40 Years After - New Sources on the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962

Top officials involved in the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis from the U.S., Cuba, and former Soviet Union, including from the Kennedy administration, have gathered in Havana 40 years later to discuss the events when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. At a similar conference in Cuba 10 years ago, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera indicated that while tens of thousands of U.S. troops were on full alert and on the verge of being sent to implement the invasion recommendations by top U.S. military leaders -- he & other US officials had not known that the small Soviet garrisons in Cuba were already armed with battlefield nuclear weapons and had authority to use them in defense against such an attack. This year, we now learn that four Soviet submarines near Cuba were also nuclear armed, and that a U.S. destroyer was meanwhile dropping "warning" depth charges against at least one of them -- which was on the verge of launching its weapon in defense. Per U.S. military doctrine at the time, either of these incidents would have resulted in a nuclear attack on the USSR, and presumably a similar Soviet attack in return.

This conference has again been coordinated by Cuba with the renowned National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Important documentation has been newly released, including as available from the sources below. 

The coverage of these events in the U.S. frequently fails to include much recognition of the attacks and threats against directed against Cuba during this period, including sabotage & assassination attempts, such as under Operation Mongoose. Much of this is included in Jane Franklin's posting, The Cuban Missile Crisis: An In-Depth Chronology, at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JBFranklins/missile.htm 

There is also a new Cuban website (just announced, and in Spanish) with a wealth of information on this crisis, including a detailed chronology of events and related information at http://www.crisisdeoctubre.cubaweb.cu/ (If anyone has info re accessing this any of this information in English, kindly advise!) 
Substantial new information on the October crisis, including some primary documentation, is being posted daily by the National Security Archive. at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/ 
Also on that site is the very sobering documentation on the 1962 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommendation re Cuba, which is also pertinent to today's debate today about terrorism and the possible unilateral use of power against alleged "rogue states" (often a category listed as including Cuba). The Joint Chiefs proposed staging actual and contrived terrorism against US personnel -- in order to set the stage for a US invasion of Cuba; see: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/. The actual Jt. Chiefs memo is at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf.