ABSTRACT
Restrospective consideration of united states relations with Latin America during the decade of the 1960s has centered on the Alliance for Progress and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The second of these has been analyzed and re-analyzed as a case study in decision making and as a critical point in the nuclear confrontation between the United States and the USSR. Recently, a series of meetings, both political and scholarly, was conducted with what amounts to a nostalgic atmosphere to reevaluate the crisis. All of the participants recalled the episode within the context of East-West relations. The fact that Cuba was a part of Latin America scarcely entered into their reconstructions of events. The scholars who took part in these meetings were specialists in national security issues, in Soviet affairs or in military affairs. Latin Americans or Latin Americanists were conspicuous by their absence.
