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The Cuban Missile Crisis
SP058
| WED |
| 22 |
| FEB |
Timing:
10.30am-12.30pm: Morning Session (coffee break at 11.30am)
Lunch
1.30 – 3.00: Afternoon Session
Morning Session:
"The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years On: What We Now Know About the Most Dangerous Crisis in World History". PowerPoint presentation followed by questions.
Afternoon Session:
"Memories of the Missile Crisis". Talk (using LJCC participants' and other memories) followed by discussion with opportunity for people to add other memories.
2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous moment in world history, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the closest we have so far come to thermonuclear war.
Intelligence has never been more important than it was during the missile crisis. The plan of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was to install missile bases in Cuba without the Americans realising what was happening until the bases were operational and capable of launching nuclear missiles against the United States.
Had that happened, recent research indicates that it is almost certain the US would have launched an unannounced airstrike to destroy the bases, thus probably triggering a war with the Soviet Union. Thanks to a remarkable combination of imagery and human intelligence, however, the United States discovered that the bases were being built before they became operational. There was thus time to negotiate a peaceful settlement to a crisis which, without this intelligence, might well have begun a Third World War which would have wiped out the United Kingdom.
Professor Christopher Andrew is a historian at the University of Cambridge with a special interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services.
10.30am-12.30pm: Morning Session (coffee break at 11.30am)
Lunch
1.30 – 3.00: Afternoon Session
Morning Session:
"The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years On: What We Now Know About the Most Dangerous Crisis in World History". PowerPoint presentation followed by questions.
Afternoon Session:
"Memories of the Missile Crisis". Talk (using LJCC participants' and other memories) followed by discussion with opportunity for people to add other memories.
2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous moment in world history, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the closest we have so far come to thermonuclear war.
Intelligence has never been more important than it was during the missile crisis. The plan of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was to install missile bases in Cuba without the Americans realising what was happening until the bases were operational and capable of launching nuclear missiles against the United States.
Had that happened, recent research indicates that it is almost certain the US would have launched an unannounced airstrike to destroy the bases, thus probably triggering a war with the Soviet Union. Thanks to a remarkable combination of imagery and human intelligence, however, the United States discovered that the bases were being built before they became operational. There was thus time to negotiate a peaceful settlement to a crisis which, without this intelligence, might well have begun a Third World War which would have wiped out the United Kingdom.
Professor Christopher Andrew is a historian at the University of Cambridge with a special interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services.