Surprisingly very little has been written about the military response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author, a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, has obtained the declassification of many formerly top secret operations plans and command diaries of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps units which, in less than a week, formed the core of a massive quarantine and planned invasion force that was larger than the Allied invasion force on D-Day. This paper traces the history of the United States' relationship with Cuba and our response to the discovery of nuclear missiles there targeted at our homeland. The naval planning for a Cuban contingency is analyzed through its actual implementation with the assistance of maps, intelligence reports, and troop deployments. The probable effect of the invasion plans on Soviet leaders and an assessment of the effects that the Crisis continues to have on US. policy toward Latin America are also discussed.

This paper concerns the period in October 1962, when U.S. aerial surveillance revealed that the Cubans were busily setting up sites for missiles delivered to Cuba by the USSR. Major Young notes that surprisingly little has been written about the military response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it became known. In conducting his research, the author was able to have declassified many formerly top secret operation plans and command diaries of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps units. Major Young traces the history of the U.S. - Cuban relationship over the years, and the Kennedy Administration's response. He also analyzes naval planning by a study of applicable maps, intelligence reports, and troop deployment orders for a contingency aimed at Cuba. Finally, the author discusses the probable effect on Russian leaders of an American invasion of Cuba and a quarantine of Soviet vessels bound for Cuba. Young concludes his paper with an assessment of the effects that the crisis continues to have on relationships with Cuba and Latin America as a whole.