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Fifty years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. What are the greatest nuclear threats we face today?.
Photograph of the Soviet Ship Ansov Departing from Cuba During the Cuban Missile Crisis, 11/06/1962. [ARC Identifier 595365 / Local Identifier 306-N-62-7101; Item from Record Group 306: Records of the U.S. Information Agency, 1900 – 2003] National Archives, Unrestricted Use.
Harvard Kennedy School‘s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has created this website to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Using original documents and recordings, the site offers essential facts about the 13 days of the crisis as well as lessons drawn from it by presidents, policymakers and
There are many recorded and written accountings documenting how the Crisis was played-out at the diplomatic level. However, few were ever chronicled concerning how this moment in history was experienced by those who were poised to carry out the final execution orders in the event diplomacy failed. I was an Atlas-ICBM Launch Control Officer on
O’Donnell was President Kennedy’s special assistant and appointments secretary, charged with managing the President’s timetable, from 1961 to 1963, before serving as presidential aide to Lyndon Johnson. His character is portrayed by Kevin Costner in the movie Thirteen Days.
With a distinguished military career, Curtis LeMay had commanded the 305th Bomb Group during WWII, pioneered many bomber flying formations, overseen the Berlin Airlift, and headed the Strategic Air Command, before becoming Air Force Chief of Staff in 1961. During the Cuban crisis, General LeMay emerged as a strong opponent of the blockade option. He
An original member of ExComm, Bohlen left Washington after the first day of the crisis to become Ambassador to France and was succeeded by Llewellyn Thomson as adviser on Russian affairs. As he prepared to depart for Paris, Bohlen wrote a memo urging diplomatic effort, private communication with Khrushchev, and an ultimatum before proceeding with
In January 1959 Fidel Castro’s revolutionary forces seized power. While the Cuban leader initially claimed this was not a communist revolution, a year later Cuba formally aligned itself with the Soviet Union. Relations with the United States deteriorated further in 1961when the U.S. supported CIA-trained anti-Castro exiles in the Bay of Pigs invasion – a
Army Chief of Staff under President Eisenhower and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy Administration, General Maxwell Taylor joined with other hardliners in advocating a surprise military air strike. However, he had his doubts about getting “our feet in that deep mud of Cuba” and believed a costly invasion should be
The President’s chief speechwriter and close confidant, Sorensen advocated a naval blockade as the best first response to the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Along with McNamara, he believed the blockade could only freeze the status quo and open the door to negotiations. While it would put a halt to further shipments of missiles, the blockade