Posted on 08/19/2017 8:55:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
While most of the US press was totally fixated on attaching the labels of racist, bigot, and white supremacist to the President, it totally missed one of the biggest stories in a generation—a nuclear war with North Korea was averted.
The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred during the 13 days from October 16th to the 28th of 1962. President Kennedy had recently gained solid evidence that the Soviet Union had placed both nuclear-armed bombers as well as nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba. And even though the US had deployed many more nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey, capable of annihilating Moscow and much of the Soviet military installations, Kennedy believed, at the height of the Cold War, that the risk of having any Soviet nuclear weapons pointed at US cities and only 90 miles off our shores was too great. All the US alliances in Europe and the far East would be in jeopardy if the Soviets could hold a gun to our heads. The entire balance of power would shift to the Soviets, or so was his calculation.
Kennedy personally made phone calls to the heads of the New York Times and other press organs asking that they not report on the specifics of the crisis. Instead of hating and attempting to depose the president, at that time, the press was totally compliant to the wishes of the most popular president in anyone’s memory. So only hazy details leaked out.
I remember as a twelve-year-old boy, sitting at the breakfast table on a Saturday morning, October 27th, and noticing my parents were speaking to one another in hushed and nervous tones, and thinking that I and my little brother would not know what they were discussing. And when my mother said very softly, “I can’t believe this is happening,” I knew exactly what was happening and could see that they were both very afraid. They had both lived through World War II. And it was an age when both super powers were still conducting above-ground testing of massive nuclear weapons.
On that same evening of October 27th, each of the exhausted members of Kennedy’s team of crisis advisors, code named ExCom, on their way out of the White House, were given an envelope with instructions as to where their families should go in the event of a nuclear attack. They were to go to a secret Virginia mountain facility where the surviving US government would emerge to find its capital in radio-active ruins.
America’s naval blockade of Cuba was already in place and was awaiting the next armada of ships from Soviet Russia, bringing more nuclear weaponry and now cruising in its direction. If the Soviets attempted to breach the blockade, Kennedy’s orders had already been given—total conventional and nuclear war was to commence. But on Sunday morning October 28th, Chairman Nikita Khrushchev, sent President Kennedy an urgent message—he would have the missiles removed, loaded on to ships and, along with the bombers sent back to the Soviet Union.
Six nights later, President Kennedy received confirmation that the procedure had started and made an announcement to the nation, stating in his oval-office address, “The Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled.” As my friend, Bruce Herschensohn, put it, “With those nine words, millions of people returned to the life they had feared would not be lived.”
Similarly, last Monday Kim Jong Un, after threatening to launch nuclear weapons over Japan and at the Island of Guam where the US maintains large military bases and from where we will launch our bombers if the order is given to take out North Korea, announced that he was backing down…for now.
This is the first in a series of articles on how the US is dealing with the “New Cuban Missile Crisis.” Stay tuned.
It part of the deal for the removal of the Russian missiles we removed our missiles in Turkey and Italy. Though this was not made public at the time.
But more importantly, we made a pledge to not invade Cuba; thus providing a permanent Communist base of operations 90 miles off the coast of the United States.
The problems of the 60s in Latin and Central America attest to the cost of this strategic blunder.
From our perspective, the Cuban Missile Crisis, though a tactical win, was a strategic failure.
Larry, get off crack. We were not on the verge of a nuclear war. What an idiot!
It was Trump’s tough talk that put the fear into Little Fat Boy and made him back down. No one will ever convince me otherwise.
Had a weakling like Obama been in office, Little Fat Boy would have let the missiles fly.
The Charlote story was a gift from hell for the Rats and the GOPe. Yes it was a set up but in their wildest dreams could they have predicted some loon would drive a car into the Antifa A-holes.
I doubt the Norks were ever serious about Guam.
Fat boy just wanted attention. He may have more then he bargained for we’ll see.
So, then, going forward, Trump will be revered in the same manner as JFK?
I mean, after all . . .
The stolen 1960 election was the biggest mistake of our lifetime
For that to have been a crisis, a few things would have actually have had to have been real... North Korea would actually have had to have a missile that has yet to be proved to be able to reach Guam (oh, look, they shot it up in the air and we’re extrapolating range based upon guestimates from observation...) much less to have a circle of uncertainty less than 10 times the widest part of the island. And a nuclear package that could actually work from the tip of a missile also might have been good for a credible threat.
There really were some significant moments.. One, we actually took their empty threats and bluster seriously rather than the normal ‘you’ll have to talk to the North Koreans about that.’ Does that mean we evacuated families from the island or even put out travel advisories? Nahh, we treated it like a parent treats the boisterous bragging of a two year old.
Two, we further made it clear that even attempting to fulfill their threat would be treated as an attack with weapons of mass destruction on the territory of the United States. Again, extremely significant; there is historically one response to such an action, an overwhelming destructive response which would reduce the ability of the attacking country to ever conduct strikes against the United States again.
In technical military parlance, that means they’d be nuked until their ancestors glowed.
That really is a pretty massive policy change, and one that I think North Korea is still parsing. Not only did the United States not cave immediately and send much needed food shipments, but worse, they actually got countries in the region to make good on new and past embargos.
But no, we really weren’t on the edge of a world war in this case. A bluff was called by someone who actually did have a royal flush.
Kennedy could have avoided the Cuban Missile Crisis by either forgoing the Bay-Of-Pigs invasion or supporting it fully and removing Castro. Dulles planned it expecting Eisenhower to be CIC when it went down...Kennedy’s heart just wasn’t aligned with the idea to take out Castro.
Khrushchev saw the action as a sign of weakness and was moved to the foolish ambit of placing Sandal medium-range missiles in Cuba with a 1000mi range and a 3mt warhead...and a few longer range that could hit everything but Seattle.
I have often wondered how things would be different if Nixon had won in 60?
The many of the useful idiots were hired and paid to be there, totally clueless useful idiots always show up for free, the the whole crowd (both sides) was led to an inevitable confrontation by people trained at the expense of Globalist scum to cause as much turmoil as possible with the help of a democrat fascist governor who kept the State Police from doing their job they way they knew they should.
Functionally, Kennedy was a more conservative president than Nixon was. Kennedy cut taxes and produced a boom. Nixon rationed gas and controlled prices, cut the last ties to gold and initiated the Carter inflation, which Carter exacerbated immensely. Nixon was rather more astute with foreign policy, though, but his opening to China opened up China to become the strategic and commercial great competitor that it is.
Drama queens. I guess you have to be a childish idiot to be a liberal.
Somehow I don’t think there will be a Missiles of August thriller like when the media created the Missiles of October “thriller”....
Alot of the cultural and economic BS (The Great Society, lol) would not have happened (or been years delayed) had the Dims not stolen the election
Or had Nixon been a better candidate.
No. The press was totally compliant with a Democrat president, as they always are.
Bttt!
. If the Soviets attempted to breach the blockade, Kennedy’s orders had already been given—total conventional and nuclear war was to commence.
There was a window of opportunity after the fall of the USSR when the US could have liberated Cuba. Bush didn’t lift a finger. What a guy. /s
Cuba should have been steamrolled by the full force of our military. Kennedy was a failure.
Truman lost North Korea and it shows how asinine and short sighted politicians can be. Clinton and Obama's treason of missile and nuclear "assistance" and blind eye to North Korea,China,Pakistan and Iran will come back to haunt us.
Methinks there are chickens being counted.
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