The Cuban Missile Crisis: Necessary or Not? "…Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy- -or of a collective death-wish for the world" (Walton 142). -President John F. Kennedy Although it is regarded as a highlight of President John F. Kennedy's career, the Cuban Missile Crisis may not have been the heroic act it appeared. Contrary to his own statement as quoted above, his choices in dealing with Khruschev and the