The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of distinction between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
-- Sir William Francis Butler
This study is a dramatic example of how the U.S. Navy's multipurpose ships and aircraft, flexible task organization, and great mobility enabled President Kennedy to protect national interests in one of the most serious confrontations of the Cold War. Curtis A. Utz is currently a historian in the Naval Historical Center's Contemporary History Branch.