Forty years after the world stood on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, a UD professor, a student and a recent graduate visited that country for a conference on the crisis hosted by President Fidel Castro and the Cuban government.

Ralph Begleiter, Rosenberg Professor of Communication and Distinguished Journalist in Residence, left for Havana Oct. 10 to participate in the conference, titled "The October Crisis: A Political Perspective 40 Years Later." He was accompanied by Andrea Hendrickson, AS 2003, an international relations major from Seaford, Del., and Adam Mayle, AS 2002, of Viola, Del., who holds degrees in international relations, economics and Russian language.

"Adam and Andrea have already had the chance of a lifetime, when, over the summer, they were given almost 200 pages of previously secret Soviet-era documents to translate into English before the Havana conference," Begleiter says. "In Cuba, they served as informal interpreters for Russian (former Soviet) participants, and met Fidel Castro, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and a variety of others who were involved."

The crisis began on Oct. 15, 1962, when a U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft revealed the presence of several SS-4 missiles in Cuba. It ended on Oct. 28, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceded to President John F. Kennedy's demands ordering all Soviet supply ships out of Cuban waters and removal of missiles from the island.

In addition to McNamara, other key figures in the Kennedy administration attending the conference included Theodore Sorensen, former special assistant to President Kennedy, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., former Kennedy aide.