- “The President…is very isolated in the thinking he has to do and the concerns he has to take under consideration, even in the presence of a group like the ExComm. (p. 107)
Lessons: In crises, realize that the ultimate decisions rest with the person in charge.
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- “ExComm didn’t advise the President on the politics of the event. Somebody should have been able to do that.” (p. 107)
Lesson: The president should be advised on the domestic and political ramifications of a crisis.
Cited in James G. Blight and David Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989).
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- “From the Cuban missile crisis, both sides seem to have drawn an abiding mutual interest in the avoidance of destruction by mutual miscalculation. Since then they also may have been discovering a shared distaste for the political risks of nuclear proliferation in a multipolar world.” (25)
Lesson: The crisis led the U.S. and Soviet to take fewer risks, given their newfound fears of destruction by mutual miscalculation.
Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership with Reflections on Johnson and Nixon (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976).
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