The boy’s mother finished dressing her son for school in front of the television. He stood, she sat, putting on his coat. The boy noticed her distraction, her eyes were on the television and she did not speak, her brow was knitted and she leaned forward, zipping up his coat and intently watching as the announcer said “World War III could begin at any moment.” Snug against the October morning chill the boy walked the two blocks to school.

That was fifty years ago.  We are just into the fortnight that in 1962 brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer to nuclear war than ever, before or since.  On October 16, President Kennedy was informed of the reconnaissance discovery of Soviet missiles being installed in Cuba.

That evening ExComm, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council met. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously favored an invasion of Cuba. The president and Secretary of Defense McNamara demurred.

On October 18 the president met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko but did not reveal what he knew about the missiles in Cuba.

On October 19 reconnaissance flights showed four fully operational launch sites in Cuba but ExComm was now split between a full-scale invasion and a blockade.