Who Rules the World? Reframings

by Noam Chomsky

The two most crucial questions about the missile crisis are: How did it begin? And how did it end? It began with Kennedy’s terrorist attack against Cuba, with a threat of invasion in October 1962. It ended with the president’s rejection of Russian offers that would seem fair to a “rational” person, but were unthinkable because they would have undermined the fundamental principle that the United States has the unilateral right to deploy nuclear missiles anywhere, aimed at China or Russia or anyone else, even on their borders, and the accompanying principle that Cuba had no right to have missiles for defense against what appeared to be an imminent U.S. invasion. To establish these principles firmly, it was entirely proper to face a high risk of a war of unimaginable destruction and to reject simple and admittedly fair ways to end the threat.