re: #6 Barefoot Grin

Curtis Lemay from Wiki:

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962[edit]
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, LeMay clashed again with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Defense Secretary McNamara, arguing that he should be allowed to bomb nuclear missile sites in Cuba. He opposed the naval blockade and, after the end of the crisis, suggested that Cuba be invaded anyway, even after the Soviets agreed to withdraw their missiles. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey and Italy. Unknown to the US, the Soviet field commanders in Cuba had been given authority to launch nuclear weapons under their control—the only time such authority was delegated by higher command.[30] They had at least twenty nuclear warheads for medium-range R-12 Dvina (NATO Code SS-4 Sandal) ballistic missiles capable of reaching US cities (including Washington), each carrying a one megaton warhead (equivalent to 50 Hiroshima bombs), and nine tactical nuclear missiles. If Soviet officers had launched them, many millions of US citizens could have been killed. The ensuing SAC retaliatory thermonuclear strike would have killed roughly one hundred million Soviet citizens. Kennedy refused LeMay’s requests, however, and the naval blockade was successful.[30]

That would have been extinction for humanity, in all likelihood.