Oct. 23, 1962 - The Soviet Union challenged today the right of the U.S. to impose a quarantine on the shipment of weapons of any type to Cuba. (Pictured below are Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Raul Castro meeting in July.) It asserted that the Castro regime could make whatever defense arrangements it pleased. Warning the Kennedy Administration that its naval quarantine risked thermonuclear war, Moscow announced that the armed forces of the Soviet bloc were taking suitable measures to enhance their combat readiness. The Defense Ministry was ordered to cancel all leaves of military personnel and to defer the discharge of senior age groups in the strategic rocket and antiaircraft forces and in the submarine fleet. The Government statement addressed a “serious warning” to the U.S., but it did not specify any forceful countermeasures to be taken to break the quarantine of Cuba. Washington officials said the statement indicated that Soviet leadership had not yet decided on a firm course of action.
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