Day six of the Cuban Missile Crisis — Sunday 21 October 1962 — was the day President Kennedy had to choose. This episode follows the final round of secret deliberation in the White House, as his advisers, the ExComm, argued over the two stark options in the title: did the president say blockade, or invade Cuba? The choice would shape everything that followed, and Kennedy knew that getting it wrong could mean war.
The generals and many advisers argued for an air strike on the missile sites, followed by an invasion to remove them for good. Others, including Robert Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, warned that bombing would kill Soviet soldiers, invite retaliation in Berlin, and leave the world blaming the United States for starting a war. The blockade — a naval quarantine — offered a middle path: firm, visible, and reversible, giving Khrushchev time and a reason to back down without losing face.
For viewers, Day 6 matters because it shows decision-making under extreme pressure, with incomplete intelligence and no good options. Kennedy’s choice of a blockade over invasion was not weakness, the episode argues, but a deliberate attempt to leave room for diplomacy. It was the decision that made the following days possible — and that may have saved the world from a far worse outcome.