CARIBBEAN
December 24, 2012
"The Year in Numbers"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The never-ending negotiations about the pending fiscal cliff sometimes amount to nothing more than a dizzying array of numbers. Who can count that high? The negotiations also make us think that the only stastistics that mattered in 2012, or will matter in 2013, involve dollar signs. A year in pictures may be compelling and beautiful, but the year in numbers gives a strong hint of what to anticipate in the year ahead."
Winter 2012-13
Belfer Center Newsletter Winter 2012-2013
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Winter 2012-13 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition to the background on those 13 days in 1962 when the world was on the brink of nuclear war, the Center focuses on the decision-making that averted a nuclear catastrophe and the lessons from that event for leaders of today. We include winners and winning entries from our “Best Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons” contest, co-sponsored with Foreign Policy magazine.
Winter 2012-2013
"Cuban Missile Crisis Events Highlight Decision-Making"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
During October 2012, the Belfer Center remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 with a series of events that highlighted the threat and lessons that leaders can take from the most dangerous moment in human history.
November 2, 2012
"Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis for Today’s Crises"
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s view, “the significant unknowns” during the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly catapulted John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev into nuclear war. For former diplomat Nicholas Burns, the principal take-away from the crisis was the importance of giving an adversary a way out of a confrontation short of complete surrender. Allison and Burns were panelists on Oct. 14 at a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston to consider the modern lessons flowing from the missile crisis. The event kicked off an intensive series of seminars and workshops for scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to mark the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis. Panel moderator Juliette Kayyem, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, reminded the audience that the missile crisis is often framed through the myth of the tough American president staring down the Russian foe and making him blink. Kayyem said that version fails to capture the nuanced secret diplomacy and the American concessions that made a deal possible.
*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, Tompkins Collection—Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, and Fanny P. Mason Fund in memory of Alice Thevin. *© 1963 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
October 24, 2012
"Picasso, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Malcolm Wiener"
News
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
As visitors step through the doors of the Kennedy Memorial Library for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, they will find on display Picasso's 1963 Rape of the Sabine Women - on loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The connection between Picasso's painting and what is widely accepted as the most dangerous moment in human history was brought to light for many by Malcolm Wiener, a member of the Belfer Center’s International Council and the person for whom Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy was named.
AP Photo
October 15, 2012
"Fifty years after Cuban missile crisis: closer than you thought to World War III"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Graham Allison writes that fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, many people find it hard to believe that the confrontation could have pushed the U.S. and Soviet Union to nuclear war. Robert F. Kennedy’s newly released papers remind us why this was the most dangerous moment in recorded history.
“My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office, I have ordered – and the United States Air Force has now carried out – military operations with conventional weapons only, to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba.” Allison writes that these are the words President Kennedy almost delivered in October 1962.
October 9, 2012
"The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50"
Op-Ed, Moscow Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"We can conclude that nuclear deterrence mattered in the crisis and that the nuclear dimension certainly figured in Kennedy's thinking. But it was not the ratio of nuclear weapons that mattered so much as the fear that even a few nuclear weapons would wreak intolerable devastation."
AP Photo/U.S. Defense Department
September 2012 (Working Draft)
Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Context of Strategic Stability
Discussion Paper
In this discussion paper Andrei Kokoshin, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and sixth secretary of the Russian Security Council, offers a concise discussion of the essence of the most dangerous nuclear crisis in the history of humankind.
August 6, 2012
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center Launches Website Marking Cuban Missile Crisis 50th Anniversary
Press Release
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs today launches a new website to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, www.cubanmissilecrisis.org not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.
Winter 2011-2012
"Yvonne Yew Seeks Better Understanding of the Non-Aligned Movement in Nuclear Global Order"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Joseph Leahy
Since the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) emerged 50 years ago to counter the dominant power blocs of the Northern Hemisphere, a new global order has taken shape. In her June 2011 discussion paper, “Diplomacy and Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Navigating the Non-Aligned Movement,” Belfer Center fellow Yvonne Yew argues that developing countries now stand at a pivotal moment for nuclear engagement.
