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,