what the country learned only later was how well this suave exterior hid his secret life, the risky affairs, that if revealed, could have ruined everything. his addison s disease which had almost killed him in 47 and a back operation that required him to take steroids and reliance on energy-boosting amphetamines, which may have compromised his judgment. everything about his health was a lie. he looked like a god, but as bobby would say, if a mosquito bites my brother, the mosquito dies. but america, knowing none of this, had bigger worries, as the country faced numerous challenges. from the bay of pigs, the berlin wall. the toughest test came in october 1962, when u.s. spy planes photographed soviet nuclear missile bases in cuba,