You should read Ellison's book. It really is classic. It is assigned in business schools to exemplify management and decision making.
Diplomatically it was a GREAT move. Problem is that it was a WAR! You don't act diplomatically in a war, you go for the throat! To me Kennedy's finest hour was tax cuts and his support of Civil Rights. To quote Alexander Hamilton, "A nation that can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one." REgan used that also. As far as I am concerned, KEnnedy made a bad move. He should have takent he risk and demanded Kruschev gank the missiles. We had the advantage and Krushev wasn't going to be the first one to press the proverbial button.
Diplomatically it was a GREAT move. Problem is that it was a WAR! You don't act diplomatically in a war, you go for the throat! To me Kennedy's finest hour was tax cuts and his support of Civil Rights. Going for the throat meant mushroom clouds over Miami and Washington. Kennedy did indeed enact an impressive tax cut. As for Civil Rights, he was too timid to take on the Dixiecrats. The Voting Rights Act, which had languished under him, was actually promoted and passed by LBJ.
I'd say that may be a drastic thing to say. I think Lemay's idea (which was thought to be suicide) of saying "Get them out or we will take them out." would have been the right move. It was strong and decisive. Look at the blockade. They tried to be diplomatic with that! It was a blockade but no no, that's to strong of wording, let's call it a "Quarantine." Kennedy was a charismatic guy (not that I'd know first hand, he preceded my time obviously) but a poor leader. He supported good things, but didn't know how or when to be strong. I don't think Nixon would have been much better and LBJ wasn't impressive on many fronts either. Look, Kruschev was weak and Kruschev knew as well as anyone else that Kennedy was going to press the button first, but he'd glady press it second. He knew that he'd die jsut as quickly as Kennedy would if he pressed it. I'd say that while it was the closest to nuclear war we've ever been, and it was "close," it wasn't going to happen without Kruschev being disposed of rather quickly.
