This is a sad morning for me. We lost John F. Kennedy 50 years ago today. We lost his humanity, intelligence, compassion, and decency (Please forgive him for his character faults.)
I am always haunted by the Cuban missile crisis. It could have easily escalated into World War III with 120 million Soviet dead and up to 40 million American deaths. The whole world might have gone into a nuclear winter. When we emerged from this disaster only a small part of the human race would have survived. We would have been back in the time of the Dark Ages over 1000 years ago.
Khruschev put the missiles and 45,000 Soviet troops in Cuba because he thought that Kennedy was a weak man who could be intimidated. (Ironically had Nixon been president, Khruschev would not have put missiles in Cuba. He feared Nixon and was sure that he was a mad man.)
Kennedy was tempted to order air strikes on the missile sites and to go for an invasion with an estimated 18,000 US casualties. Khruschev might have let him get by with the air attack on the missiles. But if an invasion started he would have used tactical nuclear weapons on the island to sink US aircraft carriers and destroy the naval base at Guantanimo Bay. This could have easily escalated to a full nuclear war.
Kennedy did not know about the tactical nuclear weapons on the island. His instincts told him that any aggressive actions using military force would lead to a war. He stayed cool and calm. He started a dialogue with Khruschev. He came up with a face-saving solution.
Let us now turn to Vietnam and what might have been had Kennedy lived. Believe it or not, almost every year a very serious academic conference is held each year in Georgia. Academics and public officials pour over thousands of pages of documents, recordings and testimony to answer one question:"Would Kennedy have committed US troops and done things as Lyndon Johnson did? The consensus from all of these meetings is that he would not have.
Kennedy have traveled to Vietnam in the early 1950's. He saw the situation there as a struggle for independence and national determination of the part of the Vietnamese people. He listened to Charles De Gaulle who warned him that a land war in Vietnam would be an awful mistake. (France lost some 250,000 men in Vietnam.) Kennedy would have continued material aid and withdrawn all US forces there. In 1965 he would have seen Vietnam as a lost cause and let nature take its course. We would have not had the nightmare with over 58,000 Americans killed, 366,000 wounded and some 3.4 million Vietnamese killed. Our country would not have been torn apart and pushed almost to the point of a civil war.
Yes one man can make a difference!!!
I am always haunted by the Cuban missile crisis. It could have easily escalated into World War III with 120 million Soviet dead and up to 40 million American deaths. The whole world might have gone into a nuclear winter. When we emerged from this disaster only a small part of the human race would have survived. We would have been back in the time of the Dark Ages over 1000 years ago.
Khruschev put the missiles and 45,000 Soviet troops in Cuba because he thought that Kennedy was a weak man who could be intimidated. (Ironically had Nixon been president, Khruschev would not have put missiles in Cuba. He feared Nixon and was sure that he was a mad man.)
Kennedy was tempted to order air strikes on the missile sites and to go for an invasion with an estimated 18,000 US casualties. Khruschev might have let him get by with the air attack on the missiles. But if an invasion started he would have used tactical nuclear weapons on the island to sink US aircraft carriers and destroy the naval base at Guantanimo Bay. This could have easily escalated to a full nuclear war.
Kennedy did not know about the tactical nuclear weapons on the island. His instincts told him that any aggressive actions using military force would lead to a war. He stayed cool and calm. He started a dialogue with Khruschev. He came up with a face-saving solution.
Let us now turn to Vietnam and what might have been had Kennedy lived. Believe it or not, almost every year a very serious academic conference is held each year in Georgia. Academics and public officials pour over thousands of pages of documents, recordings and testimony to answer one question:"Would Kennedy have committed US troops and done things as Lyndon Johnson did? The consensus from all of these meetings is that he would not have.
Kennedy have traveled to Vietnam in the early 1950's. He saw the situation there as a struggle for independence and national determination of the part of the Vietnamese people. He listened to Charles De Gaulle who warned him that a land war in Vietnam would be an awful mistake. (France lost some 250,000 men in Vietnam.) Kennedy would have continued material aid and withdrawn all US forces there. In 1965 he would have seen Vietnam as a lost cause and let nature take its course. We would have not had the nightmare with over 58,000 Americans killed, 366,000 wounded and some 3.4 million Vietnamese killed. Our country would not have been torn apart and pushed almost to the point of a civil war.
Yes one man can make a difference!!!
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