re: "refusing to start nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis (even though his military advisors were demanding it)"
That's revisionist history, Nemo. The truth is that Kennedy very nearly DID put us into a nuclear war, and for an incredibly STUPID reason. Nukes in Cuba? Who cares? Five years after the crisis, Soviet missile technology had improved to the point where we could be hit just as quickly and accurately, with BIGGER bombs, from a whole lot farther away. Not to mention from Soviet submarines just off our coast.
It was an ASININE gamble on Kennedy's part, precipitated by our own location of missiles in Turkey - which is comparable to Cuba in its proximity to Moscow.
Kennedy's move destroyed Krushchev - who chose to lose face and office rather than enter what might have been a world-ending war. It's doubtful that Brezhnev, Yeltin, Putin, and obviously Stalin, would have done the same.
Kennedy therefore got LUCKY. If he hadn't... if Krushchev hadn't been the mature one... at least 50 million Americans (a third of our population), and perhaps 500 million Earthlings, would have perished. And all because we put missiles in Turkey, prompting the Soviets to do the same with Cuba.
Kennedy won. But what did he win? He won five years. For that negligible amount of time, he gambled our planet... and our stupid society reveres him for it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
When the Cuban missile crisis is discussed, I think Khruschev is the one we should be praising. He sacrificed himself politically in order to avoid a nuclear war. Kennedy, obviously, wouldn't have done the same.
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