Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has created this site as a resource for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, this site not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.

Joel Rubin

“Members of Congress should learn from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our commander in chief needs political space to do what’s necessary to prevent a new war in the Middle East.

Lesson: In foreign policy crises, often President and decision-making team will need time and space to deliberate over decisions before pursuing one course of action.

Joel Rubin, “What the Cuban Missile Crisis Teaches Us About Iran”, (Huffington Post, 10/19/12)