This unit features primary sources from the three main international players in the Cuban missile crisis: the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. Use these documents to think about the different perspectives that created this Cold War crisis and then identify how the conflict was resolved weeks later. By assessing the participants’ personalities, ideology, political context, and lack of information about adversaries, you can evaluate how leaders justified their own decisions about nuclear diplomacy and how they perceived their allies’ and adversaries’ decisions. On completion of this unit, you should be able to interpret the crisis decisions that were made and judge who deserved the most blame or credit for causing or resolving the Cuban missile crisis. Comparing and contrasting these clashing perspectives will help you address the central question for this unit: What roles did culture, ideology, and history play in the Cuban missile crisis, and how does this help us understand decision making in the Cold War?