Humphrey will be inheriting what JFK did from the Eisenhower administration. That being an outdated geopolitical nuclear strategy of going fully nuclear if the Soviets sneeze too badly, and giving too much nuclear authority to generals in the field, too much independence to the Joint Chiefs (Kennedy had to ask what our war plans were and the Joint Chiefs told him no at first, and they turned out to be a blunt, clinical atomic genocide, which disgusted Kennedy), and lax oversight to the president in that regard, which would have resulted in disaster in the event anything like a Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. Debatable that the Cuban Crisis would have but a similar awkward situation was possible. Also, Ike's Joint Chiefs, who were militant and whom Kennedy lacked the clout to get rid of at once (which he planned to do piece meal). There are also the situations in Berlin and Laos, with the additional issue of South Vietnam. That defines how a 1960 president crafts the Cold War. However, it would be Humprey's crafting and definition rather than Kennedy's, drawn from his thinking and personality. This is a critical juncture, and on a note of bias, thank god it was Kennedy who reformed the nuclear strategy to something that had oversight, could be analyzed, and could be managed.