I smiled at them, trying hard to disguise my tears with a feigned strength, for we should all press hard on the wound and rise high to avenge the blood of martyrs, the blood of my mother, of Mustafa and of Mahmoud.

Khrushchev offered a vivid metaphor in one of his letters to Kennedy We and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war.