The Cuban Missile Crisis
To Armageddon and Beyond
Len Scott
- 248 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Cuban Missile Crisis
To Armageddon and Beyond
Len Scott
About This Book
It is sixty years since the events of October 1962 brought the world close to nuclearcatastrophe. The Cuban missile crisis has long been recognized as the moment of greatestdanger in the life (and near death) of humanity. In those sixty years, our knowledge andunderstanding of events have undergone significant change. There are some reasons to beencouraged, inasmuch as we have learned how both President John F. Kennedy and PremierNikita Khrushchev sought to avoid nuclear war. More ominously, we have learned of incidents and events that suggest nuclear weapons mighthave been used by subordinate military commanders, in circumstances frequently unknown totheir political leaders. Decisions whether to use nuclear weapons lay in the hands of oftenjunior military commanders, some of whom were perilously close to crossing the nuclearthreshold. This does not mean – as often assumed – that if some nuclear weapons were used, escalation to all-out war was inevitable. Yet the undoubted risk of thermonuclear war in thesecircumstances threatened the very survival of civilization. Hundreds, if not thousands, ofmillions of people would have died from immediate and short-term effects, while the longer-term prospect of a 'Nuclear Winter' portended the virtual extinction of humanity. Drawing lessons from sixty years ago faces significant challenges. If we draw lessons only todiscover our understanding was mistaken, we might well have drawn the wrong lessons.Many received wisdoms about the crisis have been shown to be misleading. What is strikingis how after forty or fifty or even sixty years, new evidence has emerged to challengepreviously accepted explanations. It is for the reader to reach their own verdicts on the history of the crisis, and how much weowe to political leaders who averted catastrophe (as well as how their words and deedshelped create the crisis in the first place). It is for the reader to conclude how close we cameto nuclear war. Whatever conclusions are reached, one overriding lesson looms large.However we judge the actions of political and military leaders, one factor was crucial in whywe avoided nuclear war in 1962. It was luck. In October 1962, humanity was very lucky. Willwe be so lucky next time?