It was Springfield, Illinois – at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Recently discovered evidence in the archives of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston shows there was a serious breach of security in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis that could have altered the course of history.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of the most over-analyzed events in American history, so much so that it is hard to believe there is anything new to learn about the most nerve-wracking confrontation of the Cold War. Yet Americans both then and now were unaware of how close history came to be altered by President Kennedy’s assassination, in, of all places, Springfield, Illinois, the home and final resting place of Abraham Lincoln, on October 19, 1962, four days into the missile crisis.
John F. Kennedy left the White House that October morning in order to divert the media from the fact that a crisis was unfolding in the Caribbean. The President kept a previous commitment to travel to Illinois to campaign for Democratic congressional candidates in the 1962 off-year election. In the interim, Kennedy instructed his ExComm – Executive Committee of the National Security Council – to come up with options to present to him upon his return to Washington.
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