At that point he decided to put Soviet MRBMs in Cuba to dramatically increase target coverage for his strategic forces. A panic-stricken JFK had the AG (his brother!) back channel the terms of US surrender to Khrushchev: in return for not publicly humiliating Mr. Camelot, we would remove OUR missiles from Italy and Turkey, grant the USSR permanent basing rights 90 miles offshore and accept their UNVERIFIED word their missiles would be removed from Cuba. And so the great lie went forth: “The other guy blinked.”