Dear CCI Readers,
For Citizen Diplomats, one man stands out in my mind as the ultimate citizen who started young at age 19 by leaving his native Canada and traveling through the United States and throughout Mexico and Central America. He says that it opened his eyes to the impact of multinational corporations and the roles played by the U.S. and Canada. Rick Sterling has continued to travel throughout the world to support people striving for peace and security. Today, at age 73 years young, he is trying to wake up America about its dangerous attempt to take Russia down to get their oil, gas and numerous other subsoil treasures. This of course is what the Ukraine war is all about. Read his commonsensical review of crisis management of former U.S. leaders from JFK to Biden.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Handling International Crises: From JFK to Biden
July 11, 2022
By Rick Sterling
There are significant parallels between the international crises in Cuba in 1962 and Ukraine today. Both involved intense confrontations between the USA and the Soviet Union or Russia. Both involved third-party countries on the doorstep of a major power. The Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to lead to WW3, just as the Ukraine crisis does today.
Cuban Missile Crisis and the current crisis in Ukraine
In 1961, the US supported the “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Cuba. Although it failed, Washington’s hostile rhetoric and threats against Cuba continued, and the CIA conducted many failed assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Cuba, seeking to defend itself, or at least have a means of retaliating in case of another attack, sought missiles from the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed and began secretly installing the missiles. As a sovereign nation having been attacked and under continuing threat, Cuba had the right to obtain these missiles.
US President John F. Kennedy thought otherwise. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, he said the missiles endangered the US and must be removed. He imposed an air and sea quarantine on Cuba and threatened to destroy a Soviet ship traveling on the high seas to Cuba. The world was on edge, and there was global fear that World War 3 was about to erupt. In my homeland Canada, we went to bed seriously worried that nuclear war would break out overnight.