Dear CCI Readers,
Sixty years ago the world lived through a crisis that brought humanity to the very brink of nuclear war. Even after 6 decades the terror and fear still resonates with anyone who lived through this crisis. Today, even although nuclear weapons are much more advanced and lethal than they were in the 1960’s, the fear of nuclear war is strangely absent. In 1962 the name calling we hear today did not exist and both sides treated each other with mutual respect. Perhaps this was because both leaders had experienced the horror of the second world war and understood the need to work together to avoid a direct confrontation. Today, mutual respect is absent and there is little diplomacy or communication despite the fact that a shooting war has broken out between Russia and Ukraine and the USA is providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine.
Like all of us who are paying attention, Tony Cox sees “Echos of a brush with Armageddon” in today’s events.
Center for Citizen Initiatives
info@ccisf.org
Echoes of a brush with ‘Armageddon
’Rising tensions between Washington and Moscow are reminiscent of the missile crisis 60 years ago that nearly triggered nuclear war
October 16, 2022
By Tony Cox, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers
On October 16, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy received information from the CIA about the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This event, which took place exactly 60 years ago, was the formal beginning of the Cuban missile crisis — the first and for a long time the only event in world history that brought humanity to the brink of nuclear war. Then, the cool heads of politicians and the military, who had not yet forgotten the horrors of a real war, were able to prevent a catastrophe. Whether today’s leaders will show the same restraint is far from certain.
Rhymes and echoes
Nineteenth century American humorist Mark Twain famously said, “History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.” Pakistani-British historian Tariq Ali is credited with a similar take: “History rarely repeats itself, but its echoes never go away.”
Either wordsmith could have been referring to today’s Russia-Ukraine conflict, which seems to be rhyming with, and echoing, a perilous episode from 60 years ago and 6,000 miles away – the Cuban Missile Crisis. Observers who recall the US-Soviet showdown of October 1962 can only hope that the latest confrontation between Washington and Moscow doesn’t require as much luck to avert a potentially planet-ending nuclear war.