“When the President came to the office the morning of October 29, 1962 he was thinking about a
“When the President came to the office the morning of October 29, 1962 he was thinking about a memento that he could give to all of those who participated in the meetings during the Cuban crisis. The one thing that was fixed in his mind was the idea of having the month of October on some kind of a background with the dates 16-28 either circled or standing out in a different print. He first thought of a lucite cigarette box… Then he thought there might be some who did not go in for cigarette boxes so he thought of the idea of having the calendar engraved on a silver plate to be attached to a piece of wood with the dates 16-28 in larger print. And he thought it would be nice to have his initials in one corner and the donee’s initials in the other…“The calendars arrived on Wednesday, November 28th, so on the morning of November 29 the President wanted them so that he could pass them out at the National Security Council Executive Committee meeting at 10:00 am. So the blue boxes containing the calendars were placed by his chair in the Cabinet Room and after everyone had been seated, and just before the meeting started, he distributed them. The men who did not attend the meeting received theirs either by hand delivery or by mail.“The President surprised me by having one made up for me and just before he went into the Cabinet Room that morning he handed it to me.”- Evelyn Lincoln’s description of the Cuban Missile Crisis memento, JFKPOF-098-007-p0007 -- source link