TODAY'S TWD: OCTOBER FUSS

October 28, 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

Hitting the real world timeline yet again for the daily Tiddlywinkydink.......

From our comrades at Wikipedia:

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the "Caribbean Crisis," while in Cuba it is called the "October Crisis." The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is often regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.

The climax period of the crisis began on October 8, 1962. Later on October 14th, United States reconnaissance photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane revealed missile bases being built in Cuba. The crisis ended two weeks later on October 28, 1962, when President of the United States John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with the Soviets to dismantle the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a no invasion agreement and a secret removal of the Jupiter and Thor missiles in Turkey.

Kennedy, in his first public speech on the crisis, given on October 22 1962, gave the key warning,

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

"The Missiles of October" is a 1974 docudrama about the Cuban missile crisis. Its name comes from the book "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman about the missteps among the great powers and the failed chances to give an opponent a graceful way out leading to the supposedly inevitable World War. The script is based on Attorney General Robert F Kennedy's book "Thirteen Days".

"The Missiles of October" takes us behind the scenes to see the inner workings, disagreements, and ultimate consensus of Kennedy's cabinet to blockade Cuba, rather than attempt to invade to dislodge the just discovered yet partially completed Soviet nuclear missile emplacements in Cuba. It also details US attempts to give the Soviets room to negotiate without appearing to capitulate. Although often dismissed by movie and television critics, the piece scores extremely well in viewer polls.

The made-for-TV movie was directed by Anthony Page with writing credits given to Stanley R. Greenberg and Robert Kennedy.

Cast
William Devane ... President John F. Kennedy

Ralph Bellamy ... U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson

Howard Da Silva ... Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

James Hong ... U.N. Secretary-General U Thant

Martin Sheen ... Att. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy
James T. Callahan ... David Powers, Special Assistant to the President

Keene Curtis ... John McCone, Director CIA

Charles Cyphers ... Press Photographer

Clifford David ... Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel

John Dehner ... Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Peter Donat ... David Ormsby-Gore, British Ambassador to U.S.

Andrew Duggan ... Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Army Chief of Staff

Richard Eastham ... Gen. David M. Shoup, USMC Commandant

Dana Elcar ... Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara

Ron Feinberg ... Gen. Charles De Gaulle

Michael Fox ... Soviet Marshal

Arthur Franz ... Congressman Charles A. Halleck

Larry Gates ... Secretary of State Dean Rusk

Richard Karlan ... Chief of the Presidium

Stacy Keach Sr. ... W.E. Knox, President Westinghouse International
Will Kuluva ... Valerian Zorin

Paul Lambert ... John Scali, ABC Correspondent

Doreen Lang ... Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, President Kennedy's Secretary

Michael Lerner ... Pierre Salinger, White House Press Secretary

Robert P. Lieb ... Gen. Curtis LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff
Byron Morrow ... Sen. William Fullbright

Stewart Moss ... Kenneth O'Donnell, Special Assistant to the President
James Olson ... McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant for National Security Affairs

Dennis Patrick ... Llewellyn Thompson, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union

Albert Paulsen ... Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin

Nehemiah Persoff ... Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko

William Prince ... Secretary of the Treasury, C. Douglas Dillon

John Randolph ... Undersecretary of State George Ball

Kenneth Tobey ... Adm. George W. Anderson Jr., Chief of Naval Operations

George Wyner ... Civillian Aide

Harris Yulin ... KGB Agent Alexander Fomin

Thayer David ... Narrator (uncredited)

I remember watching this back when I was in high school. I felt that it was something I had to see, something of importance. It was one of many instances where my grasp of history, the news, and the world around me was shaped by TV.

BCnU!
Toby O'B