The histories of governments are in the main chronicles of recklessness and stupidity, redeemed every now and again by moments of genius and sheer good fortune.

Just over 50 years ago, as the confrontation between the US and Russia over Soviet plans to base nuclear missiles in Cuba moved ever closer to the kind of catastrophe that threatens world stability and peace, or whatever the current version of that is, US President John F Kennedy ordered that all senior American military commanders read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and seminal history of the first months of the First World War.

DESPITE presenting his side of the car-crash story and asking that it remain “a private matter,” Tiger Woods may still not be in the clear.