The three options:
- Take out all the missile sites
- Conduct a military invasion
- Run a blockade or quarantine
According to the Office of the Historian of the United States, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, "Kennedy summoned his closest advisers to consider options and direct a course of action for the United States that would resolve the crisis. Some advisers—including all the Joint Chiefs of Staff—argued for an air strike to destroy the missiles, followed by a U.S. invasion of Cuba."
President Kennedy decided on the more moderate action of a blockade or quarantine. In an address to the nation in October 22, 1962, President Kennedy told of surveillance that revealed Soviet missile sites were observed as part of military build-up in Cuba. He said he would demand that the USSR remove all offensive missiles from Cuba or the US would place Cuba under a "quarantine." A more usual term would be a "blockade," but Kennedy avoided that loaded term and called it a "quarantine" instead, because calling it a "blockade" could be interpreted by the USSR as an act of war.
It is often stated that the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the USA and the USSR ever came to the eruption of an actual nuclear war between the two superpowers.
