Whatever the final outcome of the Cuban confrontation, it cannot be doubted that the decisive action taken by the United States has scuttled, for the present at least, the Soviet Union's offensive military base in the Western hemisphere. That it has not settled the “Cuban problem” is, in terms of the intent of the recent action, true but irrelevant. It was not designed to settle the problem of Cuba but to eliminate the menacing military presence of the Soviet Union in Cuba.

The decision to check this dramatic extension of Soviet military capability met with substantial popular approval, however varied and incompatible the reasons, however strange the bedfellows.