American Presidents & Politics: Above & Beyond with Michael Tougias
Monday, February 18, 2019Time 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Above and Beyond: JFK and the U-2 Pilots During the Cuban Missile Crisis
Auditorium SOLD OUT – Simulcast tickets available for $15
Monday, February 18| 4:30pm| Michael Tougias, New York Times Best-Selling Author
Michael Tougias is a sought-after speaker on leadership and crisis management. He is best known for his seven award-winning books examining extraordinary survivors and rescuers. In his presentation, he will relate the dramatic chronicling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 27, 1962, Kennedy, strained from back pain, sleeplessness and days of impossible tension, was briefed about a missing spy plane. Its pilot, Chuck Maultsby, was on a surveillance mission over the North Pole, but had become disoriented and steered his plane into Soviet airspace. If detected, its presence there could be considered an act of war. As the president and his advisers wrestled with this information, more bad news came: another U-2 plane had gone missing, this one belonging to Rudy Anderson. His mission: to photograph missile sites over Cuba. For the president, any wrong move could turn the Cold War nuclear. Tougias will use slides taken during the crisis to make this an edge-of-your-seat program.