1962 20th October
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sorensen helped draft language explaining the quarantine and the administration's demand for removal of Soviet offensive weapons.
Cold War · October 1962 · permanent subject timeline
Theodore Sorensen and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Kennedy's special counsel and a central participant in drafting and crisis deliberations. This page combines historical context with 5 matching records drawn directly from the World History Database Cuban Missile Crisis archive.
Historical context
Theodore Sorensen and the Cuban Missile Crisis: overview and significance
What happened?
Theodore Sorensen participated in ExComm and helped formulate presidential communications during the crisis, including the public presentation of U.S. policy.
Why was it important?
Sorensen's records show the importance of language, signalling and presidential communication in a confrontation where misinterpretation could have had catastrophic consequences.
World History Database records
Theodore Sorensen and the Cuban Missile Crisis timeline
The records below are selected from the 195-record Cuban Missile Crisis archive and rendered as static HTML in chronological order.
1962
1962 21st October
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sorensen refined Kennedy's television address so that the missile evidence, quarantine, and warning to Moscow were presented clearly.
1962 22nd October
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sorensen assisted with final revisions to the President's address before Kennedy disclosed the crisis to the public.
1962 27th October
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sorensen helped draft the response accepting the essential terms of Khrushchev's first proposal while avoiding a public missile trade.
1962 28th October
Cuban Missile Crisis
Sorensen assisted with Kennedy's public response welcoming the Soviet decision to remove the missiles from Cuba.
Editorial provenance
Sources and editorial review
Compiled and edited by World History Database.
Historical context is editorial material; the chronology is generated from World History Database Cuban Missile Crisis records.
Last reviewed: September 2026.
FRUS: Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath · JFK Library · U.S. National Archives
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