Living Through the Cuban Missile Crisis

Living Through the Cuban Missile Crisis
Author: William S. McConnell
Publisher: Greenhaven Press, Incorporated
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005
Genre: Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
ISBN: 9780737721287
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During thirteen tense days in October 1962, and only ninety miles from the coast of Florida, the Soviet Union constructed nuclear missile silos and shipped nuclear warheads to Communist Cuba bringing both superpowers to the brink of a nuclear war. This volume examines the missile crisis from the perspective of U.S. citizens, includes articles that highlight the public response, and provides primary documents such as speeches and communiquis to which the public had access through news media during the crisis period.

Awaiting Armageddon

Awaiting Armageddon
Author: Alice L. George
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2004-07-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807861618
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For thirteen days in October 1962, America stood at the brink of nuclear war. Nikita Khrushchev's decision to place nuclear missiles in Cuba and John F. Kennedy's defiant response introduced the possibility of unprecedented cataclysm. The immediate threat of destruction entered America's classrooms and its living rooms. Awaiting Armageddon provides the first in-depth look at this crisis as it roiled outside of government offices, where ordinary Americans realized their government was unprepared to protect either itself or its citizens from the dangers of nuclear war. During the seven days between Kennedy's announcement of a naval blockade and Khrushchev's decision to withdraw Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba, U.S. citizens absorbed the nightmare scenario unfolding on their television sets. An estimated ten million Americans fled their homes; millions more prepared shelters at home, clearing the shelves of supermarkets and gun stores. Alice George captures the irrationality of the moment as Americans coped with dread and resignation, humor and pathos, terror and ignorance. In her examination of the public response to the missile crisis, the author reveals cracks in the veneer of American confidence in the early years of the space age and demonstrates how the fears generated by Cold War culture blinded many Americans to the dangers of nuclear war until it was almost too late.

Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Author: Serhii Plokhy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393540820
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"The definitive history.…With his masterly book, Mr. Plokhy has sounded a warning bell." — The Economist A harrowing account of the Cuban missile crisis and how the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today’s world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis. Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons. More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction. Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis
Author: Alice George
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136174044
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For thirteen days in October of 1962, a truly perilous flirtation with nuclear war developed between the United States and USSR, as the superpowers argued over the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba. Launched by rash judgment and concluded through circumspect leadership, the Cuban Missile Crisis acted as a catalyst for change during the Cold War. Resolved through back-channel negotiations, the moment is popularly remembered as the closest the world has ever come to full-scale nuclear war. Using government memoranda, personal letters, and newspaper articles The Cuban Missile Crisis, details the actual events of the political history, while explaining widespread public response. In six concise chapters, Alice George introduces the history of Cold War America and contextualizes its political, social, and cultural legacy. This will be a must-read for anyone looking for an in-depth summary of these important events. For additional resources please visit the companion website at http://www.routledge.com/cw/criticalmoments.

When Angels Wept

When Angels Wept
Author: Eric G. Swedin
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2010-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1597975176
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In 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, CIA-trained and -organized Cuban exiles aiming to overthrow Fidel Castro were soundly defeated. Most were taken prisoner by Cuban armed forces. Fearing another U.S. invasion of its new ally, the Soviet Union sneaked into Cuba strategic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads and Soviet troops armed with tactical nuclear weapons. However, a U-2 spy plane flight would soon find the Soviet missile sites, thus sparking the famous missile crisis. For thirteen terrifying days, the world watched nervously as the two superpowers moved toward escalation, holding the world's fate in their hands. Finally, Nikita Khrushchev blinked. He agreed to withdraw the weapons from Cuba in return for John F. Kennedy's pledge not to invade the island. But what if it had not turned out this way? What if the U-2 flight had been delayed? If the confrontation had set off a nuclear war, what would have happened to the United States and Soviet Union in 1962? What kind of account would a historian have written in a world scarred by nuclear war? Eric G. Swedin draws on research made available after the Soviet Union's collapse to examine what could have happened. Top U.S. military officers all urged stronger action against Cuba than the naval blockade, including a bombing campaign and even a full-scale invasion. Unknown to the Americans, meanwhile, the Soviet Union had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and were prepared to use them. The 1962 crisis had many possible outcomes. Positing an alternate history helps us better appreciate the dangers of that tense time. Such counterfactual speculation shows what the Cuban missile crisis could have wrought and how it was truly one of the most important moments of the twentieth century.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis
Author: R. Conrad Stein
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780766029057
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Enhanced with sidebars and colorful maps, each book in this engaging series focuses on an event or era in American history, spanning from the time before Columbus' arrival to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

President Kennedy speaks

President Kennedy speaks
Author: John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 3111578127
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The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War

The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War
Author: Michelle Getchell
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2018-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1624667430
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In October 1962, when the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War ensued, bringing the world close to the brink of nuclear war. Over two tense weeks, U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev managed to negotiate a peaceful resolution to what was nearly a global catastrophe. Drawing on the best recent scholarship and previously unexamined documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, this introductory volume examines the motivations and calculations of the major participants in the conflict, sets the crisis in the context of the broader history of the global Cold War, and traces the effects of the crisis on subsequent international and regional geopolitical relations. Selections from twenty primary sources provide firsthand accounts of the frantic deliberations and realpolitik diplomacy between the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Fidel Castro's Cuban regime; thirteen illustrations are also included. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Making of a global Crisis The Origins of the Cold WarA New Front in the Cold WarThe Cold War in Latin AmericaThe Cuban Revolution and the Soviet UnionU.S. and Regional Responses to the Cuban RevolutionOperation Zapata: The Bay of PigsOperation Anadyr: Soviet Missiles in CubaCrisis Dénouement: The Missiles of NovemberEvaluating the Leadership on All Sides of the CrisisNuclear Fallout: Consequences of the Missile CrisisThe Future of Cuban-Soviet RelationsLatin American Responses to the Missile CrisisConclusion: Lessons of the Cuban Missile CrisisHistoriography of the Cuban Missile Crisis DocumentsMemorandum for McGeorge Bundy from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., April 10, 1961State Department White Paper, April 1961From the Cable on the Conversation between Gromyko and Kennedy, October 18, 1962Telegram from Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko to the CC CPSU, October 20, 1962President John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Nation, October 22, 1962Resolution Adopted by the Council of the Organization of American States Acting Provisionally as the Organ of Consultation, October 23, 1962Message from Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos to Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós, October 23, 1962Letter from Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy, October 24, 1962Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to the USA Dobrynin to the USSR MFA, October 24, 1962Memorandum for President Kennedy from Douglas Dillon, October 26, 1962Telegram from Fidel Castro to N.S. Khrushchev, October 26, 1962Letter from Khrushchev to Fidel Castro, October 28, 1962Cable from USSR Ambassador to Cuba Alekseev to Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 28, 1962Telegram from Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Kuznetsov and Ambassador to the U.N. Zorin to USSR Foreign Ministry (1), October 30, 1962Premier Khrushchev’s Letter to Prime Minister Castro, October 30, 1962Prime Minister Castro’s Letter to Premier Khrushchev, October 31, 1962Meeting of the Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba with Mikoyan in the Presidential Palace, November 4, 1962Brazilian Foreign Ministry Memorandum, “Question of Cuba,” November 20, 1968Letter from Khrushchev to Fidel Castro, January 31, 1963“I Know Something About the Caribbean Crisis,” Notes from a Conversation with Fidel Castro, November 5, 1987Select Bibliography

The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory

The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory
Author: Sheldon M Stern
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0804784329
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“Marshals irrefutable evidence to succinctly demolish the mythic version of the crisis . . . sober analysis.” —The Atlantic This book exposes the misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that have shaped the still dominant but largely mythical version of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks of secret Cuban missile crisis deliberations. More than a half-century after the event, it is surely time to demonstrate, once and for all, that Robert F. Kennedy’s Thirteen Days and the personal memoirs of other ExComm members cannot be taken seriously as historically accurate accounts of the ExComm meetings. This book, from the first historian to listen to and evaluate the White House tapes made during the crisis, does exactly that. “Stern is not alone in questioning the precision of the transcripts offered, but he has made the most painstaking attempt to clarify what was really said and done.” —Journal of American History