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JFK was advised in '62 to weigh striking Cuba

President John F. Kennedy was advised to consider air strikes and an invasion to knock out Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, records released Wednesday said. Gen. Maxwell S. Taylor, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the hawkish stand along with Secretary of State Dean Rusk during a tense 1962 meeting. Other members of the Kennedy Cabinet warned an attack would lead to war. The off-the-record meeting was in a heavily edited transcript released by the JFK Library in a timely parallel to the US invasion of Grenada.

Mr. Kennedy later announced a blockade of Cuba that led to withdrawal of medium-range ballistic missiles and Soviet troops.