The 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis Part 1/3

Historians, journalists and policy makers reflected on the events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, how it was resolved, and how lessons learned can be applied to the nuclear challenges facing us today.

Copyright: John F. Kennedy Library Foundation

[barrybbenson]

Time Stamps for myself:

8:12 introducing each person

11:45 Bobby Kennedy quote reference

12:30 tapes provided ultimate answer

10:15 talking about change in evidence

12:50 talking about negotiation

14:15 Split into two sides: people who wanted to accept it, people who wanted to decline it
Kennedy against everyone else

15:15 Made decision despite every person in that room

17:05 New materials giving a better sense of the history

18:15 What we’ve learnt with new access to sources

19:05 What we’ve learnt about President Kennedy: he used diplomacy to stop nuclear Holocaust

26:30 Cuba recommending nuclear attack
- one reason the crisis took the route it did (it was a turning point)

52:00 Talking about invasion on Cuba
53:30 closest to nuclear war

54:45 Why it’s important to study and learn the history

55:45 Kennedy was dedicated to back channel diplomacy

57:40 talking about a conversation on the 14th day (how important it is to connect the dots)

58:30 Talking about why advisors were so unaware of nuclear weapons destruction

1:01:00 secret tapes

[leeweisbecker]

Russian woman didn't answer the key question: Did the Cubans with the tactical nuclear weapons have the power to use them without Soviet authorization? Anybody think the Soviets would have used them? Anybody think either side would have launched a general nuclear war over the Cuban issues? Anybody think either side could have stumbled into it through "miscalculation?"

[glenroan]

The lesson of the Cuban crisis, so clearly stated, appears to have been not just lost but reversed, by current U.S.& Western policy which now has not just threatened, but has put in situ an arsenal of nuclear & other armaments on Russian borders!
What response do we, can we expect from Russia?
Should we be surprised if Russia should respond in the manner which U.S did in 1964?
It is incredible and impossible to conceive a more perverse scenario and appears to confirm that. "we" have chosen to disregard any beneit of this "historical lesson" which this program now perversely celebrates! Can "we" please wake up and see what we now face rather than to self congratulate ourselves in our darkest ignorance....!
We know what JFK would say to us if he now could speak, but we have chosen not to listen! Shameful.
Tim O Sullivan Ireland