Cuba and the Missile Crisis - Carlos Lechuga

For the first time, Cuba's view of the most serious crisis of the Cold War is told by Cuba's former UN ambassador.

In 1962, the tiny island nation of Cuba became the flash point in the confrontation between the two world superpowers.

For the first time, Cuba's view of the most serious crisis of the Cold War is told by one of the leading participants. Rushed to New York during the crisis to take up the post of Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, Carlos Lechuga provides the Cuban version of what really occurred when the world was on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.

No longer silenced by its ties to the Soviet Union, Cuba now voices its sense of betrayal in the Khrushchev-Kennedy deal.

Cuba and the Missile Crisis features:

Secret letters exchanged by Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro
The role of the United Nations and the meeting of U Thant with Fidel Castro
Testimony of Fidel Castro, the only surviving protagonist

In a fascinating postscript to the Missile Crisis story, Lechuga describes a secret approach from Washington for a dialogue with Havana immediately prior to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Carlos Lechuga was the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the Missile Crisis in 1962 and was an active participant in negotiations and discussions. He was Cuba's last ambassador to the Organization of American States. He has carried out many diplomatic missions representing Cuba in numerous international forums and conferences, including the UN Committees on Human Rights, Disarmament and Racial Discrimination. As a journalist, diplomat and writer, Carlos Lechuga has been interviewed and published extensively in the United States and Latin America.