For more than a quarter of a century, there have been two diametrically opposed points of view about why Cuba was a crisis and why it was resolved. The traditional interpretation, enshrined in the writings of Theodore C. Sorensen, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Elie Abel, describes the Cuban missiles as an intolerable provocation.1 President John F. Kennedy had to compel the Soviet Union to withdraw the missiles to defend the balance of power, preserve NATO, and convince Nikita S. Khrushchev and the world of American resolve. Sorensen, Schlesinger, and Abel laud the “quarantine” as the optimal strategy, depict the outcome of the crisis as an unqualified American triumph, and attribute it to Kennedy's skill and tenacity. The revisionist interpretation, primarily associated with the writings of I. F. Stone, Ronald Steel, Barton J. Bernstein, and James Nathan, contends that...

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