This means that, if there is sufficient evidence that the USSR is planning to attack, we Hit the Button. Another thing is that the the Missile Gap that Kennedy won the '60 election with didn't exist.
In fact, when Monster McNamara actually asked to see the true targeting intelligence, he went pale when he found that the Pentagon was having to target small town police stations, just to use all the available delivery systems and warheads.
The Cuban Crisis was because while Khrushchev KNEW he had a pair of deuces to a Spade Royal Flush, he didn't think Kennedy the Goat had the moral courage to actually pull the trigger.
Read "A Country Made by War" by Geoffrey Perret.
Robert McNamara “Secretary of Defense”
Date of Birth Date of Death
(June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009)
He was Secretary of Defense for John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War.
That evil man was of no morality, nor bravery, nor honor, nor moral direction, nor even understanding of right and wrong, caused the death of many of those names on the Black Wall of Granite at the Vietnam Memorial.
He should have been at that wall every day on his knees begging forgiveness. He did not.