THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND ITS LEGACY:
A CONFERENCE FOR TEACHERS
On October 17th, 2007, the Kennedy Library presented a special conference to mark the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The day-long program featured eyewitness and historical perspectives of this landmark event, and provided unique teaching tools to support U.S. and World History curricula.
The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its Legacy
Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, began the conference with an overview of the crisis and its legacy. He then presented four ways to enhance students’ understanding of the event. He suggested teachers use the movie 13 Days, a film directed by Roger Donaldson, centered on the 13 days of the crisis in the U.S. He played excerpts of the film and highlighted different ways to tie the movie into classroom units. He also suggested teachers use the web site www.cubanmissilecrisis.org, which provides students with a comprehensive breakdown of the crisis. In addition, the web site features primary sources, and a section on the lessons of the crisis, and its applications to today’s world. He also recommended that teachers consider his book, Essence of Decision, as a way to demystify the event for students. The book presents three frameworks for analyzing decision-making during the Cuban Missile Crisis which serve as models for studying other events. Allison concluded by sharing articles that helped make a connection between the crisis and events taking place today.
The October Crisis and the Caribbean Crisis:
Cuban and Soviet Perspectives
The next session featured panelists James G. Blight (Professor of International Relations, Brown University), Timothy Naftali (Historian and Director of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum) and moderator janet M. Lang (Adjunct Associate Professor, International Relations, Brown University) who provided insights into the Cuban and Soviet perspectives based on their research of previously closed documents and new oral histories. Professor Lang opened the panel by advising the teachers that a true picture of the October events could not be fully understood without incorporating the Cuban and Soviet viewpoints. Professor Blight, an expert on Cuba’s perspective, addressed Fidel Castro’s concerns as the leader of a small socialist nation in the shadow of the United States. He evoked a vivid picture of Castro’s fears in October 1962 as American planes thundered over the island, and an impending U.S. invasion seemed imminent. Timothy Naftali noted that Nikita Khrushchev, knowing that the USSR had fewer nuclear missiles than the U.S., was hoping to achieve strategic parity by placing missiles in Cuba. He stated that Khrushchev never wanted a nuclear war. However, following President Kennedy’s October 22nd speech outlining the U.S. response, he considered that if the U.S. were to invade Cuba, the Soviets might ultimately have to respond with nuclear weapons. Naftali suggested teachers go to the University of Virgina’s Miller Center of Public Affairs web site http://millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/ and click on the “Kremlin Decision Making Project” to read the minutes from Soviet meetings during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the lunch hour Allan Goodrich, the library’s chief archivist, presented a special display of President Kennedy’s own annotated map of the missile sites.
An Insider’s Perspective:
A Conversation with Theodore C. Sorensen
Theodore C. Sorensen, Special Counsel and Adviser to President Kennedy, recounted his own experience of the thirteen days in October of 1962, echoing historian Arthur Schlesinger’s observation that the crisis was “the most dangerous moment in human history.” As a member of the Executive Committee, the group of advisers Kennedy assembled, Sorensen personally witnessed the tense deliberations that took place over whether to invade Cuba; place a naval quarantine around the island; or do nothing and wait to see how the Soviet Union proceeded. Sorensen explained how the advisers formed two camps, later termed “hawks” and “doves” by the media, and took the audience step by step through Kennedy’s final decision to place the quarantine around Cuba. As a personal friend and adviser to Kennedy, Sorensen admired him as a leader who possessed “a sense of history and perspective, humanity and modesty.” When asked about his own personal fears during the crisis, he replied, “I was too busy to be scared.” For a transcript of “An Insider’s Perspective: A Conversation with Theodore C. Sorensen” visit the “Kennedy Library Forums” section of our web site.
The Cuban Missile Crisis After 45 Years
The final session featured Sheldon Stern, author of Averting ‘The Final Failure’: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings and former Kennedy Library historian who addressed the significance of the presidential tape recordings of White House meetings during the crisis. Stern, a national expert on presidential recordings, emphasized the importance of using these tapes in research and classroom applications to shed new light on historical events, noting that the narratives on these tapes, “capture the nuances of the discussion–the tone of voice, anger, laughter, etc.,” more so than even eyewitness accounts. While stressing the reliability of tapes over memory, Stern also acknowledged the difficulties inherent in transcribing old tape recordings, and encouraged teachers to visit the Miller Center web site to listen to the recordings themselves for classroom use.(http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/scripps/digitalarchive/presidentialrecordings/kennedy/index)
Bibliography
Allison, Graham and Phillip Zelikow. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Longman, 1999.
Blight, James and David Welch. Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Routledge, 1998.
Blight, James and Phillip Brenner. Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba’s Secret Struggle with the Superpower After the Missile Crisis. Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.
Naftali, Timothy and Aleksandr Fursenko. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Stern, Sheldon M. Averting ‘The Final Failure’: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Stern, Sheldon M. The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
For more resources relating to the crisis, visit the “For Teachers” section of our web site at www.jfklibrary.org.