Question 1

True or false: The crisis lasted exactly 13 days, from October 16 to October 28, 1962.

Accepted Answer

True. The Cuban Missile Crisis is widely referred to as the '13 days.' It began when President Kennedy was informed of Soviet missile sites on October 16 and ended with Khrushchev's withdrawal announcement on October 28, a span of exactly 13 days.

Question 2

True or false: Cuba had no involvement in the decision to place Soviet missiles on its soil.

Accepted Answer

False. Cuban leader Fidel Castro actively agreed to and even encouraged the Soviet deployment to deter US aggression.

Question 3

True or false: President Kennedy’s brother, Bobby Kennedy, secretly met with the Soviet ambassador to negotiate the crisis.

Accepted Answer

True. Attorney General Robert Kennedy held secret meetings with Ambassador Dobrynin, helping to broker the backchannel deal.

Question 4

True or false: The US discovered the Soviet missiles in Cuba using a spy plane flown by a CIA pilot.

Accepted Answer

False. Actually, the missiles were spotted by a U-2 spy plane flown by Air Force Major Richard Heyser, not a CIA pilot initially.

Question 5

True or false: During the crisis, a Soviet submarine nearly launched a nuclear torpedo after losing radio contact.

Accepted Answer

True. B-59 submarine had a near-launch; only one officer, Vasili Arkhipov, vetoed the strike, averting nuclear war.

Question 6

True or false: The Cuban Missile Crisis ended solely because of a secret deal to remove US missiles from Turkey.

Accepted Answer

False. The crisis was resolved through both a secret deal to remove US Jupiter missiles from Turkey and a public US pledge not to invade Cuba. The resolution was not due solely to the secret deal.

Question 7

True or false: The US military had developed detailed contingency plans for a full-scale invasion of Cuba before the Cuban Missile Crisis began.

Accepted Answer

True. Following the Bay of Pigs, the Pentagon drafted operational plans like OPLAN 314-61 for invading Cuba; these were ready by mid-1962, before the crisis erupted.

Question 8

True or false: The Soviet Union removed all missiles from Cuba within a week after the crisis ended.

Accepted Answer

False. The missile withdrawal took several weeks, not within a week; the entire removal of offensive weapons, including IL-28 bombers, was completed by December 1962.

Cuban Missile Crisis Trivia Questions