October 1962 - October 2012: Anniversary of Us All on The Brink

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It is difficult for anyone living at this time, probably apart from a minority of experts, to determine when the height of the Cold war was and how that can be represented by events.  Certainly a milestone in the overall outcome of that very long conflict for the Western powers was the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis begun publicly in October 1962 and resolved through the excellent administration of the Kennedy presidency less than two weeks later.  There are any number of books and articles available that have appeared and re - appear from time to time about what happened to successfully resolve that crisis, not only for the U.S. as strategic guarantor for the free world, but for everyone for whom this series of events, generally or in great detail, has any memory of those thirteen days.  An excellent recapitulation of the Cuban Missile Crises, again, can be seen through January 2013 at the National Archives.  See also the Press Releases for this event and the site for the O'Brien Gallery housing it.  Even the simplest viewer of these evidential documentaries as shown at the Archives will know, and this despite popular acclaim in some respects, the crisis in Cuba at the time was no game.  It is perhaps a tribute to the successes of the sea blockade and other presidential orders of that time, that one might have used gamesmanship as the soviets apparently did in attempts to put extreme political and other pressure on the U.S. president and to outmaneuver him; this only resulted in an increasingly dissatsifying outcome on their end as in a number of other forceful contests. 

 

New York Times article (related.)