WORLD The Cuban Missile Crisis

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From The Post's Digital Archives
Reliving the World's Most Dangerous Days
In October 1962 the world came to the brink of war as U.S. President John Kennedy confronted the Soviet Union over its nuclear missiles in Cuba. This page presents a digital archive of The Post during the crisis. It brings to life the observation of former Post publisher Philip Graham: that newspapers are the “first rough draft of history.”

Click on the front page or dates below to read issues of the Post from 40 years ago. Each day a new day of 1962 coverage will be added. (PDF files require Adobe Acrobat).



___ About The Digital Archive ___
This pilot presentation of the Washington Post digital archive is just the beginning. The Post and washingtonpost.com are now digitizing all 125 years of the Post, beginning with the inaugural issue in 1877 and continuing up until recent times.

If you have questions or comments about the Post digital archives, please contact WebNews@washingtonpost.com.
From the Post
Recent stories related to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• Forty Years After Missile Crisis, Players Swap Stories in Cuba (By Kevin Sullivan, October 13, 2002).   
• JFK Aides Say Bush Is Wrong on Crisis (By Kevin Sullivan, October 11, 2002).

Commentary:
• Forty Years Later, Another Black October (By Tim Maloney, October 20, 2002).
• A Precedent That Proves Neither Side's Point (By Jefferson Morley, October 13, 2002).
Live Online
• Washingtonpost.com world news editor Jefferson Morley was live from Havana talking about a conference where former U.S., Russian and Cuban officials debated the lessons of the crisis.

• Havana conference organizer Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, talked about the new history of the missile crisis.
On the Web
• The U.S. State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States series provides the historical documentary record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Volume XI covers the Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath.

• The National Security Agency's Full-Length Synopsis of the Cuban Missile Crisis with selected NSA documents.

• From the government of Cuba, La Crisis de Octubre: una visión política 40 años después. "The Crisis of October: A political vision 40 years later" (In Spanish)