Search Results for: missile crisis
“I thought then, and still do, that under John Kennedy’s firm leadership we gave a superior performance. We did not move precipitately but argued out all available courses of action in an intellectual interchange that was the most objective I ever witnessed in government – or, for that matter, in the private sector.” (p. 309)
“Keep open the lines of communication to the mavericks, to the iconoclasts who approach matters in a different way. In the Kennedy administration, it was McCone.” Lesson: Employ multiple viewpoints, including iconoclastic ones, in decision-making process. David Barrett, “Interview with Jeff Gammage: The Truth about the Cuban Missile Crisis” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/26)
“The most important lesson about crisis management, one that we continue to fail to follow, is ‘never fear to negotiate’.” “There is one lesson more important: the need to institutionalize the process of learning after such critical historical events.” Bruce Allyn, “Interview with Mark Thompson: 50 Years Later: The Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis”
“For the student or citizen, the chapters on the Missile Crisis are meant to make persuasive an unhappy, troubling, but inescapable fact about this world. No event demonstrates more clearly than the Missile Crisis that with respect to nuclear war there is an awesome crack between unlikelihood and impossibility. Especially in the aftermath of the
“The relations among the members of the ExComm, their experiences on the job, and their relations to the President seem to me to be critical. These factors vary quite widely over time. Don’t lean on a single case to derive lessons for crisis management and prevention, because when we do that, we overlearn.” (p. 97)
“The point was that the Soviets had done this thing deceitfully and surreptitiously. This was what we couldn’t accept, not the change in the balance of power.” (p. 25) Lesson: Crises are sometimes not about power, but about whether states flout international norms. ————————————————————————– “We didn’t react immediately, of course, and that’s very important. Today,
“[F]orty years ago almost to the day an important Presidential emissary was sent abroad by a beleaguered President of the United States. The United States was facing the prospect of nuclear war. These were the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Several emissaries went to our principal allies. One of them was…Dean Acheson whose mission
What was the Cuban Missile Crisis? Background, chronologies, and FAQs .
What are the most important lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Read lessons drawn by presidents and statesmen, and submit your own..
Interested in teaching your students about the Cuban Missile Crisis? Click here for reading lists, case-studies and lesson plans..