Kennedy could have avoided the Cuban Missile Crisis by either forgoing the Bay-Of-Pigs invasion or supporting it fully and removing Castro. Dulles planned it expecting Eisenhower to be CIC when it went down...Kennedy’s heart just wasn’t aligned with the idea to take out Castro.
Khrushchev saw the action as a sign of weakness and was moved to the foolish ambit of placing Sandal medium-range missiles in Cuba with a 1000mi range and a 3mt warhead...and a few longer range that could hit everything but Seattle.
I have often wondered how things would be different if Nixon had won in 60?
Alot of the cultural and economic BS (The Great Society, lol) would not have happened (or been years delayed) had the Dims not stolen the election
Or had Nixon been a better candidate.