““For several crucial days, I believe, Kennedy and Khrushchev were each privately prepared to back down, “but not yet,” as they sparred with forces armed with thermonuclear weapons. If their bargaining had gone on one more day, then nearly all then-living humans might have died from it, and few if any now alive would ever have existed. Yet—have we had a president since World War II who would have acted in those circumstances more responsibly, more prudently? Do we have such a president now? Does Russia?””
