古巴导弹危机时他并未试图侮辱或彻底压制苏联，反而从尼基塔·赫鲁晓夫的角度出发，同意以暗中拆除土耳其和意大利境内的美国导弹来换取苏联将导弹撤离古巴。
During the Cuban missile crisis, he did not try to humiliate or win a total victory over the Soviet Union. Rather, he put himself in Nikita Khrushchev’s shoes and agreed to dismantle, secretly, American missiles in Turkey and Italy in exchange for withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.