- “Referring to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as an example, [Rice] pointed out that the most successful preemptive actions in recent history did not involve military strikes. Referring to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as an example, she pointed out that military advice to launch a direct attack on the Soviet missile sites had been rejected. ‘[Kennedy and EXCOMM] settled on a strategy that actually was preemptive, but didn’t use military force to do it, and thereby preserved the possibility for the Soviets to back down.’” (p. 64)
Lesson 1: Preemptive action does not always mean using military force. Lesson 2: Leave your adversary with a way out.
David Sanger, “Bush to Formalize a Defense Policy of Hitting First,” New York Times, June 17, 2002, as cited in Stephen M. Duncan, A War of a Different Kind”: Military Force and America’s Search for Homeland Security (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004).
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- “[O]ne of my most vivid childhood memories is the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. We were glued to the set every evening during the thirteen-day standoff. It was a very scary time. We’d never bothered with a bomb shelter in the house, even at the height of the Cold War. But some of our friends did have them, fully stocked with provisions to survive a nuclear exchange. In school, we went through duck-and-cover drills….But the standoff in Cuba was no drill. Because the missiles were deployed just ninety miles from the Florida coast, the newscasters reported, probably incorrectly, that Birmingham was in range. They showed big arrows pointing right at us. I could tell that my father was worried, and I realized this was something my parents couldn’t save me from. It was the first time I remember feeling truly vulnerable. Daddy explained our country had never last a war, and he was sure we weren’t going to lose this one. He was nevertheless visibly relieved when the Soviet ships turned around, ending the crisis. The whole episode had a surprisingly strong impact on me. I once told an audience of Cuban Americans that Fidel Castro had put the United States at risk in allowing those missiles to be deployed. ‘He should pay for it until he dies’, I said. Even I was surprised by the rawness of that comment.” (p. 38-39)
Lesson: The U.S. can be made vulnerable by rash actions of hostile actors.
Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (New York: Random House, 2010).
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