In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev himself clarified the matter. "It would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba - for a country 12,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable. [So much for all the media and Hollywood hype of those peril-filled "Thirteen Days."] We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along, security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey. I love telling this fact to my friends who think Jack Effin Krap is da best. It's like telling a five-year-old kid that there's no Santa Claus. The dejected look on their faces is priceless.