Dobrynin met with Robert Kennedy to discuss a message from Khrushchev. According to the message, the military buildup was defensive in nature and not militarily threatening. Robert F. Kennedy informed the ambassador that the United States would closely watch all military activity in Cuba and warned of severe consequences should the Soviets place offensive weapons (Mills 233).
             President Kennedy apparently did not believe the message. He asked Congress for the authority to mobilize over 100,000 reservists into active duty. The Soviets response was that they could fire rockets from Russia just as easily as from Cuba. Offensive missiles in Cuba, they argued, were therefore unnecessary for an offensive base(Mills 234). Furthermore, the United States had over 3,000 nuclear warheads and nearly 300 missile launchers, opposed to the Soviet Union's 250 warheads and 24 to 44 missile launchers (Hersh 343). Still, John Kennedy thought that Cuba could become a base for military operations at any given moment. The United States had to be prepared to face it (Mills 234).
             At this point in the crisis, John McCone, the CIA director, was regularly sending President Kennedy reports of missiles capable of launching a nuclear warhead being sent to Cuba. According to McCone, medium-range ballistic missiles(MRBMs) would be next (Hersh 348). U-2's were sent to scout the west end of Cuba. On October 14, the CIA reported that construction had begun for MRBMs (Mills 235).
             Despite the increased state of readiness in the US, many people did not realize that the Soviet Union had done nothing on its home territory during the crisis. Its fleet of ICBM launchers were not mobilized and neither were Soviet reserves. There were not even any threats against Berlin (Hersh 343).
             Regardless of what the Soviets said, the United States was still far ahead in the nuclear arms race. ICBM's were expensive to build and the Soviet Union did not have an abund...