Cuban Missile Crisis
At the height of the Cold War, for two weeks in October 1962, the world teetered on the edge of thermonuclear war. Earlier that fall, the Soviet Union, under orders from Premier Nikita Khrushchev, began to secretly deploy a nuclear strike force in Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States. President John F. Kennedy said the missiles would not be tolerated and insisted on their removal. Khrushchev refused. The standoff nearly caused a nuclear exchange and is remembered in this country as the Cuban Missile Crisis. For 13 agonizing days鈥攆rom October 16 through October 28鈥攖he United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. The peaceful resolution of the crisis with the Soviets is considered to be one of Kennedy鈥檚 greatest achievements.
Research Resources
- Military Resources: Bay of Pigs Invasion & Cuban Missile Crisis
- CIA-prepared personality studies of and
- Satellite images of missile sites under construction
- between Kennedy and Khrushchev
- 威尼斯人娱乐场 Catalog (Still Picture Branch)
- from October 1962
- Aerial Photograph of Missiles in Cuba (1962), Milestone Documents
Audio and Video
- for 60th anniversary
- (panel discussion)
- (author lecture)
Kennedy Library Forums
- (October 6, 2002)
- (October 20, 2002)
- (October 17, 2007)
- (October 12, 2009)
- (October 14, 2012)
-
(October 22, 2022)
Articles and Blog Posts
- One Step from Nuclear War鈥擳he Cuban Missile Crisis at 50 (Prologue)
- Forty Years Ago: The Cuban Missile Crisis (Prologue)
- (Text Message blog)
-
(Unwritten Record)
Education Resources
- (high school curriculum resource)
- (online exhibit)
