NOTE: This blog entry was written in October of 2012
by Chad Campbell, senior producer
In Moscow, they call it “The Caribbean Crisis” – in Havana, those tense 13 days in 1962 are known as “The October Crisis” – but Americans know it as “The Cuban Missile Crisis.” But how well do we really know our own history? James Blight argues that the answer is not very well at all. After studying the circumstances for a quarter century, Blight is an expert on what led to those two weeks fifty Octobers ago and how close the United States and the Soviet Union came to an all-out nuclear war. He’s a professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at Waterloo University and with his wife and fellow researcher janet Lang, has produced a “transmedia” storytelling project employing blogs, films, graphic novels and podcasts to help teach this important history to a younger generation, and to help an older generation better understand the history it lived through. Blight and Lang have also written an old-fashioned book called The Armageddon Letters which examines and puts into context the actual messages that US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev wrote to each other before, during and after the crisis.
Here’s James Blight’s short film about the project.
Click this link for many more short films explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Here is an interactive timeline.
And click here to listen to archival audio pertaining to the crisis.