Posted on 07/21/2005 6:45:36 AM PDT by hinterlander
He hid behind the skirts of two Superpowers.
"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 and Hollywood
(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...
>>Equally priceless was the record of irresponsibility, arrogance and stupidity that preceded that "discovery" . . .
When Leftys are gushing over JFK, I love asking them "so what did he really do, that was so great?"
It makes their brains smoke and go into overload, when they realize they really don't know why they think that, other than that is what they have always been told.
The biggest irony of all is that if JFK were running for President in '04, he'd have been derided as a reactionary militant by the fellow-travellers who constitute Democrat activists these days.
His campaign would never have gotten past Iowa or New Hampshire.
JFK believed in dominoes in 1960. Today, so do all the SE Asians who live in the US.
If your strategic plan regarding a terrible totalitarian ideology, with a large WMD-armed state behind it, is "containment", you have to contain.
This is a fact, regarding Vietnam, that Lefties do not understand.
Vietnam was a battle of attrition in the 70 Years War against Communism. While Vietnam shouldn't have ended as it did, or been fought as it was, it was far from futile or useless, in the ultimate outcome of the 70 Years War.
At the same time, I wonder if there ever was a South Viet Nam after 1954 or ever...
In 1992 it was confirmed that tactical nuclear weapons were already in Cuba and available at the time of the missile crisis. So, in retrospect, it is rather fortunate that the US did not invade Cuba during this time.
And it was disclosed that Castro wanted to fire off everything they had. Fortunately, the Russians controlled the keys and cooler heads prevailed.
You may be right and it may have taken a 50 year perspective to understand that.
No one could come up with a cogent explanation at the time. Everything was clouded by politics.
I first learn about it as a child the night we invaded Lebanon in 1957. ( I remember because we were on red alert and weren't allowed to sleep.) A Lt. General gave a lecture on the French war in Indochina. He warned against us letting them pull us in to their fight between the Buddhists and Catholics.
In the 60s I mentioned it several times to Walt and Elspeth Rostow who really didn't seem to know or understand how we got ourselves in the situation, even though they were the principle players at Camelot. They'd just look down, shrug their shoulders and sigh.
Maybe in another 50 years we'll all agree on what happened and why.
We did learn the lesson of not going to war without first getting the support of the people (media?), having a clear objective and exit strategy. Bush did that with Iraq.
Very interesting.
And I'm not at all saying that Kennedy and Johnson went into Vietnam, with that intent. There is certainly doubt on that point.
But there is no doubt in my mind that the result was, as I outlined.
Cuba was on fire with rebellion that year. No major invasion by G.Is was neccessary--and certainly no Kennedy surrenber by promising to never invade, to pull the rug on anti-Castro "insurgents", to jail those in the U.S.-- on top of removing missiles from Turkey--certainly none of that was neccessary either. Khruschev who had control over all missiles in Cuba admitted as much. "War for us was unthinkable."
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