News Snapshot:
The politics of fear sells. In his successful 1960 campaign for president, then Senator John F. Kennedy seized on the dangers of the missile gap – a presumed Soviet superiority in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Kennedy exploited anxiety all the way to the White House. Yet the missile gap was a myth . Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara admitted as much to Kennedy in 1962, claiming “emotionally guided but nonetheless patriotic individuals in the Pentagon” were responsible. McNamara then warned Kennedy, “There are still people of that kind in the Pentagon. I wouldn’t give them any foundation...
