Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Squatlow and the Cuban Missile Crisis

  Fall is my favorite time of year and October is my favorite month. The pristine air, glorious foliage and football season are enthralling. Every October I think of a traumatic experience for our nation. It was 51 years ago this month that the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. I remember it like it was yesterday. It appeared eminent that we were headed for a nuclear holocaust.

  It was October of 1962. The Russians had secretly planted a nuclear arsenal in Cuba and the warheads were aimed in our direction only 90 miles from our border. John Kennedy was a youthful president who had been in office less than 20 months. The young president showed what he was made of. He told the Russians to take their nuclear weapons out of the western hemisphere and gave them a short deadline to dismantle and go home.