The 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Public Meeting. The 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Hear Cuban ambassador Edgardo Valdés López

In October 1962, during what is widely known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, Washington pushed the world to the precipice of nuclear war.

Most commentators have focused on the Cold War brinkmanship engineered by Washington and Moscow. Rarely has the
point of view of the Cuban people and their revolutionary government been told.

The stunning defeat of the U.S.-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs 18 months earlier proved that the Cuban people were organised and ready to fight the invasion that Kennedy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were weighing.

On October 26, at a decisive moment in the unfolding crisis, the Pentagon informed Kennedy to expect 18,500 casualties in the first ten days should the US invade. Kennedy then decided not to invade but instead defeat the revolution with subversion, terror and economic
warfare.

To this day the political price such body counts would entail continues to hold off any direct U.S. military attack against Cuba.