Was John Scali's role in the crisis shorted?...

I wish I still had the special issue of Foreign Affairs from the 1990s, which was dedicated to a conference held involving surviving officials from the U.S. and the former Soviet Union who met to trade notes, as it were. Robert McNamara wrote an article in which he said, if I recall correctly, that the backdoor deal was initiated much sooner -- almost at the beginning. Kruschev was adamant that he did not want a war. The trick was for him to back down without saving face, and trying to put the deal together was the real crux. So the reporter did deserve more credit than he got in most histories of the crisis.