Fred Kaplan's article in the October 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, "JFK's First Strike Plan," shows that key White House officials and the President himself briefly considered proposals for a limited nuclear first strike against Soviet military targets in the event that the Berlin crisis turned violent. As Kaplan shows, Kennedy was aware of the first-strike plan but was even more interested in finding ways to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. The following are some of the documents that are central to Kaplan's presentation.