When Armageddon loomed
The black-and-white image is as familiar as it is iconic. The Oval Office photograph captures the solitude and solemnity of the U.S. presidency and the overwhelming sense that the young John F. Kennedy carried the weight of the nation on his ailing back. The picture, taken from behind, shows Kennedy with his head bent and his hands outstretched on his desk. It actually was taken in February 1961, only a month after he took office, yet it would come to symbolize the pressures of the Cuban missile crisis that unfolded more than a year later. The 13-day standoff in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had installed nuclear weapons in Cuba, is when analysts say the world came closest to nuclear Armageddon. The photo, christened “The Loneliest Job” by The New York Times, whose photographer George Tames snapped it, is part of a new website at the...