Search Results for: missile crisis
“The President…is very isolated in the thinking he has to do and the concerns he has to take under consideration, even in the presence of a group like the ExComm. (p. 107) Lessons: In crises, realize that the ultimate decisions rest with the person in charge. ————————————————————————– “ExComm didn’t advise the President on the politics
Joint statement on 20th anniversary “The crisis could and should have been avoided.” “When the importance of accurate information for a crucial policy decision is high enough, risks not otherwise acceptable in collecting intelligence can become profoundly prudent.” “The president wisely took his time in choosing a course of action…Americans should always respect the need
“There is that saving thought that when people look down the cannon’s mouth of nuclear war, they cannot like what they see. We’ve now put behind us forty-one years since a nuclear weapon has been fired in anger, and those who really understand nuclear weapons understand that nuclear war is simply that war which must
“Leaders might also lie to cover up a controversial policy that they believe is strategically sound, but that they want to hide from their own public and possibly other countries as well. . . . President John F. Kennedy’s efforts to bring the Cuban Missile Crisis to a peaceful conclusion provide a good example of
“Major policymaking episodes repay the closest possible examination. Only such examination can reconstruct key judgments within the little worlds in which they are made. Only be penetrating these worlds can we truly understand and evaluate that extraordinary human faculty that we label ‘judgment.’ And only by doing that can we learn to do better.” (449–50)
“Adventurism is a dangerous thing. It is difficult to get away with it without drastic results. I believe the main lesson is for big countries not to be adventurist.” (p. 284) Lesson: Major powers should avoid dangerous foreign policy adventures. Cited in James G. Blight and David Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets reexamine
“One of the important and very difficult lessons from the crisis is that it took time for people to work out the possibilities, to see options that they didn’t see, even for President Kennedy to cool down, because he was prepared in the initial sessions to resort to an immediate attack. And that’s a difficult
“A bewildering array of hypotheses has attempted to explain Soviet policy in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Remarkably, practically all of these explanations start with the premise that Khruschev behaved rationally… the assumption of rationality… simply cannot be reconciled with Khrushchev’s policy… an alternative explanation should show why and how Khrushchev convinced himself in the face
“The major lesson of the Cuban Crisis is this: The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” Lesson: Nuclear weapons will destroy nations. ————————————————————————– “Rationality will not save us. I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war.
“A new era in relations among the great powers would imply, as a lesson of the crisis, the acknowledgement of the sovereign interests of small countries and submission to the standards of international law.” (174) Lesson: Missile Crisis illustrates the need for better international laws and institutions to defend small-state sovereignty. Cited in Allyn, Bruce