The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory Quotes

“President Kennedy used his intellectual and political skill to steer his advisers and the two superpowers away from an apocalyptic nuclear conflict. His experience in the South Pacific had convinced him that war, even without atomic weapons, was too unpredictable and destructive to be successfully controlled by any leader or government. A Cold War hawk in public, he distrusted the military, was skeptical about military solutions to political problems, and horrified by the prospect of global nuclear war.”
― Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Rusk was the only ExComm participant, other than the president, to persistently refer to the possibility that the crisis in Cuba could rapidly escalate to nuclear war.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Their intuitive capacity to communicate often transcended the limits of conventional oral discourse. They always understood each other.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“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.”
― Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“IN AMERICAN MEMORY Myths versus Reality Sheldon M. Stern”
― Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Rusk’s three children (particularly the two who were teenagers living in Washington with their parents in 1962) recall that their father was calm but somber and preoccupied during the crisis and that afterwards he immediately returned to his normal routine at the State Department; there was never a hint of any kind of physical or mental breakdown.7 If such a collapse had indeed occurred—and nothing of that kind remains secret very long in the sieve that is Washington, D.C.—it is inconceivable that JFK and later LBJ would have retained Rusk as secretary of state for eight years (the second-longest term in U.S. history).8 In short, there is not a shred of evidence from the tapes or any other official, public, or private source to substantiate this rather nasty piece of character assassination.”
― Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“prospect of history wie es eigentlich gewesen ist—as it really was.”
― Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“A Cold War hawk in public, he distrusted the military, was skeptical about military solutions to political problems, and horrified by the prospect of global nuclear war.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Khrushchev shit his pants.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Robert McNamara’s personal myth, that “I was trying to help [President Kennedy] keep us out of war,” can no longer be taken seriously after listening to the ExComm tape recordings.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“Domestic policy,” he sometimes mused, “can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality

“As President Kennedy told the ExComm when the perilous naval quarantine around Cuba was about to be implemented, “What we are doing is throwing down a card on the table in a game which we don’t know the ending of.”
― Sheldon Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality