The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Based on the Secret White House Tapes - Softcover

Coleman, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393346803 ISBN 13: 9780393346800

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013

Synopsis

"A portrait of the JFK White House after the Cuban Missile Crisis as it really was...human and revealing." ―Evan Thomas

Popular history marks October 28, 1962, as the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet as JFK’s secretly recorded White House tapes reveal, the aftermath of the crisis was a political and diplomatic minefield. The president had to push hard to get Khrushchev to remove Soviet weaponry from Cuba without reigniting the volatile situation, while also tackling midterm elections and press controversy. With a new preface that highlights recently declassified information, historian David G. Coleman puts readers in the Oval Office during the turning point of Kennedy’s presidency and the watershed of the Cold War.

20 photographs

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

On the thirteenth day, October 28, 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba. Conventional wisdom has marked that day as the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the most highly charged, and in the end most highly regarded, moments of American history.Yet the next day, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Excomm) met as they had the previous thirteen days. As he opened the meeting, Kennedy had many things on his mind, but one issue stood out as the most urgent: verifying that Khrushchev was honoring his promise to remove "the arms which you described as offensive." The crisis had been sparked by one audacious lie; how could the Americans be sure this wasn't yet another trick, designed to buy time for the Soviet nuclear forces in Cuba to prepare for action? And even if it wasn't, how could the Americans be sure that the Soviets were removing all of the missiles, and not diverting some to the many caves that dotted Cuba? On the fourteenth day, the reality on the ground remained dangerous: the missiles were still in Cuba, as were short-range nuclear missiles, nuclear bombers, nuclear submarines, and tens of thousands of Soviet troops. And in the days, weeks, and months that followed, Kennedy's struggles were far from over. Midterm elections loomed, in which Democrats were expected to lose seats. The press, frustrated with the lack of access during the first thirteen days, was clamoring for information and accusing the White House of increasingly draconian "news management." Through it all, Kennedy's tapes kept running. Using new material from these secret recordings, historian David Coleman puts readers in the Oval Office during perhaps the most dramatic foreign policy crisis in America's history, as one of America's greatest leaders fought to redefine his presidency, and ultimately his legacy.

About the Author:

The director of the Miller Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, David G. Coleman is a history professor at the University of Virginia. He lives in Arlington.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0393346803
• ISBN 13: 9780393346800
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282