![]() Professor James Blight is a professor of international relations at Brown University and an expert of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In recent years, he has been instrumental in assembling teams of scholars to analyze terrorism in its multiple dimensions. Professor Allison is a long-time Russian expert and authority on nuclear policy and weapons of mass destruction. He served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the first Clinton administration and before that, as Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard, where he was credited with building one of the country’s best schools of government. Professor Graham Allison directs Harvard’s Center for Science and International Affairs. Our moderator today in many ways owns the very title, essence of decision, because his seminal book by that name is still the best-selling account of the Crisis 31 years after it was first published. To help us understand that essence of decision, we have an extraordinary panel of historians who will guide us through this most dangerous moment in world history. In his biography of JFK, Ted Sorensen wrote that, and I quote: "Above all, Kennedy believed in retaining a choice, not a choice between red or dead or Holocaust or humiliation, but a variety of military options in the event of aggression and an opportunity for time and maneuver in the instruments of diplomacy, and a balanced approach to every crisis which combined both defense and diplomacy" President Kennedy’s approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis is important to understand today perhaps more than at any time in the 40 years since these events occurred. And his leadership in that regard especially speaks across the decades as Americans today confront another crisis under a different President with the world again on the brink of war, apparently. But the means he used to achieve that end were extremely complex and subtle. And so, he decided secretly to send offensive nuclear missiles to Cuba and then to call Kennedy’s bluff when they were installed.Īs we know, President Kennedy did not let that happen. Khrushchev thought he had a daring idea about how to deter the invasion while, at the same time, demonstrating to the world that the Soviets could compete with the United States in missile power. Nikita Khrushchev expected the United States to invade Cuba and drive Fidel Castro from office before the end of 1962. The background of the Missile Crisis is very simple, and you will hear much more about this from our distinguished panel of historians. ![]() It was also the event above all that defined the nature of the Cold War and demonstrated how to survive it.Īnd it was one of the events in a stream of events that took place over those thousand days in the Kennedy administration that perhaps best defined the character and the qualities of leadership of President Kennedy. The Cuban Missile Crisis was in many ways the event more than any other that shaped the course of the Kennedy presidency and the way it would be remembered for generations to come. This afternoon, we will look at something that took place 40 years ago and something that historians have all agreed were 13 of the most perilous days in world history. I also want to commend the former historian of the Kennedy Library, Sheldon Stern, who many of you have probably seen, who is in the audience today and has a piece on this Cuban Missile Crisis in today’s Boston Globe. I want to thank the sponsors of these forums, Boston Capital and the Lowell Institute, and our media partners who will help project far beyond the walls of this forum on the radio and in the Internet, the Boston Globe, WBUR and. And on behalf of myself and Deborah Leff, the Director of the Kennedy Library, I want to especially welcome you here today to this wonderful second in our series of discussions of an event that took place 40 years ago, but is very much alive today in many, many dimensions as you will hear. ![]() I’m John Shattuck, the Chief Executive Officer of the John F. But afterwards, we’ll give them a special treat. And only our speakers, unfortunately, will not be able to see it. ![]() As a special incentive for having us all be inside on this lovely day, we've opened up the- you can see what we rarely do- the screen. It’s a beautiful afternoon, and we all have a spectacular view.
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