Now McCone peered through his rimless glasses at the note, which seemed to puzzle him. Eventually he said: “Mr. President, we’ve just received information from the Office of Naval Intelligence that all six Soviet ships currently in Cuban waters have either stopped or reversed course.”

George thought: What the hell does that mean?

Dean Rusk, the bald, pug-nosed secretary of state, asked: “What do you mean, Cuban waters?”

McCone did not know.

Bob McNamara, the Ford president whom Kennedy had made secretary of defense, said: “Most of these ships are outbound, from Cuba to the Soviet Union—”

“Why don’t we find out?” the president interrupted tetchily. “Are we talking about ships leaving Cuba or ships coming in?”

McCone said: “I’ll find out,” and he left the room.

The tension rose another notch.

George had always imagined that crisis meetings in the White House would be supernaturally high-powered, with everyone supplying the president with accurate information so that he could make a wise judgment. But this was the greatest crisis ever, and all was confusion and misunderstanding. That made George even more afraid.

When McCone came back in he said: “These ships are all westbound, all inbound for Cuba.” He listed the six vessels by name.

McNamara spoke next. He was forty-six, and the phrase whiz kid had been invented for him when he turned the Ford Motor Company from loss to profit. President Kennedy trusted him more than anyone else in the room except Bobby. Now from memory McNamara reeled off the positions of all six ships. Most were still hundreds of miles from Cuba.

The president was impatient. “Now, what do they say they’re doing with those, John?”

McCone replied: “They either stopped or reversed direction.”

“Is this all the Soviet ships, or just selected ones?”

“This is a selected bunch. There are twenty-four altogether.”

Once again McNamara interrupted with the key information. “It looks as though these are the ships closest to the quarantine barrier.”

George whispered to Skip Dickerson, sitting next to him: “The Soviets seem to be pulling back from the brink.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Skip murmured.

The president said: “We’re not planning to grab any of those, are we?”

McNamara said: “We’re not planning to grab any ship that is not proceeding to Cuba.”

General Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, picked up a phone and said: “Get me George Anderson.” Admiral Anderson was the chief of naval operations and was in charge of the blockade. After a few seconds Taylor began speaking quietly.

There was a pause. Everyone was trying to absorb the news and figure out what it meant. Were the Soviets giving in?

The president said: “We ought to check first. How do we find out if six ships are simultaneously turning? General, what does the navy say about this report?”

General Taylor looked up and said: “Three ships are definitely turning back.”

“Be in touch with the Essex and tell them to wait an hour. We have to move quickly because they’re going to intercept between ten thirty and eleven.”