Thread by @BeschlossDC

Yes, everything that should be old history is painfully new again:

Back cover of my book on years of Cuban Missile Crisis (1991):

Here is speech draft written for JFK's use if he ordered US armed forces to bomb Cuba and USSR missile sites, incurring immediate danger of nuclear attack against United States by Kremlin, October 1962:

JFK’s first military response to Soviet missile in Cuba was blockade of island (he euphemistically called it “quarantine”) to keep out Soviet vessels delivering more, October 1962:

In private, JFK drew his own map of Soviet missile sites on Cuba, October 1962:

Silver calendar given by JFK after thirteen days of Cuban Missile Crisis to Jackie (with her initials), as well as formal advisors:

Secret communications between Moscow and DC during Cuban Missile Crisis were so primitive that for a while, Soviet Ambassador in DC had to depend on Western Union messengers riding bicycles to deliver coded messages, October 1962:

JFK’s Cuban Missile Crisis speech is viewed in Third Avenue bar, New York, with unintendedly ominous message above door, October 1962: #Getty

Jackie Kennedy on being with JFK at White House during Cuban Missile Crisis (to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in 1964 posthumously-published interviews):

Underground bunker on Nantucket Island where JFK, as President, would have been taken from Hyannis Port in case of nuclear war: