This was due toĪ noted increase in Soviet submarine activity in the area. In fact, ships and aircraft of the Royal Canadian Navy and aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force had been active in antisubmarine operations in the North Atlantic in cooperation with US forces since early October. Canada also had a five-stage national alert system: Discrete Phase, Ready State, Simple Alert, Reinforced Alert DEFCON 3 means an increase in readiness above normal levels, specifically that air forces are ready to deploy in 15 minutes. DEFCON 5 is normal, while DEFCON 1 indicates nuclear war They were also concerned that placing Canada’s military on alert might provoke the Soviet Union.ĭefence Readiness Condition, or DEFCON, refers to any one of five levels of American defence readiness and is based on the apparent threat to national security. He and Canada’s Foreign Minister, Secretary of State for External Affairs Howard Green, were also wary of falling too quickly He was angry that the US hadn’tĬonsulted Canada earlier in the crisis. Diefenbaker, who disliked Kennedy, was reluctant. The main issue for the Canadian government was whether to comply with an American request to move Canadian forces to a higher alert status equivalent to their DEFCON 3. Diefenbaker urged Kennedy to send a team of United Nations inspectors to Cuba to verify what the Soviets were Proof of what was taking place on the ground in Cuba. On the phone with Kennedy, Diefenbaker was skeptical about the Soviet Union’s intentions. The two leaders did not get along well at the best of times. Informed by Kennedy of the US plan shortly before the televised broadcast. Like other NATO leaders, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was He threatened the Soviet Union with further action if the missile sites were not dismantled. He announced the crisis, and the blockade, in a televised address to Kennedy called it a “quarantine,” since in international legal terms a naval blockade was an act of war that required a formal declaration of war. Kennedy rejected calls from his military to launch air strikes against the missile sites. He and his advisors spent a week secretly discussing what to do. Kennedy was informed of the situation on 16 October. Equipped with nuclear warheads, the missiles could hit targets in the United States and Canada. On 14 October 1962, an American spy plane took photographs of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic The Cuban Missile Crisis took place at the height of the Cold War.

Defcon 1 meaning