Robert F. Kennedy and Kennedy had a phone conversation on Oct. 23, 1962, in the midst of the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis during which the United States and the Soviet Union became involved in a tense stand-off over the question of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Kennedy had just received approval from the Organization of American States for a US defensive quarantine of Cuba. Kennedy said that he felt he had to respond harshly to this threat. "If they get this mean on this one, it's just a question of where they go about it next," he said. "No choice. I don't think there was a choice." "You would have been impeached," Robert F. Kennedy told him, saying later in the conversation, "You couldn't have done any less."
