Foreign Policy: “The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy”

What people came to understand about the Cuban missile crisis -- that JFK succeeded without giving an inch -- implanted itself in policy deliberations and political debate, spoken or unspoken. It's there now, all these decades later, in worries over making any concessions to Iran over nuclear weapons or to the Taliban over their role in Afghanistan. American leaders don't like to compromise, and a lingering misunderstanding of those 13 days in October 1962 has a lot to do with it. Leslie H. Gelb

We may learn from history only if we know the entire truth…