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The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) by [Sheldon M. Stern]

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Sheldon M. Stern

The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Sheldon M. Stern (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Part of: Stanford Nuclear Age Series (22 books)

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This book exposes the misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that have shaped the still dominant but largely mythical version of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks of secret Cuban missile crisis deliberations. A half-century after the event it is surely time to demonstrate, once and for all, that RFK's Thirteen Days and the personal memoirs of other ExComm members cannot be taken seriously as historically accurate accounts of the ExComm meetings.

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1st
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Stanford University Press
Publication date

September 5, 2012
Part of series

Stanford Nuclear Age Series
Language

English
File size

1006 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Stern's] new book marshals irrefutable evidence to succinctly demolish the mythic version of the crisis . . . Reached through sober analysis." (Benjamin Schwarz The Atlantic)

"The latest addition to the outstanding Stanford Nuclear Age series . . . Informed and informative, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality is a seminal work of impressive scholarship and a highly recommended addition to academic library 20th Century American History reference collections in general, and 'U.S. – Soviet Union Cold War Studies' supplemental reading lists in particular." (James A. Cox The Midwest Book Review)

"In Stern's judgment, President Kennedy displayed leadership, remaining calm during the crisis and staring down his belligerent civilian advisers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . Recommended." (S. G. Rabe CHOICE)

"Stern is not alone in questioning the precision of the transcripts offered, but he has made the most painstaking attempt to clarify what was really said and done." (Alice George Journal of American History)

"Stern's book is a great example of how much is being discovered and revised regarding the Cold War and its major events as more archival sources are declassified. This work is a must read for any scholar of the Cuban missile crisis or the Kennedy administration. It provides a complicated and broad understanding of both the crisis and the Kennedy presidency." (Javan D. Frazier H-War)

"The Cuban missile crisis may be the most thoroughly documented yet grossly misunderstood episode in Cold War history, and the value of Sheldon Stern's splendid book is that it punctures the myths and unearths the truth so compellingly, drawing on irrefutable evidence, that you'll never think about the crisis or about JFK and his 'best and brightest' advisers in the same way again." (Fred Kaplan Slate's "War Stories" columnist; author of 1959 and The Wizards of Armageddon)

"It has taken nearly 50 years to get a history of the Cuban missile crisis as it really was, as opposed to how it was initially (and for many decades) managed and manipulated by the Kennedy inner circle as well as gullible journalists and historians. For that we have Sheldon M. Stern to thank." (Max Holland Contributing Editor, The Nation, and Editor, washingtondecoded.com)

"Timed for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Stern. . . exposes myths about the crisis. [He] provides an important interpretation grounded in careful research." (Karl Helicher Library Journal)

"The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory offers a compelling reassessment of [the] events [of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis]. Using tapes of ExComm meetings (the ad hoc group formed to meet the crisis), Stern challenges much of the received wisdom. In particular, he rejects Robert F. Kennedy's dovish self-portrayal in Thirteen Days (1969), finding instead a consistent hardliner who, for instance, opposed an American naval blockade in favor of air strikes." (James Clyde Sellman Colloquy)

"For nearly half a century national security decision makers have relied on three lessons derived inappropriately from the Cuban missile crisis: success depends on (1) the threat of superior force, (2) toughness and inflexibility, and (3) the use of a small ad hoc group like the ExComm to advise the President. Sheldon Stern's trenchant analysis, based on the most careful and exacting review to date of the ExComm's recorded conversations, turns the three traditional missile crisis lessons on their head. He effectively demonstrates that the outcome depended on President Kennedy's repeated refusal to use or threaten to use force, and on his persistent search for a compromise that could end the stand-off peacefully. Most important, Stern highlights that the ExComm did not provide Kennedy with the well-considered advice he supposedly used to avoid war, but instead Kennedy directed its discussions towards the conclusions he sought. This is a clearly written, timely, and significant contribution to our understanding of the Cuban missile crisis." (Philip Brenner American University) --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Sheldon M. Stern taught U.S. history at the college level for more than a decade before becoming historian at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts from 1977 to 2000. He was the first non-member of the ExComm, as well as the first historian, to listen to and evaluate all the secret White House tape recordings made during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Stern is the author of Averting the Final Failure: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (2003), and The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (2005), both in the Stanford University Press Nuclear Age Series. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0092RIGLC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stanford University Press; 1st edition (September 5, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 5, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1006 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 209 pages

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The Colonel

Hard-hitting, Accurate Account

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 12, 2023

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As a 15-year-old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I vividly remember the crisis. Churches in my hometown in rural South Carolina went on a 24/7 prayer vigil.
As a history major who served 30 years in the Army including a combat tour in Vietnam followed by 13 years as a high school history teacher, I found “The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory…” to be a hard-hitting, accurate account. Written on the 50th anniversary of the crisis, the author has access to far more declassified material and actual tape recordings than did previous writers.
Meticulously researched and documented, the author examines the role of each of the major players. He does not pull any punches. The second chapter is devoted to debunking Robert F. Kennedy’s “Thirteen Days” in which RFK painted his late brother, President John Kennedy, in a heroic manner and portrayed himself as a moderate / dove when in fact declassified tape recordings of the meetings clearly show that RFK was hawkish. This distortion of the facts was probably due to RFK preparing to run for a senate seat in 1968.
My only criticisms are that I wish the author had included a map of Cuba and a chronology so that the reader could follow events as the crisis unfolded.
As a historian, I loved the following excerpt: “Studying history, of course, is not like assembling a neatly cut jigsaw puzzle. Pieces of historical evidence do not have to fit together tidily or logically within fixed and predetermined borders. Indeed, despite the best efforts of historians, they do not have to fit together at all. History defines its own parameters, and real historical figures often defy our assumptions and expectations. Contradictions and inconsistencies are the rule rather than the exception in human affairs. History is not a play. There is no script.“

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Brad Rockwell

Revelations from President Kennedy's secret tapes show how the Cuban Missile Crisis was really resolved

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2013

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This is one of the most remarkable books of all time. Not only does the author show how close to nuclear war the US and Soviet Union were, but through the tapes of almost all the meetings of President Kennedy and his advisors shows that JFK was the only sane one of the bunch and single-handedly prevented an escalation that likely would have triggered a nuclear war.

The reliance of this author on the tapes of the discussions creates an accuracy that is in sharp contrast to all the Camelot mythmakers like Ted Sorenson who survived JFK and sought to burnish their own reputations and that of Robert Kennedy by peddling falsehoods about their own moral stands and caution during the crisis.

Among the authors that Stern's book shows to have been misled is Robert Caro, the most important biographer of Lyndon Johnson. In Caro's recent book, Passage of Power, he repeats the post-hoc stories that are shown to be lies by the Stern book and the Kennedy tapes. On page 221 for example, Caro reports that everyone agreed with Dean Rusk's proposal to resolve the crisis by offering a private trade of Soviet withdrawal of missiles in Cuba in exchange for US removal of missiles in Turkey. Yet the transcripts show that RFK opposed this offer, even after he was forced to make it by his brother. On page 210 Caro portrays RFK as measured, moderate, and someone who was focused on the moral questions at stake. Caro says that RFK was concerned with the moral implications of a strike against Cuba being a Pearl Harbor in reverse. All of this is untrue. RFK (along with Curtis Le May) was the most hawkish of the Presidents advisers; in the beginning, RFK advocated a full scale invasion of Cuba immediately after Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor warned against such an invasion. Even after the President and the majority had agreed on a blockade rather than an invasion or air strike, RFK pressed for an invasion as "the last chance we will have to destroy Castro." RFK carelessly insisted that the Soviet's would not retaliate with nuclear weapons and argued "we should just get into it, and get it over with and take our losses if [Kruschev] wants to get into a war over this...." There is nothing in the tapes of anyone except the President expressly being influenced in choices by civilian casualties. The President acknowledged that the Cuban missiles had no more technical ability to kill Americans than other Soviet missiles placed around the world. RFKs expressed reference to Pearl Harbor was not a moral concern but a concern of how an invasion might be perceived by the rest of the world. Repeatedly, RFK advocated the creation of a false pretext to justify an invasion. In the beginning he advocated using a Berlin crisis as an excuse to invade Cuba. Later, after the embargo had been agreed to, RFK suggested using the Guantanamo base to stage an incident that would be a pretext for invasion, in his words: "You know, sink the Maine again or something.!" As the crisis was close to resolution, RFK lamented: "I'd like to take Cuba back. That would be nice." The central fact that RFK, the President, LBJ and other decision-makers were willing to risk nuclear war and catastrophic civilian losses in efforts to stop the Soviets from protecting their ally Cuba against a US invasion goes unmentioned by Caro. In contrast, the tapes as revealed by Sheldon Stern reveal President Kennedy to be the one exhibiting moral reasoning. The tapes show President Kennedy saying: "It doesn't make any difference if you get blown up by an ICBM flying from the Soviet Union or one that was ninety miles away. Geography doesn't mean that much . . . . After all this is a political struggle as much as military."

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Lois A Addison

Truth after all these years

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 6, 2013

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What we know is that sensitive government papers, tapes, etc. remain closed for many years, often 50. This was true for Israel and released documents about the founding generated a whole new group of historians there. Similar things are happening re: US history. Here we have a book based on the actual tapes made of the meetings between JFK and his advisors during the Cuban missile crisis. And what we find out is that what we have been told by the participants over the years (including RFK' s book about the crisis) has no basis in actual fact.For anyone who has a passion for trying to understand what we lived through those many years ago, this is an excellent book.
When I read something like this I think it must be incredibly difficult to be an historian of current events - because there is this long lag in the release of the documents that recorded the event. Think of the release of documents after the fall of the USSR and what that added to our knowledge.

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