Fifty years to the day that American U-2 planes photographed startling evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, American History TV was live from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. A gathering of historians, scholars, filmmakers and journalists came together for a 50th anniversary retrospective of the historic 13 days that came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Participants included Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev—President Kennedy’s counterpart in a military and political confrontation that tested the young Kennedy administration and threatened to lead to nuclear war.
Our coverage included audio recordings of White House meetings during the crisis, Universal Newsreels from the time, and an Oval Office speech by President Kennedy delivered on October 22, 1962.
Here’s some of what you'll find in this program:
- ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: President Kennedy Oval Office Address from October 22, 1962
- Panel: History of the Cuban Missile Crisis: What We Know and When We Learned It - Panelists include Peter Kornbluh, Director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project and author, The Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba and The Bay of Pigs Re-examined and Svetlana Savranskaya, Russian Affairs Specialist and editor, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khruschev, and the Missiles of November
- ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE and AUDIO: Universal Newsreels and audio recordings of White House meetings from 1962
- Remarks from Sergei Khrushchev, son of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
- Panel: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro - Panelists include Tim Naftali, former director of the Richard Nixon Library and author, One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy and Brian Latell, former CIA Intelligence Officer and author, Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine and After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of the Revolution
- ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE and AUDIO: Universal Newsreels and audio recordings of White House meetings from 1962
- Remarks: The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - David Coleman, Chair, Miller Center’s Presidential Recordings Program and author, The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- Panel: The Nuclear Threat 50 Years After Cuba - Panelists include Nicholas Burns, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs