13 days cuban missile crisis book. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy 2022-11-04
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The Cuban Missile Crisis was a pivotal moment in world history and one that has been studied and analyzed by historians and political scientists for decades. The crisis, which occurred in October 1962, was a 13-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis was ultimately resolved peacefully, but it brought the world closer to nuclear war than it had ever been before.
The events leading up to the crisis began in 1959, when the Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in Cuba. The United States, which had long maintained a strong influence in Cuba, was wary of Castro and his communist ideology. In response, the U.S. imposed an economic embargo on Cuba and backed an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Castro's government in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, the Soviet Union saw an opportunity to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere by supporting Cuba. The Soviet Union began sending military aid and advisors to Cuba, and in the summer of 1962, it began secretly installing nuclear missiles on the island.
The United States learned of the missiles through intelligence gathering, and President John F. Kennedy was faced with a difficult decision. On one hand, he could do nothing and risk the possibility of the Soviet Union gaining a strategic advantage in the Cold War. On the other hand, he could take military action to remove the missiles, which could lead to a full-blown war with the Soviet Union.
Kennedy ultimately chose a third option: a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent the Soviet Union from sending any more missiles or military equipment to the island. He also demanded that the Soviet Union remove the missiles that were already there.
The crisis reached its climax on October 27, 1962, when a U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba and the Soviet Union sent a letter to the United States threatening to use nuclear weapons if the blockade was not lifted. In response, Kennedy announced a quarantine on all offensive military equipment bound for Cuba and put the U.S. military on high alert.
Ultimately, the crisis was resolved peacefully through a series of negotiations between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade the island and to remove its own missiles from Turkey.
The Cuban Missile Crisis had a lasting impact on international relations and the Cold War. It demonstrated the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the importance of diplomacy in resolving conflicts. It also served as a reminder of the need for clear and effective communication between world leaders to prevent misunderstandings and escalation of tensions.
The 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis were a harrowing and tense time for the world, and the events of those days will be remembered for generations to come.
Book Analysis: Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
The historian Martin Sherwin has reported even more human error. In the late 1990s the secret White House ExComm tape recordings were declassified. Yet this is not an ordinary, simple "game of chicken", where the "winner", if any, is the player who does not blink first. That is why, armed with the evidence from the tape recordings, historian Sheldon M. His statement that within "a few minutes of their the missiles being fired eighly million Americans would be dead" was chilling to me as I was a child of 10 at the time and lived in the Southeast so it was quite likely that I would have been one of the victims. The 13-day "game of chicken" begins between JFK and the large group of his closest advisors, members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, on one side, and General Secretary of the Soviet Communist party, N.
13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy
Publicly, the Kennedy White House promoted the official narrative that the Soviets had backed down in the face of U. The agreement, they realized, was only the beginning. . Fursenko and Naftali treat superficially the most haunting question of the crisis: Did Khrushchev give his commander on the scene, Gen. When the Joint Chiefs, eager to avenge the Bay of Pigs and destroy Fidel Castro, advised an all-out, "surgical", aerial bombing of Cuba, followed by a ground attack, Kennedy knew better and weighed the advice skeptically — the Chief's solution would have triggered a nuclear war. We had perhaps amongst the most able in the country and if any one of half a dozen of them were president the world would have been very likely plunged into catastrophic war.
The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 Nuclear Crisis Lasted 59 Days, Not Just 13
If A, do B, in an unstoppable chain of individually logical steps that could lead to insane conclusions. What follows are the major stories that accompanied those headlines. Alert levels had risen to DEFCON 2, and air-to-air nukes were meant for taking out incoming Soviet bombers. Dennison, drafted a proclamation of military occupation for the Cuban people. Navigators guided Maultsby out of Soviet air space by ordering him to turn left until he could see Orion's Belt off his right wingtip. The story takes on the elements of great theater as it moves to its denouement.
It quoted him as stating: "We seem to be living in an era when anyone who is for war is a hero and anyone who is for peace is a bum. An afterword was added to further investigate such themes. The three other ships were the Divnogorsk, the Dubno, and the Nikolaevsk. Debriefing of the pilots from the low-level flights showed that all but two had been fired on over Cuba. Kennedy understands that he has to react and that how he reacts may affect not only the U. Source: Dino Brugioni Collection at the National Security Archive However, reports from Cuban observers of Soviet missiles and indirect and direct pressure from CIA and DIA led to this White House decision to reverse the ban.
13 Days In October: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis on Apple Books
It was of course a complex and sensitive problem and he does a beautiful job of explaining everything. The title comes from a Kennedy quote about what a nuclear exchange would represent, the final failure. So the Sweeney briefing was a turning point for JFK, who then ordered Ted Sorensen to work up a quarantine speech, not one announcing air strikes. All give and no take. Not even the exercise of restraint and sensible behavior can be relied on to ''manage'' a crisis once it is under way and leadership is struggling to keep control. I can only hope that if the world were to encounter another such event as this, our leaders will have the required temperament to not further escalate and handle in such a way as President Kennedy has.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: 13 Days that Brought the Cold War to the Brink by Charles River Editors
. Under these circumstances the most interesting chapters are those at the end, which set forth the lessons learned from the crisis. However, JFK himself had a perfect sense of timing and tactic. This may be a small book, but it's by no means little. He broke with Johnson over the Vietnam War, among other issues. The author, his brother and Attorney General had an inside seat at the table.
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy
Also, based on the sticker that's on the book, apparently they produced a movie under the same title although based on a different book that was released in 2000. Kennedy's secret tape recordings of the meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council during that nightmarish week in October 1962 reveal that someone's insider status does not guarantee the authenticity of their claims. Khrushchev, and his closest advisors, on the other. In this unique account, he describes each of the participants during the sometimes hour-to-hour negotiations, with particular attention During the thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. He describes the crisis from start to finish, the Ex Comm's meetings, the discussions on how to proceed, the back channel communications - and, above all, the cool, calm and very presidential JFK steering his country, no, make that the whole world, through this crisis, towards life sounds dramatic, yes, but that's because IT WAS. Ultimately the book concludes that much of the Cold War rhetoric the leaders employed was mere posturing; in reality neither had any intention of starting a nuclear war.
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Used originally as pure research, I reread this book a few times after my theses used this twice for different papers, one a full thesis, the other a grad school final. Unlike some recent This book was astonishing in its revelations about the inside discussions, arguments and second thoughts by a disparate group of advisors set up by President Kennedy when he suddenly learned that nuclear missiles were being set up in Cuba. Soviet nuclear warheads arrived in Cuba on October 4, 1962, and did not leave until December 1. Right to left: JFK, Gromyko, Dobrynin, Semenov. And provided a good blueprint of how to form a decision committee that has multiple points of view.
