As his advisors deliberated during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy believed that the chance of war with the Soviet Union was “between one in three and even.” Even if the President’s estimation was overly pessimistic, the fact that a leader would choose to initiate a crisis while believing there was such a high risk of a nuclear exchange is a most sobering thought. Some estimated that the number of dead resulting from a nuclear exchange between the superpowers could have exceeded 200 million people.