Abstract
Dean Rusk has argued that John Kennedy “showed qualities of genuine greatness” during the Cuban missile crisis. Ted Sorensen has similarly extolled the virtues of his performance. Harold Macmillan, Sorensen wrote retrospectively, was right: the young president had “earned his place in history by this one act alone.” And JFK himself, according to Robert Kennedy, regarded his handling of the missile crisis as his finest accomplishment.1
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Notes and References
Kohler to Rusk, 16 October 1962, document no. 628, NSA; Sorensen draft of a message to Khrushchev, 18 October 1962, Sorensen Papers, box 48; Sorensen, Kennedy, 691.
Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie, 296–319, 541–545; Reeves, A Question of Character, 295–297. Kennedy’s faith in Jacobsen was such that he even named a ship after him (the S.S. Maximus) and also tried to persuade him to live in the White House. In 1975 the New York State Board of Regents deemed Jacobsen’s treatments to be dangerous and unethical, and thus rescinded his medical license.
Johnson, ed., Papers ofAdlaiE.Stevenson, VIII, 299; Clayton Fritchey to Stevenson, 13 April 1965, Stevenson Papers, box 846; entry for 16 October 1962, President’s Appointment Book, JFKL.
O’Donnell and Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”, 309–310. See the excellent Thomas G. Paterson and William J. Brophy, “October Missiles and November Elections: The Cuban Missile Crisis and American Politics, 1962,” Journal of American History 73 (June 1986): 87–119. They argue convincingly that the congressional elections were not important to the administration’s handling of the Cuban issue either before or during the missile crisis.
Robert L. Dennison, “CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis,” 2–3; Dennison, Report of the Commander in Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet Upon Being Relieved, 30 April 1963, 31, document no. 3088, NSA.
George McTurnan Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York: Knopf, 1986).
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© 1996 Mark J. White
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White, M.J. (1996). Belligerent Beginnings: JFK on the Opening Day. In: The Cuban Missile Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230374508_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230374508_5
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