Cuban Missile Crisis 
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4/17/2022
We Need to Talk About Cuba
by Joseph J. González
U.S. policymakers should understand that Putin may observe the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis by provoking another one.
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4/17/2022
Even With the Challenge of a Nuclear Crisis, 1962 Was a Year of Hope
by Walter G. Moss
For HNN Contributing Editor Walter Moss, 1962 was a year when it seemed the US was capable of overcoming the gravest challenges with positive results (it was a good year for him personally, too).
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1/30/2022
Popular Histories Have Influenced World Leaders, Sometimes For the Better
by Robert Brent Toplin
Although the popular history genre is often maligned, historians should reflect on the role of Barbara Tuchman's 1962 "The Guns of August" in guiding JFK away from the brink of nuclear war and recognize the power of a story clearly told.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
4/16/2021
The Book That Stopped an Outbreak of Nuclear War
Serhii Plokhy adds new insight to the Cuban Missile Crisis by examining the domestic political context of the Soviet Union and the political incentives toward nuclear brinksmanship.
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12/13/2020
Reflections on Fredrik Logevall's "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956"
by Sheldon M. Stern
Fredrik Logevall's new JFK biography is one of the first by a historian who did not personally experience the Kennedy years. Longtime JFK Library historian says this is all to the good, as Logevall makes extensive use of available primary sources to place Kennedy's political and diplomatic views in the context of his formative experiences in wartime.
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10/18/2020
"The Silent Guns of Two Octobers" Reviewing a New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
by Sheldon M. Stern
Longtime JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern offers a review of a new book on the diplomatic resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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SOURCE: Washington Decoded
10/13/2020
The Cuban Missile Crisis: Once More Unto the Breach
by Sheldon M. Stern
As the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis approaches, longtime JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern reviews Theodore Voorhees Jr.'s new book, which argues that Kennedy and Kruschev each assumed personal control of negotiations in a way that rendered threats of war from hawkish subordinates all bark and no bite.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
10/5/2020
The Day Nuclear War Almost Broke Out
"There should, it seems, be a useful lesson to be learned from that frantic afternoon. But what, in God’s name, is it?"
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9/8/19
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Trollope Ploy Myth
by Sheldon M. Stern
What we often get wrong about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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SOURCE: New Republic
4-17-18
No, we're not reliving the 1960s, says Harvard historian Arne Westad
Re: Cuban Missile Crisis: "There are no indications whatsoever that we are moving toward that kind of extremely dangerous era of the Cold War."
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4/15/18
The Man Who Prevented the Outbreak of World War III
by Douglas Gilbert
His name was Vasili Arkhipov. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he refused to go along with an order to fire a nuclear missile.
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5/13/18
War Was Avoided During the Cuban Missile Crisis, but One Man Died
by Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias
It’s worth remembering his story, too, to show us the danger of superpower conflict.
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SOURCE: National Security Archive
1/11/18
New book lays out for the first time the full story of Cuba's Cuban Missile Crisis
James G. Blight and janet M. Lang lay out the story in "Dark Beyond Darkness."
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SOURCE: Politico
1-4-18
The Other Terrifying Lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis
by George Perkovich
Historians have focused on how John F. Kennedy’s wisdom narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe. They’ve paid less attention to how little we knew about the Soviets’ true intentions.
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SOURCE: The Nation
10-27-17
The Cuban Missile Crisis at 55
by James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang
“The bullshitter…does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” —Harry G. Frankfurt, "On Bullshit"
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SOURCE: National Security Archive
10-16-17
U.S. Planned for Military Occupation of Cuba
The U.S. military drew up plans to occupy Cuba and establish a temporary government headed by a U.S. “commander and military governor” during the 1962 missile crisis, new documents disclose.
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8-13-17
Forget Those Comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis
by Sheldon M. Stern
This time, the top military figures in the administration may be forced to try to short-circuit an impulsive over-reaction by their commander-in-chief rather than the other way around.
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4-24-16
JFK. A Motorcade. A Rifle. But this Wasn’t Dallas.
by Stephen F. Knott
Recently discovered evidence in the archives of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston shows there was a serious breach of security in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis that could have altered the course of history.
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1-10-16
October 27, 1962: The Most Dangerous Day in Human History
by Sheldon M. Stern
The final installment in Sheldon Stern’s exciting series, “Capturing History as it Really Happened in October 1962
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11-21-15
October 26, 1962: Adlai Stevenson’s Unsung Role in the Cuban Missile Crisis (Part Seven)
by Sheldon M. Stern
Another installment in Sheldon Stern’s exciting series, “Capturing History as it Really Happened in October 1962.”
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