Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Clockwise from top right side of table: Under Secretary of State George Ball, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Deputy Secretary of

Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Clockwise from top right side of table: Under Secretary of State George Ball, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul Nitze, Acting Director of the United States Information Agency Donald Wilson, Special Counsel to the President Theodore C. Sorensen, Special Assistant to the President for National Security McGeorge Bundy (mostly hidden), Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (mostly hidden), Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency William C. Foster, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John McCone (mostly hidden behind Director Foster) in the cabinet room during meeting with U.S. President John F. Kennedy regarding the crisis in Cuba, White House, Washington, D.C., USA, Cecil W. Stoughton, White House Photographs, October 29, 1962. (Photo by: Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)