Two Little Men Playing Chicken

"You were allied in a determination that the world should not be blown up.  The danger was that war might be started not so much by the big men as by the little ones.  While big men know the need for self-control and restraint, little men are sometimes moved more by fear and pride."
-- Jackie Kennedy, from her note to Nikita Kruschev after the assassination of JFK, recalling the existential threat of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

I was only eight years old in October of 1962, and I certainly lacked a full appreciation of what was at stake, but still, I could read the headlines, I could watch Huntley & Brinkley, and I could see the expression on my parents' faces.  Fidel Castro raged and foamed at the mouth and made inflammatory threats of thermonuclear war, but Kennedy and Kruschev were both, at heart, rational players and ultimately agreed to a mutual stand-down.  Armageddon was averted.

In his consultations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the crisis, JFK was at times a minority of one.  The military men (including Columbus' own USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay) were gung-ho to nuke Cuba into oblivion, but Kennedy resisted.  Aren't we glad he did?



In the game of chicken, two people drive headlong toward each other at high speed.  The rational person swerves at the last moment and "loses."  The crazy person keeps the pedal to the metal and "wins."

Today, we have two little men playing chicken, and our problem is they're both batshit crazy.

The world needs a rational player to intervene.  China?  Russia?  Japan?  Dennis friggin' Rodman?  Whoever, we need sense, reason, and all the help we can get.