The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Presents an integrated, comprehensive record of U.S. decisionmaking during the most dangerous U.S.-Soviet confrontation in the nuclear era. Some 3,400 unique records relevant to the crisis, totalling approximately 17,500 pages, are reproduced. Much of the documentation focuses on U.S. decisionmaking during what Robert Kennedy called the "Thirteen Days" of the missile crisis--from McGeorge Bundy's October 16, 1962 briefing of President Kennedy on the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba to Nikita Khrushchev's October 28 decision to withdraw the weapons. The numerous intelligence reports, diplomatic cables, political analyses, military situation reports, and meeting minutes included in the set portray both the deliberative process and the execution of critical decisions made by the Kennedy administration during the crisis.