The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 is the best documented case study of decision-making by a United States president at a time of grave international peril.
Unfortunately, those 13 tension-filled days when the world stood on the brink of a nuclear precipice have become encrusted with myth and political spin.
US Air Force RF-101 reconnaissance plane entering Cuba at the height of the crisis
Over the last three years, I spent thousands of hours interviewing missile crisis veterans and combing through archives in the US, Russia, Cuba, and Britain to assemble a minute-by-minute account of the crisis.
In the process, I uncovered numerous examples of bad information flowing into, and out of, the White House. "What the president didn't know, and when he didn't know it" was a recurring theme in my research.
My conclusion: the beginning of wisdom for any president - from John F Kennedy to George W Bush - is to understand that you are groping about in the dark.
It turns out that much of what we think we know about one of the most studied episodes in modern history is either inaccurate or incomplete. Even more alarming, much of what Kennedy thought he knew about Soviet actions and motivations rested on flawed intelligence reports.
Far from being an example of "matchlessly calibrated" diplomacy - a term used by Camelot historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr - the missile crisis is better understood as a prime illustration of the ever-present "screwup factor" in world affairs.
Here is a short list of some of the myths surrounding the Cuban missile crisis:
Eyeball to eyeball
The "eyeball to eyeball" myth. The notion that US warships were minutes away from a confrontation with Soviet freighters transporting missiles to Cuba has persisted for over 45 years. The reported comment of Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked" - has become part of missile crisis mythology.
John F Kennedy makes a national television speech 22 October 1962
The eyeball to eyeball moment is described in some detail in Robert F Kennedy's memoir, Thirteen Days, and Graham Allison's political science classic, Essence of Decision.
Declassified CIA records and Russian archives show that it never happened. The Soviet missile-carrying ships were at least 500 nautical miles away from the quarantine line at the time of the supposed confrontation, steaming back toward the Soviet Union.
By using intelligence reports to plot the positions of Soviet ships, I was stunned to discover that Khrushchev took the decision to avoid a confrontation with the US Navy more than 24 hours earlier.
'We knew the facts'
The "we knew the facts" myth. This was part of the Kennedy spin in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. It is true that the president received good (if belated) intelligence on the status of Soviet medium-range missiles on Cuba capable of hitting targets in the US.
But he was grossly misinformed about the numbers of Soviet troops on the island, and the fact that they were equipped with tactical nuclear weapons, which could have been used to wipe out an American invading force.
Based on interviews with Soviet participants and American intelligence records, I show that the Soviets deployed nuclear cruise missiles to within 15 miles of the Guantanamo naval base on the night of 26-27 October. The Soviets had sent 80 14-kiloton cruise missile warheads (roughly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima) to Cuba for local battlefield use.
FKR nuclear cruise missile, similar to the ones targeted on Guantanamo during the crisis
Defense secretary Robert McNamara told JFK on 20 October that there were 6,000 to 8,000 Soviet "technicians" on Cuba. In fact, there were 43,000 heavily armed Soviet troops on the island at this point.
The "fully in control" myth. While there is no evidence of military insubordination on either the American or the Russian side during the crisis, there are many examples of the inability of both Kennedy and Khrushchev to fully control their own forces. Any one of these incidents could have led to a nuclear 