[smacktoward]

But it's not secret from your adversary ("the enemy" that you're not supposed to show weakness to), since you're making the secret offer to him.

If anything, the lesson of the crisis is how important it can be to keep from looking weak in front of your friends. Kennedy kept the missile deal secret from the American people for a good reason: he may very well have been impeached had he made it public, and it would have shaken the confidence of our other NATO allies in our overseas commitments if they learned that Kennedy had removed the protection of (obsolete, but still) nuclear weapons from NATO-member Turkey in response to Soviet pressure. And winning even a small concession from Kennedy is probably the only thing that saved Khrushchev from being toppled in a coup by Soviet hard-liners after the Cuba debacle.

Sometimes your friends can be the worst enemies of all!

[jballanc]

Very well put! (I was going to mention that, in reality, it's all about everyone else who's watching, but I think you did a better job explaining it.)

What's most interesting is that (based on anecdotal evidence), lost liberty and ridiculous security theater has done much more to harm America's image among it's "friends" than among it's enemies. I doubt Afghanistan or Pakistan care much about American airport security, but when I'm at Istanbul International, and the flight to JFK is the only one in the entire airport that requires extra screening, I see what that must look like to every European there (hint: they aren't thinking about what a great place this U S of A must be...).

[chii]

"Sometimes your friends can be the worst enemies of all!"

Thats why you keep your enemy close, but your friends closer!