The Cuban Missile Crisis

This web site intends to present the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in relation to the way the event were perceived by the public. The editorials and letters to the editor that appeared in the New York Times throughout the course of the crisis, as presented, unedited, on this web site.

The excerpts from the newspaper, highlights the level of cold war rhetoric being bandied around they also show that Kennedy did not have complete public support for his handling of the crisis. The letters chosen, reflect different arguments, pro-Kennedy, anti-Kennedy (feelings that due to the up coming congressional election, were very strong) and intellectualist writers, male, female, young and old.

The site can be navigated in a number of ways, it is probably most useful to start from the calendar. A calendar that indicated how far into the crisis it was before the public were made aware of a situation that is reported to be one that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

2002 sees the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, on this anniversary, further newly declassified documents were released. These can be viewed online at the National Security Archive. In the current political climate is interesting to note the similarities between the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the "war on terror". Contest over missile, refusal to inspect missile sites, the involvement of the United Nations.

This website endeavours to show how the coverage presented to the public, due to the nature of the sources, a middle-class literate/educated public, and to highlight what was "actually" happening out of the gaze of an ordinary American citizen's eye.