What a speech. My grandma used to talk about how scary those weeks were. Her and the rest of the family(and MANY others) thought the world was about to end. I think JFK is overrated in general and wasn't even in office long enough to achieve many things but he deserves to be lumped in with the greats based on his handling of this crisis alone.
I've read several books on this crisis. The Soviets were a cunt hair away from being annihilated. Crazy how the so called "missile gap" was actually lopsided in our favor and we had a legitimate shot at taking them out with worst case scenario a couple US cities being hit. Would have been horrific no doubt but I can see why he was able to talk so tough during this crisis when he knew it wasn't a bluff.
The disaster on the US side wouldn't have been in Russia. It would have been Cuba. Talks of a Cuba invasion without knowing tactical nukes would have been raining down on our troops.
The world is lucky Kruschev blinked.