During the Cuban Missile Crisis , Kennedy proved himself to be a gifted politician with an ability to obtain compromises , tempering aggressive positions of key figures in the hawk camp . The trust the President placed in him on matters of negotiation was such that his role in the crisis is today seen as having been of vital importance in securing a blockade , which averted a full military engagement between the United States and Soviet Russia . His clandestine meetings with members of the Soviet Government continued to provide a key link to Nikita Khrushchev during even the darkest moments of the Crisis , in which the threat of nuclear strikes was considered a very present reality . On the last night of the crisis , President Kennedy was so grateful for his brother 's work in averting nuclear war that he summed it up by saying , " Thank God for Bobby . " At the time that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22 , 1963 , RFK was at home with aides from the Justice Department . J. Edgar Hoover called and told him his brother had been shot . Hoover then hung up before he could ask any questions . Kennedy later said he thought Hoover had enjoyed telling him the news . Kennedy then received a call from Tazewell Shepard , a naval aide to the president , who told him that his brother was dead . Shortly after the call from Hoover , Kennedy phoned McGeorge Bundy at the White House , instructing him to change the locks on the president 's files . He ordered the Secret Service to dismantle the Oval Office and cabinet room 's secret taping systems . He scheduled a meeting with CIA director John McCone and asked if the CIA had any involvement in his brother 's death . McCone denied it , with Kennedy later telling investigator Walter Sheridan that he asked the director " in a way that he could n't lie to me , and they the CIA had n't "
was assassinated
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy