You have to place JVN in his time on this issue. If you were a person with first hand knowledge of the atomic weapons program, access to the highest levels of national security, and a normal person's view of foreign policy (as in you were not a diplomat or experienced on the world stage) it's a coin flip whether you would have argued for restraint or first strike.

I've been learning about the Dulles brothers recently and the most hawkish Americans of this time period were a lot more hawkish than the neocons of today. I am very glad that cooler heads prevailed but I don't know that it should be such a knock on his reputation that he was in a different camp.