uld come to be known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or as it would later be known and shortened to simply Ex Comm.(Brugioni p.45) This would be the group of Washington’s sharpest and most influential minds that would more or less decide the fate of the nation and the world. A heavy responsibility would be carried on their shoulders. If they failed they we would take the entire nation with them.The group would come to include Charles Bohlen, the old Kremlin hand who was recently named U.S. ambassador to France. Beside Bohlen it would include Secretary of State Dean Rusk, as well as Undersecretary of State George Ball and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Edwin M. Martin, as well as Ambassador at Large Llewellyn Thompson. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his deputies Roswell Gilpatric and Paul Nitze represented the Defense Department. John McCone, head of the CIA, away on an urgent family matter, was replaced by his deputy Marshall “Pat” Carter, and the CIA was also represented by the head of the NPIC, Arthur Lundahl, whose analysts had found the missile sites on the U-2 photographs. General Maxwell Taylor came as chairman of the JCS. Rounding out the group were McGeorge Bundy and the Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen, as well as Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon. Last but not least this group of Washington’s sharpest minds was joined and highly influenced by the President’s brother and closest advisor, the Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy.(May & Zelikow p.8-12)Robert F. Kennedy would prove to be one of the most, if not the most important person responsible in deciding the fate of the two world superpowers and essentially the entire world next to Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union, and his own brother, John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States. Even before the crisis reached a head when th...
