In November 1962, while the thirteen days were still fresh in his mind, Robert Kennedy dictated a memorandum to himself. “The 10 or 12 people who had participated in all these discussions,” he said, “were bright and energetic people. We had perhaps amongst the most able in the country and if any one of half a dozen of them were President the world would have been very likely plunged into catastrophic war.”

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Foreword, Thirteen days: A memoir of the cuban missile crisis, New York, 1999, pp. 7–15, p. 16