The zenith of Kennedy’s brief presidency was the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when he and his brother Robert stared down some of their own hawkish military and civilian advisors and found a way out that did not involve the catastrophic detonation of nuclear warheads. In JFK’s secret White House tapes of the crisis, Kennedy’s calm, rational discussion and decision-making style shines clearly through as that of a man who has, to use his own inaugural phrase, been “tempered by war,” a man whose character was forged in the cauldron of combat, military disaster,
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