I will just answer it so we can move on...
This is from an article on Khrushchev...
"On October 26, Khrushchev sent Kennedy another letter. In this he proposed that the Soviet Union would be willing to remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a promise by the United States that they would not invade Cuba. The next day a second letter from Khrushchev arrived demanding that the United States remove their nuclear bases in Turkey.
While the president and his advisers were analyzing Khrushchev's two letters, news came through that a U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. The leaders of the military, reminding Kennedy of the promise he had made, argued that he should now give orders for the bombing of Cuba. Kennedy refused and instead sent a letter to Khrushchev accepting the terms of his first letter.
Khrushchev agreed and gave orders for the missiles to be dismantled."
Even though the second, more threatening, letter came later, Kennedy, in a brilliant move, pretended that he had never seen it and replied to the first, more conciliatory, letter instead.
It worked and we are all still alive today to look back in wonder and terror at how close we came to the edge.
