sometimes there is only one right choice, and you thank god when it's clear.
you weren't so ethically particular when we were talking about options for removing castro over at cia.
mr. president, there are still those of us who believe we should proceed with the strikes. with the blockade, we lose strategic surprise and we run the risk of a first strike if the soviets decide they have to use the missiles or lose them.
or they could use it as an excuse to escalate.
the pictures will be used to firm up our estimates of the missiles' readiness and develop target packages for strikes should you order them.
even if they force it up, that sub will be inspected over the crews' dead bodies. they'd be executed for allowing it when they got home.
mr. president.
mr. president!
sir, we have the tally from nsa. we have twenty ships stopping and or turning around. six, however, appear to be continuing for the line. including the gagarin and kimovsk.
one ship, an accident maybe. six: this is intentional.
if we do, it erodes the credibility of the quarantine. he'll just send more through tomorrow.
the alternative, mr. president, is that this could be a trap.
why else would they approach us in this way? it's deniable. the soviets have done nothing but lie to us. this could be more of the same.
that may be what they want us to think.
so we don't have much time to play out back-channel communiques.
our early analysis says this was probably written by khruschev himself. it's a first draft, and shows no signs of being polished by the foreign ministry. in fact, it probably hasn't been approved by the politburo. they wouldn't have let the emotionalism go by. the analysts say it was written by someone under considerable stress.
my specialists are in agreement: this morning's letter is not khruschev. last night's letter was. the evidence supports only one conclusion: there has been a coup, and khruschev was replaced overnight.
mr. president, taken with the events of the past few hours, i believe this confirms our worst fears. we're now dealing with a hard-line soviet government, perhaps with khruschev as a puppet head, perhaps not.
it won't work --
-- because it's wishful thinking! it's the same wishful thinking that blinded us all these months while the soviets were sneaking those missiles in under our noses!
it's transparent. the press'll be all over it.
they could pre-empt.
we've ordered crash reassessment of our major geopolitical hotspots. we've got a lot of new clout, and we can run the table on the soviets. middle east, southeast asia.
we were lucky we were able to keep it under control.