Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Revised to include New Revelations from Soviet & Cuban Sources

Raymond Garthoff

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Year: 2011
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780815717393
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Soviet response to the first edition of Reflections has been a prime example of the new openness under glasnost in discussing previously taboo subjects. Using new revelations—such as the fact that Moscow had twice as many troops in Cuba as the Kennedy administration believed—from key Soviet and Cuban Sources, Garthoff has revised his earlier analysis to produce the most accurate, eye-opening story yet of the 1963 crisis. In this book Raymond L. Garthoff, a participant in the crisis deliberations of the U.S. government, reflects on the nature of the crisis, it's consequences, and it's lessons for the future. He provides a unique combination of memoir, historical analysis, and political interpretations. He gives particular attention to the aftermath and "afterlife" of the crisis and to its bearing on current and future policy. In the first edition of the book in 1987 the Garthoff presented a number of facts for the first time. Since then, more information has become available, particularly form Soviet sources, in part from conferences in which Garthoff participated but even more from individual interviews and research. This new information, much of it presented here in this volume for the first time, helps to fill in gaps in our knowledge about events and motivations on the Soviet side. More importantly, it enlarges our understanding of the crisis interaction.

Table of contents

• Introduction: Purpose and Perspective
• Stage 1: The Soviet Decision
• Stage 2: The U.S. Decision
• Stage 3: The Confrontation
• Stage 4: The Settlement
• Stage 5: The Aftermath
• Stage 6: The Afterlife
• Conclusions: The Long-Term Legacy
• Appendix: Memoranda from October–November 1962