On 14 October, a US spy plane revealed some of the missiles in Cuba, throwing JFK into an existential world crisis. He had found the hedgehog in his pants. ‘He can’t do this to me,’ he said, calling Khrushchev ‘a fucking liar’, an ‘immoral gangster’. It was the biggest crisis any president would face, and ultimately he proved his acumen, telling his Executive Committee, ‘Gentlemen, we’re going to earn our pay today.’
