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would “not transport armaments of any kind to Cuba” during negotiations. For all its high emotional tenor, the letter proposed a subtle, carefully constructed solution. Everything would change, Khrushchev wrote, if Kennedy gave assurances “that the USA itself would not participate in an attack on Cuba and would restrain others from actions of this sort.” Kennedy would have to call off his covert operations against Cuba and rein in the Cuban exiles and their attacks on Castro’s regime. If that was done, as the Soviet leader saw it, “the question of armaments would disappear,” and there would be no reasons for Russian missiles.

I don’t know whether you can understand me and believe me. But I should like to have you believe in yourself and to agree that one cannot give way to passions…. Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot. And what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries dispose.

The next morning Kennedy received a second, more formal letter in which Khrushchev proposed a new element. The United States would not only have to make its all-encompassing noninvasion pledge but also remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. This latter idea had been discussed in Ex Comm meetings, broached with Bolshakov, and in other ways thrown on the table as a possibility. The Soviets announced over Radio Moscow their offer of a compromise, letting the world see what Kennedy himself realized would be regarded by most people “as not an unreasonable solution.”

In this moment the cold war had reached its high point, not only in its imminent dangers but also in all the posturing of power. The military chiefs were the most adamant in their opposition to trading off these missiles for a result some would dare call peace. They stirred restlessly, fancying themselves in a death struggle against an implacable Communist foe. Stripped of their ideological veneer, Generals LeMay and Taylor were like the brightly plumed gentlemen leading the cavalry in the charge of the light brigade during the Crimean War. These military chiefs stood in their stirrups, swords raised, ready to charge through the valley of death in the name of honor.

“The missiles [in Turkey] were worthless in the Eisenhower administration,” reflected McNamara two decades later. “They sure as hell were worthless and known to be worthless in the Kennedy administration. And yet, because the Soviets … said, in effect … ‘We won’t remove our missiles from Cuba unless you remove yours from Turkey,’ there was almost a requirement that we go to war with the Soviets to preserve missiles in Turkey that were worthless.”

Kennedy was in a predicament of excruciating difficulty. Khrushchev might coo his sweet song of peace, but as he did so his soldiers hurried to finish their Cuban missile bases. At least five bases already appeared operational. As Kennedy discussed a response with the civilian leaders of Ex Comm, the Joint Chiefs were preparing for Oplan 312, a full-scale air strike on October 29, followed seven days later by Oplan 316, the invasion of Cuba. The military leaders believed that they had to overwhelm the enemy. First, waves of air strikes would pulverize the missile sites, the airports, and the military facilities. Then the most massive American invasion since D-Day would move rapidly through the shell-shocked, demoralized defenders.

Bombing rarely decimates an enemy. Some of the missile sites may have survived, and surely many of the Cubans and their Soviet allies on the island would have defended it to the death. Moreover, the military chiefs did not know that the Soviet weapons included tactical nuclear-tipped missiles. Most of these Luna missiles would not be taken out in air