60 years after the Cuban missile crisis, Russia's threats reignite Cold War fears

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/16/ [login to see] /cuban-missile-crisis-60th-anniversary
When President Biden compared Russia's nuclear threat against Ukraine to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, it highlighted just how much that Cold War showdown continues to shape our collective psyche.

Although Biden's remarks earlier this month about the "prospect of Armageddon" have been labeled alarming by some and alarmist by others, they emphasize that the stakes in any such conflict between nuclear-armed rivals have not changed since the infamous "13 days" of the crisis.

"We came really close to nuclear catastrophe," says Fredrik Logevall, a Harvard history professor and author of JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.

The crisis began on the morning of Oct. 16, 1962. President John F. Kennedy was shown photos taken by a U-2 spy plane indicating Soviet ballistic sites under construction on the island of Cuba. Once operational, he was informed, they could be used to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland virtually without warning.

The first of a series of meetings of top advisers and Cabinet officials was quickly convened, including the president's brother and close confidant, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.