In other words, what became the alternative history of the crisis— invading Cuba—was the one that would have unfolded if President Kennedy had not insisted on the blockade, and if Khrushchev had not accepted Kennedy’s public pledge never to invade Cuba, along with his secret commitment to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

Martin J. Sherwin, Gambling with armageddon: Nuclear roulette from hiroshima to the cuban missile crisis, 1945-1962, New York, 2020, p. 478