Friday, October 12, 2012

National Archives to recount John F. Kennedy's Cuban missile crisis in new exhibition


Art Daily Newsletter
In this June 3, 1961, file photo, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy talk. AP Photo.

By: Brett Zongker, Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP).- Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, the National Archives has pulled together documents and secret White House recordings to show the public how President John F. Kennedy deliberated with advisers to avert nuclear war. A new exhibit, "To the Brink: JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis," opens Friday to recount the showdown with the Soviet Union. While the recordings have been available to researchers for years, this is the first public showcase of Kennedy's recordings to replay tense conversations about national security from the Oval Office and Cabinet Room. In the fall of 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered a secret deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba that were soon detected by U.S. spy planes. On Oct. 16 that year, Kennedy was briefed on photographic proof of the missile sites being developed. U.S. officials determined from the size of the weapons that the medium ... More

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