Foreign Affairs · 1987 · 52 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesConflict StudiesPolitical ScienceInternational SecurityMilitary HistorySecurity StudiesCold WarCrisis RhetoricNational Security EmergenciesNuclear StrategyNuclear Weapons PolicyWorld WarsCold War HistoryCold War PoliticsCuban Missile CrisisMissile NonproliferationNuclear Disaster HistoryNuclear War PowersPublic Presidency
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS REVISITED T -M^he Cuban missile crisis has assumed genuinely mythic significance. Dean Rusk called it most dangerous crisis the world has ever seen, the only time when the nuclear superpowers came eyeball to eyeball. Theodore Sorensen called it the Gettysburg of the Cold War. For Arthur Schles inger, Jr., it was finest hour of the Kennedy presidency; a moment of maximum nuclear peril traversed without catas trophe. Many people believe that the missile crisis of October 1962 represents the closest point that the world has come to nuclear war. For that reason alone, it is worth continued attention.