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.

Glen Severson, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, Camp LeJeune, N.C.

I was in Cuba during the Missile Crisis, serving with the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, Camp LeJeune, N.C.

I listened to President Kennedy’s speech on a transistor radio, wherein he demanded that Khrushchev remove their missiles from Cuba. I was proud to be an American having a leader who would confront the enemy rather than offer a weak apology as is being done today.