Cuban Missile Crisis - Sammy Lesnick

These interviews are about the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that took place in October of 1962. Beginning a year earlier, a hidden war waged on the new Cuban government by the U.S. was discovered after an unfortunate failed attempt at invasion of Cuba by the U.S. In fear, Cuba accepted military aid from Russia. By early 1962, Russian nuclear missiles were being shipped into Cuba and assembled. The U.S. found out in the middle of October, beginning a standoff that would last for one week and keep the world at a pause waiting for a resolution.

The people I interviewed all had different perspectives on the crisis. Warren Odegard, a family friend, was in Seattle. His relatively far location from the missiles meant that him and his neighbors were not very scared. Norma Swerdlow, my grandmother, was on the east coast (New York) at the time. Surprisingly, the people in her area were much more concerned. Tom Luce, a family friend, was a student at Cambridge in England at the time, and spent most of his time studying. Therefore, he views the crisis in a perspective looking back rather than the true experience of the other two. His location in a country not directly involved in the crisis resulted in an entirely different opinion of the crisis than the other two.




Warren Odegard is a Seattle native. At the time of the crisis, he was 31 years old, and was working in Seattle as an electrical engineer.

I remember about the crisis that the Russians shipped their own missiles into Cuba on steamships and reassembled them into launching positions right under our noses. Kennedy took issue with that so he blockaded the ports that the Russians were coming into, preventing them from bringing any more missiles. Khrushchev essentially backed down, made a deal – the Russians would stop shipping missiles if America got rid of its missiles in Europe, especially Turkey. It was a quid pro quo deal, and was pretty tense there for a while. There were quite a number of American bases in Europe, and we gave up at least one or more.

The naval blockade lasted quite a while. It was really difficult technically to pull off without making the situation worse. I wanted somebody to back down and I didn’t care who. I didn’t want the war to start over; a lot of people would have died. There were an awful lot of missiles armed and at the ready, in Cuba and elsewhere. If push came to shove, it would’ve been a World War III.

In Seattle, it was on everybody’s mind, but nobody was really concerned. Nothing changed here except that everyone was glued to the television. The people really concerned were the Kennedy administration.

I think Kennedy handled it ok. Of course he had no idea how it would turn out. He brought us to the brink of war, but the alternative would have been a large-scale Cuban invasion. That was the same for Russia. That was basically the only other option they had besides backing down – a large-scale invasion. Of course, I had no idea what the outcome would be either. I was just ready for the worst.




Norma Swerdlow is my grandmother. She is now 77, and lives in Sarasota, Florida. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, she was living in New York City in Brooklyn. She was 39 years old, and was not working because she had to stay at home and take care of her four kids.

Everyone took the crisis really seriously. We thought there was a definite possibility of war with Cuba, so everybody was really scared. One day during the crisis, a women came over that I knew from Women’s Strike for Peace. I told her we should leave the country, and she agreed. We were thinking about Australia, until she found out that they wouldn’t let her husband in because he was black. Her husband eventually became a congressman, and was pretty famous at the time. We weren’t the only ones trying to leave, but it’s not so easy. We didn’t have passports then.

It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway though. Rachel was only a year old, and we had the other kids… we were stuck. We thought about Canada, but it seemed not far away enough, that’s why we thought of Australia. Get as far away as possible, but they still speak English there.

Every day, you got up and listened to the news. There wasn’t TV back then… I didn’t know what to expect, just got up every day and listened.

It was a stupid idea for him to send troops to the Bay of Pigs. He expected the whole country to rise up after that… they didn’t. The Cuban army arrested all the Cuban exiles that were sent on the invasion, or threw them out…

The Russians sending missiles was ridiculous. There was lots of animosity between us and Russia; we weren’t going to allow a Russian base ninety miles from our shore. It was very scary because it was so close, ninety miles away from Florida. It was all old people in Florida. We didn’t know them, so we didn’t know what was happening down there. But everybody was scared, the missiles could reach anywhere. Finally, the Russians turned around the missiles and it was over. It lasted about two weeks or ten days… it was very scary.




Tom Luce is a family friend. He now lives part-time in Seattle and part-time in London. Originally from England, he was 23 years old at the time of the crisis in 1962. He was a student at Cambridge.

Students in the early 60s were very left-oriented. I was pursuing studies at the time, and not thinking too much about the crisis. However, I did, near the time of the crisis in Cuba, participate in a student demonstration against the use of nuclear weapons in general. I went with a fellow student of mine who was a member of the Communist party. I was there because we as students were worried about the effects of nuclear war on us, even though the actual war was between the U.S. and Russia. I had also had a lot to drink, but that wasn’t unusual for students.

Even though I was not too involved in politics at the time and therefore did not closely follow the crisis, I did sense that there was a real danger of nuclear war. Out of my whole life, this was the only time (with one exception) that I thought there was a real danger of war between the Western and Eastern powers. The only other time was during the Berlin Airlift of 1948, when I was about 8 years old. The Western powers came out well that time.

Despite having any direct involvement in the Cold War, Britain had been a nuclear power since the 40s, and was in close alliance with the U.S. Mainstream British politicians supported nuclear weapons and U.S. policies. However, there was also a smaller pacifist movement, against imperialism and nuclear weapons. The Cuban crisis brought these opinions out into the open; left-wing and pacifist people used the crisis to reinforce their views. After the crisis, people everywhere were also more aware of the threat of nuclear war

The Cuban Revolution didn’t impinge on Europe. I knew that the previous regime was a dictatorship and misused its people. Therefore I was sympathetic to Castro, and the trouble he was receiving from the U.S. On the other hand, the Bay of Pigs Invasion showed that the U.S. had aggressive intent towards Cuba, and greatly diminished sympathy with the U.S. position. Also, a basic lack of good judgment was shown by the U.S. administration in supporting and going through with the invasion, partly because of its failure but mostly because of its cruelty.

Looking back now, the Kennedy brothers made very good judgments on the Cuban Missile Crisis, better than the decisions that led to the Bay of Pigs. They showed firmness and subtlety over the crisis, which in my mind compsenated for the Bay of Pigs disaster. The deal eventually worked out with Russia was very shrewd because it mandated the dismantling and removal of missiles from Cuba, while the U.S. would not have to remove any of its missiles in Turkey or anywhere else in Europe. The Western powers had missiles pointed at Russia all across Europe, so the deal wasn’t even. However, the two powers came out looking the same morally; both countries were at fault, but neither one was the bad guy.

Overall, the crisis demonstrated a common trend in U.S. presidencies. Newly-elected Kennedy oversaw the Bay of Pigs invasion when he had little experience of international affairs. With the task of running a huge military and bureaucracy, Kennedy was under-experienced and allowed himself to be manipulated. The missile crisis one year later showed that he gained experience and judgment. In general, the U.S. system tends to elect presidents who don’t have experience, which leads to bad judgment in the early years of presidency.