Supplemental Materials

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Considering its Place in Cold War History

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Considering its Place in Cold War History probes the complex relationship between the United States and Cuba, and examines the crisis that brought the world to the brink of war. The unit incorporates groundbreaking research on the Cuban missile crisis.

Online Resources from the Choices Program

Scholars Online videos are available to accompany The Cuban Missile Crisis: Considering its Place in Cold War History. These videos bring university scholars into high school classrooms. These videos are designed to supplement Choices printed curricula and are conveniently organized to enrich the student readings, lesson plans, and homework assignments provided in Choices printed material. Scholars Online videos to accompany The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons may also be helpful.

Teacher Developed Online Lesson Plans As part of a Teaching American History Summer Institute at Brown University, participating teachers worked in groups to develop web-based lessons on the Cuban missile crisis drawing on the scholarship shared at the institute. These units are available from this site.

The Fog of War Teacher's Guide and Accompanying Online Resources Additional lesson plans on the Cuban missile crisis (and other topics in the history of American foreign policy) are available from the Teacher's Guide for The Fog of War.  Accompanying online resources are available.

Web Links

Critical Oral History: Cuban Missile Crisis and Risk of Nuclear War in the 21st Century
An overview of the research of the Watson Institute on this the Cuban missile crisis

The National Security Archive
Collections of documents and photos, as well as recordings of ExComm meetings

The Cold War International History Project
(Go to "programs" "Cold War International History Project")
Newly available documents, many from the Soviet perspective, and analysis of events

The Miller Center of Public Affairs White House Tapes
Transcripts and audio from President Kennedy's recordings, plus online exhibits to help students and teachers navigate the volume of material available

90 Miles
A PBS show on Cuba (Many resources on Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations, both current and historical)

Books

Beschloss, Michael R. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (New York: Harper Collins, 1991). 816 pages.

Blight, James G., and David A. Welch, eds. Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998). 234 pages.

Blight, James G., Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink, Castro, The Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon Books, 2002). 537 pages.

Chang, Laurence, and Peter Kornbluh, eds. The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader (New York: The New Press, 1998). 429 pages.

May, Ernest R., and Philip D. Zelikow, eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997). 728 pages.

NOTE: This is a selected list of resources focused on the topic of the curriculum unit, The Cuban Missile Crisis: Considering its Place in Cold War History. Additional resources will be added to this site as they become available.