The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 should have traumatized the 12-year-old Charles Ellis Schumer. At school in Brooklyn, N.Y., as tensions rose, his teachers naively instructed “Chuck” and his classmates to protect against a nuclear blast by “duck and cover” beneath their plywood desks.
Just 17 years after Hiroshima, an American flying a U-2 detected in the jungles of Cuba that the Soviet Union had installed offensive missiles capable of carrying a nuclear payload. They were positioned a little more than 1,000 miles from Washington, D.C. Americans feared a nuclear exchange between the superpowers.
For 13 days, political and military leaders pondered how to remove Soviet missiles from America’s backyard. Then-President John F. Kennedy invoked the Monroe Doctrine and directed a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba. He pressured the Soviets to back down. Subsequently, treaties and de-escalations were attributed to Kennedy’s facing down the Soviets.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University, Schumer surely knows about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khruschev was testing massive atomic bombs and promising to “bury us.” In the years before, Americans witnessed the takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro, the failed Bay of Pigs attempt at regime change, an American U-2 shot down over Russia and the building of the Berlin Wall. We had thought that mutually assured destruction kept global powers in check.
The missile crisis should be a teaching moment for Schumer, now a Democratic New York senator who has served in Congress for the past 45 years. It should inform how he behaves as U.S. President Donald Trump deals with Iran and its obsession with developing nuclear weapons. Also, with his proclaimed support for Israel and as their shomer, or “guardian,” the Iranian hatred for Israel ought to impact his actions.
Let start with a flight path between the capitals—from Tehran to Tel Aviv—that is nearly the same distance, also about 1,000 miles. Iran has developed missiles that could be nuclear-tipped and that could already reach many European capitals. It was just time before their technological prowess would be able to hit the United States as well.
The discovery of missiles in Cuba triggered the crisis. Like Iran’s decades of lies and subterfuge, the Soviets also lied about their actions. Peggy Noonan, in an April 26 column in The Wall Street Journal, reflected on Kennedy’s actions and pointed out: “It had been going on for months, the Soviets had lied about it when asked, and America couldn’t accept it ‘if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.’”
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic regime’s apocalyptic theocracy—untethered from rationality and steeped in ideology—has chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” It is the world’s largest state sponsor of international terrorism. Trump has been clear as to why the mullahs in charge must not have nuclear capabilities, and he has been firm in acting with America’s diplomatic force and military muscle.
Trump’s predecessors had all found ways to justify their inaction. Former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign-policy legacy—the 2015 nuclear deal—eventually gave Iran a pathway to nuclear capability. Obama also granted financial benefits and sanctions relief to the Middle Eastern rogue nation, much of which went to fund proxy terrorism and missile development. Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018, during his first term. His successor, President Joe Biden, removed sanctions—to the detriment of Israel, the United States and the world.
Trump’s detractors, including Schumer, complain about the war on Iran that Washington and Jerusalem launched at the end of February. Many claim that there was no reason for the attack. They ignore 47 years of radical behavior and an incessant drive to own weapons of mass destruction. They disregard the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency, affiliated with the United Nations, has for a decade or more documented Iran’s deceptions, struggling with a lack of or no access to sites and intransigence at the global negotiating table.
Trump has stood firm with its Mideast ally, Israel, not once but twice. “Operation Midnight Hammer” in June 2025 struck the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear facilities for 12 days. The current “Operation Epic Fury” has further degraded Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities—missiles it has used on its own Arab neighbors these past two months.
Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, has vociferously criticized the ongoing conflict. He has characterized it as a “wanton war of choice, not necessity,” a “colossal failure” and “a chaotic action that makes America less safe.” He bellows that it was begun by Trump without a clear plan, strategy and congressional authorization. He has labeled it “Trump’s war,” warning of rising casualties and increased fuel prices, and calling for an end to the “reckless” engagement.
Apart from playing the political adversary, it’s hard to square Schumer’s opprobrium with his “guardianship” of the Jewish state. He has not reigned in hateful anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish rhetoric from his fellow senators for years now—40 (out of 47) who just voted to withhold military weapons and aid to Israel, which has been besieged from regional enemies for two-and-a-half years without a break. His chance to be a courageous defender of Israel is vanishing.
We should have expected him to have learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis and to model himself after Kennedy, a fellow Democrat who stood strong for America at a time of crisis.
Sadly, after a lifetime of government service, the New York senator’s dislike for the current president blinds him to the menace of a dangerous, sworn enemy of his country. Schumer has either failed to learn from the past or has sold out the future.
