"And when I returned, Joan, and the lady drinking with her, were Go-hnn".
Posted on 07/20/2005 6:41:14 PM PDT by CHARLITE
"A more vital piece of U.S. history would be hard to find," gushed the Boston Globe last week about a new item in the Kennedy Library and Museum, a map of Cuba. The Library obtained it from the estate of Robert L. White, a collector who had earlier received it from JFK's late secretary, Evelyn Lincoln.
"This map bears the marks of history," continues the Globe story, "a series of X marks in black ink, crosshatched east and west of Havana by President John F. Kennedy, and two foreboding words scrawled above them: 'missile sites.' This map was used by Kennedy during a Cabinet briefing on the morning of Oct. 16, 1962, as CIA officials described the evidence discovered by spy planes ... a priceless artifact."
Equally priceless was the record of irresponsibility, arrogance and stupidity that preceded that "discovery" by the U-2 spy plane, not to mention the bumbling, treachery and deceit that followed it. Camelot's toady press and court scribes rose to the occasion, however. So the official version still prevails in the MSM (mainstream media) and Hollywood (exemplified by the movie "Thirteen Days"). "This map takes me right to that moment, when he was trying to digest that information," enthused Kennedy Museum curator Frank Rigg in the Boston Globe story. "Who knows what was going through his mind–
I can guess: "Whoops!" Because all of two days before Kennedy unfurled that map, on the October 14 edition of the TV program "Issues and Answers," a disdainful McGeorge Bundy (JFK's National Security Advisor) made himself very clear on national TV. "Refugee rumors," he called the eyewitness reports from Cuban exiles about those very missiles - reports that they'd been giving the State Department and CIA for months by then, after risking their lives to obtain them. "Nothing in Cuba presents a threat to the United States," continued Bundy, barely masking his scorn. "There's no likelihood that the Soviets or Cubans would try and install an offensive capability in Cuba." ("Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," p. 28)
Kennedy himself sounded off the following day: "There's fifty-odd-thousand Cuban refugees in this country," he sneered, "all living for the day when we go to war with Cuba. They're the ones putting out this kind of stuff."
I'll gladly donate another artifact to the Kennedy Museum, to be displayed adjacent to that map: a HUGE pot labeled "Crow Gumbo: Meal served in Camelot headquarters October 16, 1962."
"'These precious artifacts belong to the American people," said Deborah Leff, Kennedy Library director. But not everyone thought the American people should be privy to every Missile Crisis artifact. "We can't say anything public about this agreement," said Robert F. Kennedy to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin when closing the deal that ended the so-called crisis. "It would be too much of a political embarrassment for us."
Kennedy's secret deal with Khrushchev forbade any liberation of Cuba, not just by the U.S. but also by any other group or nation in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, it was up to the U.S. to prevent any such liberation attempts. The Best and Brightest not only pulled the rug from under Cuba's freedom fighters, they also sanctioned the 40,000 Soviet troops and KGB goons already in Cuba coaching and aiding Castro's butchery of those freedom fighters.
Richard Nixon summed up the Missile Crisis "resolution" best: "First we goofed an invasion [the previous year's Bay of Pigs] - now we give the Soviets squatters' rights in our backyard."
Joint Chiefs member General Curtis LeMay slammed his fist on his desk and bellowed, "The biggest defeat in U.S. history!
Admiral Anderson, in charge of the naval "blockade" against Cuba, got the news of the "resolution" and shouted, "We've been had!"
In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev himself clarified the matter. "It would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba - for a country 12,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable. [So much for all the media and Hollywood hype of those peril-filled "Thirteen Days."] We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along, security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro [italics mine]. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba."
JFK's "dreary account of mismanagement, timidity and indecision," as Eisenhower described his handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion a year earlier, emboldened the Soviets to install nuclear missiles in Cuba in the first place.
After the "resolution," some of the very Cuban freedom fighters who had smuggled out intelligence on the Soviet missiles found themselves stranded in a Cuba swarming with Soviet soldiers. Dozens of these young heroes huddled in Mangrove swamps along Cuba's coast, dodging Castro patrols and waiting for their scheduled "exfiltration" by motorboats back to the U.S.
Their wait was vain. Their mission accomplished, their evidence to the New Frontiersmen about weapons of mass destruction 90 miles away and hosted by the most pathologically anti-American regime in history delivered, these heroes promptly fell through the cracks of the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal. They were expendable.
"Let's be careful not to let any of these Cuban refugees upset the deal" were JFK's words to his attorney general brother on the night of October 28, 1962. So the scheduled boat runs to the Cuban coast by the infiltrators' comrades to carry them back were canceled. Suddenly these runs were impediments to Camelot's delicate diplomacy.
Meanwhile, back in Cuba's mangroves, "Alto! ... Who Goes there? Gun bolts slam and the shooting starts. Several of these (now) irksome "Cuban refugees" - completely abandoned - now died in suicidal firefights against Castro's troops. Several more were captured, tortured and finally bound to the stake in front of the blood- and bone-flecked paredon (firing-squad wall). "VIVA CUBA LIBRE! " they yelled.
FUEGO!! yelled the firing squad captain. "Cause of death was internal hemorrhaging caused by firearm projectiles" read the official death certificates delivered by Castro's government to thousands of ashen-faced families.
After the Missile Crisis "resolution," the U.S. Coast Guard and even the British navy (when some intrepid exile freedom fighters moved their operation to the Bahamas) shielded Castro from exile attacks. In the Florida Keys and Bahamas they were arresting and disarming the very exiles the CIA had been training and arming the month before.
Much of his fame in the Third World, on college campuses (especially among faculties) and in Europe stems from the fable of Castro "defying" a superpower. In fact, he survived because of a sweetheart deal that allowed him to hide behind the skirts of two superpowers.
But don't look for details of this deal in the Kennedy Library and Museum.
To give him his due, he looks better than he has in years, so much so that when he falls off the wagon, you can now tell right away! I also receive the distinct impression he loathes Kerry. I reckon he imagines that had it not been for Chappaquiddick, it would be he running for President!
that's the copy Berger snuck out in his boxers
rofl
it's always good to invite a Bunk to a debunking
bump to read later
He was a Marine training some of them on his TDY in southwest Florida I think. He never filled me in but said that he had trained Spanish speaking soldiers to fight "anti-Americans" in Latin America. Guatamala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and other south American countries. Gave me a book by Mao on Guerilla warfare that had been translated by a Marine officer. He told me that the last "big war" was the Korean War and all the others were going to look like Vietnam.
when Kennedy was shot, my mom and family were all boo-hooing.... my dad didn't say anything. Said that he was the slimiest son of a b#$%h and that his brothers were worse.
My mom thought the world of JFK cause he was a Catholic..... oh well.... the "myth" of camelot continues.
What do you expect from a man, when his Daddy buys him a job?
The CAMELOT fraud wasn't pushed until a few years AFTER the assassination and was thought up by Jackie, pushed upon E.B. White, who then orchestrated the drooling sycophantic MSM to carry it forth. And this was at a time, when Jackie and Bobby were having a torrid affair. Which I have an eyewitness for, to substantiate that fact.
And what the revisionist history has left out for 40+ years, is that JFK's presidency was just one mess after another. Even the UNIONS couldn't stand him and made him cave in to the myriad of strikes they pulled, all through his presidency.
Besides one tax cut, there wasn't a damned thing right he and his team did. "THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST" turned out to be nothing but bumbling idiots, traitors, frauds, whore mongers, drug addicts, and morons.
"And when I returned, Joan, and the lady drinking with her, were Go-hnn".
he did appoint Whizzer White to the Supreme Court, so that was one good thing.
you got the funny bone going again tonight.
I'm not sure if you're able to hear Boston's Howie Carr Show up there in beautiful Kennebunkport, but when I lived in Boston years ago, Howie would often broadcast Teddy's incoherent proclomations. They were hillarious.
It really got pushed and named AFTER the assassination, okay.
But I do remember Vaughn Meador's comedy album, The First Family. Though the Kennedy White House let him know that they would not appreciate any more such things it did kind of project a "camelot." IMO.
I say again. Kennedy was telegenic at a time when TV really mattered for the first time. Being telegenic is the only thnig that made him popular beyond the partisan crowd. Period. He was as you described.
I've got to mention Barry Goldwater. Yes, sometimes he did not help his cause. He spoke openly and frank. IMO Americans liked that in those days. As usual the MSM did not.
Having the likes of Walter "North Viet Nam Communists' most trusted American" Cronkite trying to tie Goldwater to the Kennedy assassination and other distortions by the MSM did not help either.
Really now?! Sequestered on what planet?
I HATED JFK, at first sight and my political guts haven't failed me since. I watched the debate ( the FIRST televised one ever !) and did NOT think that JFK had won it. WHY? Because I listened to what he and Nixon said.
Nooooooooooo...the Vaughn Meator album had NOTHING at all to do with "CAMELOT".
Nobody, NOBODY, not even the MSM, made JFK, once he was in office, out to be "THE GREAT MAN", until after the assasination. Even the N.Y. Times ran anti articles about him. Where do you think I got my info about the UNIONS and all of the strikes ( the Steel Unions trashed JFK constantly !) form? I READ IT IN THE TIMES ! And yes, I have a very good memory, which back then, was photographic. I can still see, in my mind's eye, the pictures and the articles about JFK and the strikes, his sucking up to the Dragon Lady and how he pandered to the damned French.
As a matter of fact, it was due to Jackie and the insufferable French, that we got sucked deeper into Nam.
Sort of. LOL
Yep.
Though I was told this, by her ( and she's an unimpeachable, honest as the day is long person ) in the early months of 1965, it has later been written of, by others, whose credentials you might think more highly of. Since you doubt me, go search FR's archives; the articles ( none from the Enquirer or other such rags, BTW ) should still be in there. :-)
My conclusion is that there were a whole lot of pissed off Cubans.
“Mr. President,” Ambassador Thompson admonished, “if we go on the basis of a trade, which I gather is somewhat in your mind, we end up, it seems to me, with the Soviets still in Cuba with planes and technicians and so on. Even though the missiles are out, that would surely be unacceptable and put you in a worse position.”…
But, the president also continued to press for a deal on the Turkish missiles. Rusk, finally recognizing JFK’s determination, suggested that RFK advise the ambassador that a public quid pro quo for the missiles in Turkey was unacceptable, but the president was prepared to remove them once the Cuban crisis was resolved. The proposal was quickly accepted. Robert Kennedy was instructed to tell Dobrynin that any Soviet reference to this secret proposal would make it null and void.
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