Nuclear Proliferation International History Project - Egypt and the Cuban Missile Crisis

We hope that the two papers demonstrate how Cairo perceived and reacted to the crisis, and in the process contribute to an understanding of the broader politics of the crisis including the role of non-aligned states and the UN. [...] 10 www.wilsoncenter.org/npihp Egypt and the Cuban Missile Crisis NPIHP Working Paper #17 “the worst the world faced since the second world war.”15 The risk of a nuclear war started to assume the center stage.16 The newly formed “Presidential Council,” the highest political body in Egypt at the time, discussed the issue in at least two meetings on the 24th of Octob. [...] 12 www.wilsoncenter.org/npihp Egypt and the Cuban Missile Crisis NPIHP Working Paper #17 government in Cairo which fed him instructions on how to position Egypt in the debates taking place in the Security Council.26 The first meeting of the 11 members of the Security Council on the crisis took place on the 23rd of October 1962. [...] The Egyptian representative was among the delegations that welcomed the responses and called for direct negotiations between the two powers with the assistance of the ASG.42 The following day, the ASG followed up with letters to Khrushchev and Kennedy asking the first to keep Soviet ships away from the quarantine area and the second to avoid direct confrontation with Soviet ships, with the aim of. [...] The End of the Crisis Despite differences between Cuba, the US, and the Soviet Union over verifying the removal of the Soviet missiles, by early November the worst of the crisis was over.