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Paul Nitze
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Paul Nitze: It seemed to me at the time and it seemed to me since that the questions were easy in the Cuban missile crisis. We had both a conventional superiority around Cuba -- which we demonstrated thoroughly by making all their submarines surface -- and God knows what on sea and land and air. So, we had total local control over Cuba. And we had clear and dominant strategic nuclear superiority at the time. There wasn't any doubt about that. If we let those missiles actually continue in deployment there at Cuba, then it would have become doubtful. Therefore, it was essential for us to get those missiles out of Cuba. But, until they had gotten them operational and ready to use them, we were in a dominant position and the Soviets couldn't contemplate going to war with us at the time, either in Berlin or any other place because they would risk that we would be the ones that would escalate to a nuclear war and they couldn't tolerate that. Therefore, it seemed to me, we could operate with full confidence. We ought to do it with a minimum use of force that was necessary to get the results we wanted. The clear way to do that was to start with a blockade, we called it a quarantine. If that worked, why the show was over. If they withdrew their weapons from Cuba as a result of that quarantine, then we had won. If they didn't, we might have to attack those weapons before they could be fired, take them out. If we could do that, then the show was over and we had won. If we couldn't do that, if the Russians wouldn't take them out, then we had to invade the islands. Capture them, dig them out by hand. In the meantime, I thought there was zero chance, almost zero -- you could never be sure that somebody wouldn't be a madman -- but very little chance that the Soviets would retaliate because they weren't in a position to so do. So I was not worried during the crisis.
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Paul Nitze
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Paul Nitze: I've often had doubts. Almost all the time. If you are dealing with the important issues, none of them are clear. Why do they hire people in the policy business? Because policy issues wouldn't be policy issues if you could just put them into a computer and get the answer to it. They're policy issues because the odds that one side or the other of a given issue is right are probably in the range of 48 percent to 52 [percent], or something like that. There isn't a clear choice. Then you have got to make up your mind on something that is very complex and decide that the odds are better for this side of the issue than that side, but it's touch and go. It's a hazardous business to deal with policy. That's why you get well treated if you are in the policy business because it is a hazardous game.
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Antonia Novello
Former Surgeon General of the United States
(My teacher) called my mother and despite of the fact that I was 20, she called my mother to tell her, "I want her to have surgery." And, my mother said, "She's 20. She can speak for herself. Do you want it?" I said, "Mommy, if I have to have that surgery without any explanation or no limitation, I think I'd rather die." And, Mommy said, "It is your body and you will take care of it they way you want to." And that was the end of it. But, it was painful because people make decisions for you in your benefit without asking you what is good for you.
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Sir Trevor Nunn
Theatrical Director
Unquestionably, the first few weeks when I took on running The Royal Shakespeare Company, it wasn't just self-doubt. I mean I was deeply frightened. I was frightened that I was going to be exposed, or even -- you know, I was going to have to go through the ignominy of being rebelled against. You know, that there were people working for me who were going to say, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to go on doing this because I don't respect the leadership sufficiently." I mean, I was deeply frightened that that was going to happen. There have been a number of other occasions, but it's to do with trusting your judgment. At one stage we were in bad financial shape at Stratford, and I decided to do a rare Shakespeare play and to spend more on the design image of it than had been spent on other productions. People said, "This is totally crazy, with the financial situation that we're in." And I said, "I think we've got to give the opposite message. I think we've got to get people into the theater because we're giving them more and the word will spread." Having taken that decision, in the weeks or the days immediately prior to the opening of that, yes, I was deeply frightened that that was a mistake and that would mean the end of the regime, the end of my job. And the opposite happened.
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Sir Trevor Nunn
Theatrical Director
If you can't fully believe in your ideas, it very quickly communicates to a group of actors who need something to hold onto. They need to believe that whatever criticism, whatever comment is received, is meant. And, if they pick up the message of "I might mean this. On the other hand, I'm feeling rather doubtful about myself, so maybe I don't mean it. And maybe you've got a better idea. Or maybe actually what he said is better." Then, of course, chaos reigns. And self-doubt is something that communicates very quickly through an acting company. It's contagious.
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