Cuban Missile Crisis and that while the Kennedy Administration had agreed not to invade Cuba, they were only in process of determining Khrushchev's offer to withdraw from Turkey. When former US President Harry Truman called President Kennedy the day of Khrushchev's offer, the President informed him that his Administration had rejected the Soviet leader's offer to withdraw missiles from Turkey and was planning on using the Soviet setback in Cuba to escalate tensions in Berlin. The US continued the blockade; in the following days, aerial reconnaissance proved that the Soviets were making progress in removing the missile systems. The 42 missiles and their
Cuban Missile Crisis as "trigger-happy cowboys" who lost Berlin because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban situation. The EXCOMM then discussed the effect on the strategic balance of power, both political and military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the missiles would seriously alter the military balance, but McNamara disagreed. An extra 40, he reasoned, would make little difference to the overall strategic balance. The US already had approximately 5,000 strategic warheads, but the Soviet Union had only 300. McNamara concluded that the Soviets having 340 would not therefore substantially alter the strategic balance. In 1990, he reiterated that "it made