Amongst his personal distinctive species, you'll be able to wager he’ll have loads of tales to share.
And you may wager, too, that he’ll be carrying his custom hat.
This story seems within the October . .