Existing comment:
Note handwritten by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy during the October 16, 1962 meeting, facsimile:
I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor.
Among the options under discussion was a surprise military strike against the missile sites. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later wrote that JFK opposed this tactic, in part, because it was "contrary to our traditions and ideals, and an act of brutality for which the world would never forgive us."
Some compared a U.S. surprise strike in Cuba to Japan's December 7, 1951, surprise attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor, ordered by Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. George Ball, Undersecretary of State, said "... if we act without a warning, that's like Pearl Harbor. ... It's the kind of conduct that one might expect of the Soviet Union. It is not conduct that one expects of the United States." |