No More Learning

Even if the President had said something quite contrary, had cautioned the Soviets that now was the time for them to take seriously Secretary McNamara's message and the President's own language about proportioning military response to the provocation; if he had served notice that the United States would not be panicked into all-out war by a single atomic event,           one that might not have been fully premeditated by the Soviet leadership; his remarks still would not have elimi- nated thepossibility that a single Cuban missile, if it contained a nuclear warhead and exploded on the North American conti- nent, could have triggered the full frantic fury of all-out war.