The Cuban missile crisis the nearest brush in history with all out nuclear war is considered by many liberals as JFK's finest hour, a "combination of toughness and restraint, nerve and wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchlessly calibrated, that dazzled the world" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.[2]). "Neo liberals" define themselves as those who "deplore" the Kennedy who sponsored the Bay of Pigs, but "applaud" his handling of the Cuban missile crisis (Charles Peters[3]). The missile crisis has served as the source of countless lessons by academics and policymakers on how foreign policy ought to be conducted. Today, particularly as more of the relevant documentation becomes available, interest in the Cuban missile crisis continues, as do the efforts to portray Kennedy's finest hour as finer still. The missile crisis and the subsequent analyses illustrate as do few events in recent U.S. foreign policy the assumptions of the liberal worldview.