The Ghost of October 1962 Hovers Over Us

"Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war."

Those words were delivered in June, 1963 by then-President John F. Kennedy at American University in Washington, DC. It was the conclusory lesson he drew from the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis the previous year.

An entirely different dynamic exists now between the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA than existed in October, 1962

"Listen. You tell them those chains of command end at one place - me!" - President John F. Kennedy to Kenneth O'Donnell regarding Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis, per Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.

And for those who believe that the US can continue to give Ukraine bombs to drop on Russia without Russia holding the US culpable, there's this from that same book:

"A missile is a missile...it makes no great difference whether you were killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or Cuba." - Secretary of Defense Robert S McNamara, in reference to US doctrine that a missile installed by the Soviet Union in Cuba, if fired upon the United States, would be treated as an attack by the Soviet Union upon the United States "requiring a full retaliatory response". October, 1962.

At the conclusion of his memoir on the subject, Senator Robert F Kennedy, Sr. wrote:

"At the outbreak of the First World War the ex-Chancellor of Germany, Prince von Bulow, said to his successor, 'How did it all happen?' 'Ah, if only we knew,' was the reply."

If the current situation gets further out of hand, there will be no one to raise such questions.

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