The Cold War Museum in conjunction with the Department of History & Art History at George Mason University (GMU) will convene a distinguished panel of historians, authors, and first hand participants to discuss and commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This FREE half day program will be held Saturday October 27, 2012 in the Harris Theater on the main campus of GMU, 4400 University Drive in Fairfax, Virginia. Check in and registration will begin at 9:30 a.m., with the program starting at 10:00 a.m. A private panelist breakfast will be held before the conference for event sponsors. Immediately following the conference there will be a book signing reception.

Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, son of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and author of “Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower” will provide the keynote address. Pulitzer Prize winning author and GMU History Professor Martin J. Sherwin and Michael Dobbs, author of “One Minute to Midnight” will lead a roundtable discussion following Khrushchev’s remarks.

U-2 pilot Colonel Buddy Brown (USAF, Ret) and F8U-1P Crusaders pilot Lt. Commander Tad Riley (USN, Ret) who overflew Cuban SA-2 missile sites during the crisis will discuss their mission objectives and recollections. Photographic interpreter, Dino Brugioni, author of “Eyeball to Eyeball”, who briefed President Kennedy on the photos taken over Cuba, will provide a dramatic first hand account of the behind the scene activities of the Kennedy administration during those tense thirteen days in October 1962.

Immediately following the conference, there will be a book signing with Sergei Khrushchev (“Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower”), Dino Brugioni (“Eyeball to Eyeball”), Michael Dobbs (“One Minute to Midnight”), Ken Jack (co-author “Blue Moon over Cuba: Aerial Reconnaissance during the Cuban Missile Crisis“), Harvey Simon (“The Madman Theory”), and others.

Sponsors include American Missile Crisis Veteran Association, Syneca Research Group, Inc., and Whit Williams. For more info on sponsorship opportunities, breakfast with the panelists, or to register, visit www.coldwar.org/articles/60s/CubanMissileCrisis50thAnniversary.asp.