. In his book Thirteen Days , Robert Kennedy describes the benefits of the President keeping the secret under wraps until he could find the best course of action. Robert Kennedy writes, " If our deliberations had been publicized, if we had to make the decision in 24 hours, I believe the course that we ultimately would have taken would have been quite different and failed with greater risk."
President Kennedy had wanted the members of Ex.Comm. to come to a unanimous decision on the best plan of action. As his brother Robert pointed out, this was an impossible thing to accomplish. Many members changed sides daily as the pros and cons of each scenario are hashed out. A visible reminder to their tired and sleepy eyes was a sign that hung from…show more content… Kennedy asked U.S. Air Force General Sweeney if an air strike could be guaranteed to destroy all the missiles being deployed in Cuba. Tactical Air Commander Sweeney admitted that he could not guarantee they would all be destroyed. the joint chiefs were not only not dismayed, they advocated hitting the missile sites and all the other weapons in Cuba that could possibly threaten the United States or its base at Guantanamo. Kennedy referred to this aggressive approach as "One hell of a gamble."Kennedy decided to take the more flexible approach of establishing a naval blockade around Cuba. This smaller and more prudent step would be a more credible argument to the world that the United States was justified in upholding the Monroe Doctrine. Most importantly , the blockade , which was called a quarantine since blockade was technically an act of war, would put the onus of a decision back to Khrushchev without forcing Khrushchev to do something rash and foolhardy. Former secretary of state Dean Acheson gives his main criticism to the blockade, thusly, "The decision to resort to the blockade was a decision to postpone the issue at the expense of time within which the nuclear weapons might be made
