I. Introduction
The thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis emphatically displayed the importance of American espionage to the United States and the rest of the world. Through human intelligence gathering methods, photoreconnaissance and signal interceptions the United States were able to not only discover Soviet missiles in Cuba, but thwart the possibility of a nuclear war. In addition, American covert operations seemed to unintentionally lead to the build-up of Soviet military arms in Cuba. These covert operations contained many drawbacks, as can be seen with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. This invasion was part of the much larger “Operation Mongoose”, which was directly aimed at removing Castro’s communist regime from Cuban power. In contrast, the importance of intelligence to the U.S can be seen by looking at aerial photoreconnaissance of Cuban and Soviet territory. This intelligence provided the U.S with a great deal of information about their enemies’ military units and strength. The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft supplied the United States high quality terrestrial images of enemy territory, albeit as the result of sometimes very dangerous missions. The danger of these missions directly led to cause of the “photo gap” which was yet another misstep in U.S intelligence leading up to the missile crisis. Technological breakthroughs allowed the United States to utilize a much safer option of photoreconnaissance in 1962, with the introduction of the first U.S electronic reconnaissance satellite.[1] Furthermore, signals intelligence (SIGINT) also had a significant role in the intelligence operations of the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis. By intercepting communications between the Soviets and Cubans during the crisis, the U.S was able to “provide direct support for day-to-day management of the crisis”. [2] The importance of human intelligence gathering methods (also known as HUMINT) to the U.S can be observed by looking at Soviet Colonel...