On October 16, 1962, President Kennedy learned that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile installations in Cuba. For the next six days the president and his advisers secretly deliberated about the American response. The new threat not only upset the nuclear balance but also placed nuclear missiles capable of destroying most U.S. cities on the territory of a new enemy, Premier Fidel Castro. As the Kennedy administration strove to keep this alarming news secret, it nevertheless shared it with the new acting secretary general of the United Nations, a quiet unassuming Burmese diplomat named U Thant.2 Specifically, on Saturday, October 20, 1962, Admiral John McCain, military adviser at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, informed Thant's military adviser, Major General Indar Jit Rikhye, about the missiles.3 General Rikhye went to the Pentagon for a secret briefing...

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