When Daily Intelligence Briefings Prevented a Nuclear War [View all]

[applegrove]

By JOSH ZEITZ at Politico

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/trump-daily-intelligence-briefings-history-jfk-cuban-missile-crisis-214521

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On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said he doesn’t need to get daily intelligence briefings—now or after his inauguration on January 20—because he is, “like, a smart person.”

Before he does away with the ritual, he might want to consider a particular time in history when a president did his homework, took his briefings, paid attention to the details and in so doing averted a nuclear war.


It was October 19, 1962—the fourth day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union seemed more likely by the hour—and John F. Kennedy was hosting a tense, 45-minute conversation with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had since the very beginning of the confrontation urged a massive air strike against Cuban targets.

Leaning back in his leather swivel chair, his expression icy and resolute, Kennedy listened with pique as Air Force General Curtis LeMay denounced the president’s plan to impose a blockade on Cuba, rather than launch an offensive military campaign. The blockade was “almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich,” LeMay indecorously told the president. It was a “weak response” and “a lot of our citizens would feel that way, too. In other words, you’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.” Kennedy was in near-disbelief. “What did you say?” he asked.


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