During the year which preceded the celebration of its Centenary, the International Committee of the Red Cross found itself in the forefront of the news when the United Nations asked it for its help in controlling vessels bound for Cuba. It did not in the end have to undertake this mission which was outside its traditional humanitarian activity. The episode, however, was a striking manifestation of the moral authority and the confidence felt today in the neutral body which founded the Red Cross a hundred years ago. The Cuban crisis also gave the ICRC the opportunity of denning the contribution it can, in cases of grave peril, bring to the maintenance of peace.