Alan Seeger	God knows 'twere better to be deep pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, oulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... but I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, when Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous. Fragment of I have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seege, found in the ruins of the White House which was destroyed 27th October 1962.
War Poet

Around noon that day a Lockheed U-2 piloted by Rudolph Anderson was shot down by a S-75 Dvina SAM emplacement in Cuba, increasing the stress in negotiations between the USSR and the U.S. It was later learned that the decision to fire was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 p.m., several RF8U Crusader aircraft on low-level photoreconnaissance missions were fired upon, and one was hit by a 37 mm shell but managed to return to base. At 4 p.m. Kennedy recalled the executive committee to the White House and ordered that a message immediately be sent to U Thant asking if the Soviets would "suspend" work on the missiles while negotiations are carried out. During this meeting, Maxwell Taylor delivered the news that the U-2 had been shot down. Kennedy had earlier claimed he would order an attack on such sites if fired upon, and now he was trapped in his own logic..

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