I think the Cubans who wanted to invade should have been supported by our military right from the ‘getgo’. Things would have turned out so much better and the Soviets wouldn’t have got the leverage they did.
JFK and his brother estblished backchannel communications with Khruchev and used our intel info to prove he knew what he was talking about.
See the book ‘Regicide’(Amazon) with references to many others on this.
***We really got a good deal - not. We gave up our missiles in Turkey. The Russkies got what they wanted all along. Kennedy almost totally blew it. He was a poor president.***
I was a new recruit in the AF at the time. The more I learn about it the more I’m convinced this was the birth of appeasement in our Gov’t.
LeMay said it best, “The G D Kennedy’s are going to get us killed”.
So poor that he was on his way to being a "one-term-wonder". People forget (if they ever even knew) *why* Kennedy was in Dallas that November day. He was shoring up the Democrat base a few months before his re-election campaign was to begin, and the prospects weren't looking good for him...
the infowarrior
Kennedy (as most libs do) made a deal with the USSR that if they pulled their missiles out of Cuba we would pull ours out of Turkey. Who at the time was a member of NATO.
I think Turkey is still mad at us for that.
Let's also not forget that we gave up our right to go after that bastard Fidel Castro, as well. Sending the Marielitos over here was more than enough reason to kill him by any means necessary.