Posts Tagged ‘BAY OF PIGS’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 10, 2023 at 12:10 am
During the 1960 Presidential campaign, then-Senator John F. Kennedy promised to build a Peace Corps to train people in underdeveloped nations to help themselves.
In March, 1961, the program went into effect, with the President’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, as director.
Starvation, illiteracy and disease were the enemies of the Corps. Any nation wanting aid could request it. The first group of volunteers went to the Philippines, the second to Ecuador and the third to Tanganyika.
The problems of the underdeveloped world were too great for any single organization to solve. But the Corps lifted the spirits of many living in those countries. And it captured the imagination of millions of Americans—especially those of thousands of idealistic youths who entered its ranks.
John F. Kennedy
To combat the growing Communist threat to Latin America, Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress. He defined the Alliance’s goal as providing “revolutionary progress through powerful, democratic means.”
Within two years he could report:
“Some 140,000 housing units have been constructed. Slum clearance projects have begun, and 3,000 classrooms have been built. More than 4,000,000 school books have been distributed.
“The Alliance has fired the imagination and kindled the hopes of millions of our good neighbors. Their drive toward modernization is gaining momentum as it unleashes the energies of these millions.
“The United States is becoming increasingly identified in the minds of the people with the goal they move toward: a better life with freedom,” said Kennedy.
Critics of the program, however, charged that the President was trying to “dress up the old policies” of Franklin D. Roosevelt in new rhetoric. Since FDR’s time, the United States has believed in giving economic aid to Latin America.
Much—if not most—of these billions of dollars wound up in the pockets of right-wing dictators, such as Anastasio Somoza and Rafael Trujillo.
Meanwhile, Kennedy was urging action on another front—that of outer space.
“This generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space,” declared the President. He committed the United States to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
As indeed it happened less than six years after his death—on July 20, 1969.
Kennedy’s idealistic rhetoric masked his real reason for going to the moon: To score a propaganda victory over the Soviet Union.
Another of his anti-Communist goals: To remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba at almost any cost.
Fidel Castro
Immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert–who was then the Attorney General—to oversee a CIA program to overthrow Castro.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro—each for its own benefit:
- The CIA wanted to please Kennedy by overthrowing the Communist leader who had nationalized American corporate holdings.
- The Mafia wanted to regain its lucrative casino and brothel holdings that had made Cuba the playground of the rich in pre-Castro times.
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
“We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” then-former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara testified before Congress about these efforts. “And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.”
Nor was everyone in the CIA enthusiastic about the “get Castro” effort.
“Everyone at CIA was surprised at Kennedy’s obsession with Fidel,” recalled Sam Halpern, who was assigned to the Cuba Project. “They thought it was a waste of time. We all knew [Fidel] couldn’t hurt us. Most of us at CIA initially liked Kennedy, but why go after this little guy?
“One thing is for sure: Kennedy wasn’t doing it out of national security concerns. It was a personal thing. The Kennedy family felt personally burnt by the Bay of Pigs and sought revenge.”
It was all-out war. Among the tactics used:
- Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder Cuban police officials and Soviet technicians.
- Sabotaging mines.
- Paying up to $100,000 per “hit” for the murder or kidnapping of Cuban officials.
- Using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry.
- Planting colorful seashells rigged to explode at a site where Castro liked to go skindiving.
- Trying to arrange for his being presented with a wetsuit impregnated with noxious bacteria and mold spores, or with lethal chemical agents.
- Attempting to infect Castro’s scuba regulator with tuberculous bacilli.
- Trying to douse his handkerchiefs, cigars, tea and coffee with other lethal bacteria.
But all of these efforts failed to assassinate Castro—or overthrow the Cuban Revolution he was heading.
“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”
Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And the Cuban government saw the situation exactly the same way.
So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.
Khrushchev was quick to comply: “We must not allow the Communist infant to be strangled in its crib,” he told members of his inner circle.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 9, 2023 at 12:10 am
November 22, 2023, will mark the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.
Today—62 years after he took office—millions of Americans bitterly contrast his memory with the character of the most hated President in American history: Donald John Trump:
JFK – A decorated war hero
DJT – A five-times draft-dodger
JFK – Youthful (43 upon taking office) and handsome
DJT – Old (77) and overweight
JFK – A fervent anti-Communist
DJT – Elected with support from Russian Communist Intelligence
JFK – Witty, self-mocking
DJT – Humorless, self-bragging
JFK – Optimistic, well-informed, appealing to the best in Americans
DJT – Doom-saying, uninformed, appealing to the “darker side” of his Right-wing base
Some have called the Kennedy administration a golden era in American history. A time when touch football, lively White House parties, stimulus to the arts and the antics of the President’s children became national obsessions.
John F. Kennedy
Others have called the Kennedy Presidency a monument to the unchecked power of wealth and ambition. An administration staffed by young novices playing at statesmen, riddled with nepotism, whose legacy includes the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam war and the world’s first nuclear confrontation.
The opening days of the Kennedy Presidency raised hopes for a dramatic change in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
But detente was not possible then. The Russians had not yet experienced their coming agricultural problems and the setback in Cuba during the Missile Crisis. And the United States had not suffered defeat in Vietnam.
Kennedy’s first brush with international Communism came on April 17, 1961, with the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. This operation had been planned and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency during the final months of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term as President.
The U.S. Navy was to land about 1,400 Cuban exiles on the island to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. They were supposed to head into the mountains—as Castro himself had done against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956—and raise the cry of revolution.
The invasion would occur after an American air strike had knocked out the Cuban air force. But the airstrike failed and Kennedy, under the pressure of world opinion, called off a second try.
Even so, the invasion went ahead. When the invaders surged onto the beaches, they found Castro’s army waiting for them. Many of the invaders were killed on the spot. Others were captured—to be ransomed by the United States in December, 1962, in return for medical supplies.
It was a major public relations setback for the newly-installed Kennedy administration, which had raised hopes for a change in American-Soviet relations.
Kennedy, trying to abort widespread criticism, publicly took the blame for the setback: “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan….I’m the responsible officer of the Government.”
The Bay of Pigs convinced Kennedy that he had been misled by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Out of this came his decision to rely heavily on the counsel of his brother, Robert, whom he had installed as Attorney General.
The failed Cuban invasion—unfortunately for Kennedy—convinced Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev that the President was weak.
Khrushchev told an associate that he could understand if Kennedy had not decided to invade Cuba. But once he did, Kennedy should have pressed on and wiped out Castro.
Khrushchev attributed this to Kennedy’s youth, inexperience and timidity—and believed he could bully the President.
On June 4, 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna to discuss world tensions. Khrushchev threatened to go to nuclear war over the American presence in West Berlin—the dividing line between Western Europe, protected by the United States, and Eastern Europe, controlled by the Soviet Union.
Kennedy, who prized rationality, was shaken by Khrushchev’s unexpected rage. After the conference, he told an associate: “It’s going to be a cold winter.”
Meanwhile, East Berliners felt they were about to be denied access to West Berlin. A flood of 3,000 refugees daily poured into West Germany.
Khrushchev was embarrassed at this clear showing of the unpopularity of the Communist regime. In August, he ordered that a concrete wall—backed up by barbed wire, searchlights and armed guards—be erected to seal off East Berlin.
As tensions mounted and a Soviet invasion of West Berlin seemed likely, Kennedy sent additional troops to the city in a massive demonstration of American will.
Two years later, on June 26, 1963, during a 10-day tour of Europe, Kennedy visited Berlin to deliver his “I am a Berliner” speech to a frenzied crowd of thousands.
JFK addresses crowds at the Berlin Wall
“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world,” orated Kennedy. “Let them come to Berlin.”
Standing within gunshot of the Berlin wall, he lashed out at the Soviet Union and praised the citizens of West Berlin for being “on the front lines of freedom” for more than 20 years.
“All free men, wherever they may live,” said Kennedy, “are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich ben ein Berliner.’”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2023 at 12:13 am
The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) unanimously agree: Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believed there was collusion. He indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies.
Robert Mueller
And about 58% of Americans believe that President Donald Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.
Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.
Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Czarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent: Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
- Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
- Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?
Through indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends usually turn out to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
But now the shoe is on the other foot.
Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.
Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 22, 2023 at 12:18 am
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”
The speaker was White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. And in an October 17, 2019 press conference, he was trying to put the best possible spin on President Donald Trump’s latest outrage: An attempt to extort a “favor” from the president of Ukraine.
In July, 2019, Trump told Mulvaney to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
Donald Trump
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown: — We do a lot for Ukraine — There’s not much reciprocity — I have a favor to ask — Investigate my opponent — My people will be in touch — Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”
On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, speaker to the House of Representatives, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to leverage the great economic and military power of the United States to gain concessions from Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Great Britain.
At Roosevelt’s insistence, for example, it was an American—General Dwight D. Eisenhower—who was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Had the British gotten their way, the post would have almost certainly gone to British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.
Roosevelt’s insistence, however, had nothing to do with personally benefiting himself.
But the unpleasant truth remains that subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. For example:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate.
- Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking). In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police.
- He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
Americans reacted to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—with indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Jacobo Arbenz, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 28, 2022 at 12:11 am
Ask the average person, “What do you think of Niccolo Machiavelli?” and he’s likely to say: “The devil.”
In fact, “The Old Nick” became an English term used to describe Satan and slander Machiavelli at the same time.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The truth, however, is more complex. Machiavelli was a passionate Republican, who spent most of his adult life in the service of his beloved city-state, Florence.
The years he spent as a diplomat were tumultuous ones for Italy—with men like Pope Julius II and Caesare Borgia vying for power and plunging Italy into one bloodbath after another.
Florence, for all its wealth, lacked a strong army, and thus lay at the mercy of powerful enemies, such as Borgia. Machiavelli often had to use his wits to keep them at bay.
Machiavelli is best-known for his writing of The Prince, a pamphlet on the arts of gaining and holding power. Its admirers have included Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.
But his longer and more thoughtful work is The Discourses, in which he offers advice on how to maintain liberty within a republic. Among its admirers were many of the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.
Most people believe that Machiavelli advocated evil for its own sake.
Not so. Rather, he recognized that sometimes there is no perfect—or perfectly good—solution to a problem.
Sometimes it’s necessary to take stern—even brutal—action to stop an evil (such as a riot) before it becomes widespread:
“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must inevitably come to grief among so many who are not good. And therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.”
His counsel remains as relevant today as it did during his lifetime (1469 – 1527). This is especially true for politicians—and students of political science.
But plenty of ordinary citizens can also benefit from the advice he has to offer—such as those in business who are asked to give advice to more powerful superiors.
Machiavelli warns there is danger in urging rulers to take a particular course of action: “For men only judge of matters by the result, all the blame of failure is charged upon him who first advised it, while in case of success he receives commendations. But the reward never equals the punishment.”
This puts would-be counselors in a difficult position: “If they do not advise what seems to them for the good of the republic or the prince, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then they fail to do their duty.
“And if they do advise it, then it is at the risk of their position and their lives, for all men are blind in thus, that they judge of good or evil counsels only by the results.”
Thus, Machiavelli warns that an adviser should “take things moderately, and not to undertake to advocate any enterprise with too much zeal, but to give one’s advice calmly and modestly.”
The person who asked for the advice may follow it, or not, as of his own choice, and not because he was led or forced into it by the adviser.
Above all, the adviser must avoid the danger of urging a course of action that runs “contrary to the wishes of the many.
“For the danger arises when your advice has caused the many to be contravened. In that case, when the result is unfortunate, they all concur in your destruction.”
Or, as President John F. Kennedy famously said after the disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April, 1961: “Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
John F. Kennedy
By “not advocating any enterprise with too much zeal,” the adviser gains two advantages:
“The first is, you avoid all danger.
“And the second consists in the great credit which you will have if, after having modestly advised a certain course, your counsel is rejected, and the adoption of a different course results unfortunately.”
Finally, the time to give advice is before a catastrophe occurs, not after. Machiavelli gives a vivid example of what can happen if this rule is ignored.
King Perseus of Macedon had gone to war with Paulus Aemilius—and suffered a humiliating defeat. Fleeing the battlefield with a handful of his men, he later bewailed the disaster that had overtaken him.
Suddenly, one of his lieutenants began to lecture Perseus on the many errors he had committed, which had led to his ruin.
“Traitor,” raged the king, turning upon him, “you have waited until now to tell me all this, when there is no longer any time to remedy it—” And Perseus slew him with his own hands.
Niccolo Machiavelli sums up the lesson as this:
“Thus was this man punished for having been silent when he should have spoken, and for having spoken when he should have been silent.”
Be careful that you don’t make the same mistake.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2022 at 12:53 am
On March 13, 2020, then-President Donald Trump addressed a subject he clearly resented being asked: His gutting of an early-warning medical system set up to confront pandemics.
In 2014, following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Barack Obama created the White House Pandemic Office, run by the White House’s National Security Council (NSC).
Heading it was Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer. Under President George W. Bush, he had successfully fought malaria overseas. His topflight team of infectious disease and public health experts was creating a national bio-defense strategy.
Their goal: Coordinate agencies to make the United States more resilient to the threat of epidemics and biological warfare.
In May, 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s global health security unit shut down. The reason: Trump’s pathological jealousy of and hatred for Obama.
On March 13, 2020, at a White House press conference, Yamiche Alcindor, the PBS Newshour’s White House Correspondent, dared to ask Trump:
“My first question is: You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the White House Pandemic Office and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So, what responsibility do you take to that?
Yamiche Alcindor
“And the officials that worked in that office said that you—that the White House—lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?”
Then followed this exchange:
TRUMP: Well, I just think it’s a nasty question, because what we’ve done is—and Tony had said numerous times that we saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. And when you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of people.
ALCINDOR: It’s your administration.
TRUMP: I could ask, perhaps—my administration, but I could perhaps ask Tony about that, because I don’t know anything about it. I mean, you say we did that. I don’t know anything about it.
Donald Trump
ALCINDOR: You don’t know about the—
TRUMP: We’re spending—
ALCINDOR: — About the reorganization that happened in the National Security Council?
TRUMP: No, I don’t know. It’s the—it’s the administration, perhaps they do that. You know, people let people go. You know, you used to be with a different newspaper than you are now. You know, things like that happen.
Trump’s refusal to accept responsibility for the greatest crisis of his tenure as President flagrantly contrasts with how President John F. Kennedy responded to a similar crisis.
On April 17, 1961, the U.S. Navy landed 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles on Cuba to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Landing at the Bay of Pigs, they were supposed to head into the mountains—as Castro himself had done against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956—and raise the cry of revolution.
When the invaders surged onto the beaches, they found Castro’s army waiting for them. Many of the invaders were killed on the spot. Others were captured.
It was a major public relations setback for the newly-installed Kennedy administration, which had raised hopes for a change in American-Soviet relations.
Kennedy, trying to abort widespread criticism, publicly took the blame for the setback: “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan….I’m the responsible officer of the Government.”
John F. Kennedy press conference
Ironically, the crisis—and his taking responsibility for it—hugely increased Kennedy’s popularity. The national Gallup Poll reported that 83 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing as President.
To a White House aide, Kennedy half-joked: “It’s just like Eisenhower—the worse I do, the more popular I get.”
By contrast, Trump’s “handling” of the Coronavirus plague brought him the worst reviews of his Presidency.
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks attacked Trump in terms usually reserved for serial killers. On the March 13, 2020 edition of The PBS Newshour, he said:
“This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president, who doesn’t care, who has treated this whole thing for the past month as if it’s about him. ‘How do people like me?’ Minimizing the risks. ‘Does the stock market reflect well on me?’ And he hasn’t done the things a normal human being would do, which was to, let’s take precautions….
“And he’s incapable of that. And he’s even created an information distortion field around him.”
And Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for The Washington Post, said: “He likes having powerful people around him to praise what he’s done. He tried to get them all up to the podium to talk about how great of a response he has provided, and I think that’s—trying to get that co-signed from CEOs and powerful people is a key part of his presidency.”
Kimberly Atkins, senior Washington news correspondent for WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station: “We have seen the president not only be all over the place but his instinct was to try to downplay it [Coronavirus] because he saw it as a political threat—to say that people would get better….
“Even today he’s saying, ‘We have everything under control. We have this website that people can go to and find out where they can get tested.’ The website isn’t even done yet.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 15, 2022 at 12:10 am
Fifty-nine years ago, on November 22, 1963, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
It has been said that he left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmosphereic testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1972, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press—and not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
Texas Governor Rick Perry (and now Secretary of Energy) showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:
“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—
“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.
Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”: “He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
In fact, Revere wasn’t warning the British about anything. Instead, he was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
Many Americans believe that decline arrived with the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In fact, they believe it was Trump who announced it after winning the Nevada Republican primary: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.
It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 14, 2022 at 12:11 am
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, John F. Kennedy served six undistinguished years before being elected U.S. Senator from Massachusetts in 1952.
In 1956, his eloquence and political skill almost won him the Vice Presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. But the nominee, Adlai Stevenson, chose Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver as his running mate–fortunately for Kennedy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, running for re-election, easily beat Stevenson.
Had Kennedy been on the ticket, his Catholicism would have been blamed for the loss. And this would have likely prevented his getting the Presidential nomination in 1960.
In 1957, his book, Profiles in Courage, won the Pulitzer Prize for history.
From 1957 to 1960, Kennedy laid plans for a successful Presidential race.
Many voters thought him too young and inexperienced for such high office. But he used his TV debates with then-Vice President Richard Nixon to calm such fears, transforming himself overnight into a serious contender.
Many Americans identified with Kennedy as they had with film stars. Compared with normally drab politicians, he seemed exciting and glamorous.
Since 1960, for millions of Americans, mere competence in a President isn’t enough; he should be charming and movie-star handsome as well.
John F. Kennedy after taking a swim at Santa Monica Beach, 1960
But charismatic politicians face the danger of waning enthusiasm.
Many people were growing disillusioned with Kennedy before he died. He had raised hopes that couldn’t be met—especially among blacks.
And many whites bitterly opposed his support of integration, believing that Kennedy was “moving too fast” in changing race relations.
Still, for millions of Americans, Kennedy represented a time of change.
“Let’s get this country moving again” had been his campaign slogan in 1960. He had demanded an end to the non-existent “missile gap” between the United States and Soviet Union.
And he had said that America should create full employment and re-evaluate its policies toward Africa, Latin America and Asia.
His youth, the grace and beauty of his wife and the often-reported antics of his two young children—Caroline and John—added to the atmosphere that change was under way.
But Kennedy was not so committed to reform as many believed:
- As a Senator he had strongly opposed abolishing the Electoral College.
- He never protested the Red-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a frequent dinner guest at the home of his father.
- As President, Kennedy never forgot that he had been elected by a margin of 112,881 votes. He often rationalized his refusal to tackle controversial issues by saying: “We’ll do it after I’m re-elected. So we’d better make damn sure I am re-elected.”
- He thought the United States should recognize “Red” China, but didn’t try to change American foreign policy toward that nation.
Nevertheless, many historians believe that. by vocally supporting civil rights and healthcare for the elderly, Kennedy laid the groundwork for Lyndon Johnson’s legislative victories.
Perhaps no aspect of Kennedy’s Presidency has received closer study than his assassination.
Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have hotly debated whether he was murdered by a lone “nut” or a deadly conspiracy of powerful men.
JFK’s assassination: The moment of impact
The murder has been the subject of two government investigations. The first, by the Warren Commission in 1964, concluded that an embittered ex-Marine and Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone in killing Kennedy.
Similarly, the Commission determined that nightclub owner Jack Ruby had killed Oswald on impulse, and not as the result of a conspiracy.
Millions of disbelieving Americans rejected the Warren Report—and named their own villains:
- The KGB;
- The Mob;
- Anti-Castro Cubans;
- Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson;
- Right-wing businessmen and/or military leaders;
- Fidel Castro.
Each of these groups or persons had reason to hate Kennedy:
- The KGB—for Kennedy’s humiliating the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- The Mob—in retaliation for the administration’s crackdown on organized crime.
- Anti-Castro Cubans—for JFK’s refusal to commit American military forces to overthrowing Castro at the Bay of Pigs invasion.
- Lyndon Johnson—lusting for power, he stood to gain the most from Kennedy’s elimination.
- Right-wing businessmen and/or military leaders—for believing that Kennedy had “sold out” the country to the Soviet Union.
- Fidel Castro—knowing the CIA was trying to assassinate or overthrow him, he had reason to respond in kind.
The second investigation, conducted in 1977-79 by the House Assassinations Committee, determined that Oswald and a second, unknown sniper had fired at Kennedy. (Oswald was deemed the assassin; the other man’s shot had missed.)
The Chief Counsel for the Committee, G. Robert Blakey, believed New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello organized the assassination, owing to his hatred of Robert Kennedy for his war on the crime syndicates.
Still, 53 years after JFK’s assassination, no court-admissible evidence has appeared to convict anyone other than Oswald for the murder.
The impact of Kennedy’s death on popular culture remains great. Millions saw him as a brilliant, courageous hero who had worked his way to the top.
But his sudden and violent end shocked those who believed there was always a happy ending.
If so gifted—and protected—a man as John F. Kennedy could be so suddenly and brutally destroyed, no one else could depend on a secure future.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 13, 2022 at 12:10 am
Throughout his life, John F. Kennedy was lucky—both personally and politically.
Part of the secret lay in his physical presence. He was young and handsome, charming and articulate.
He appeared zestful and athletic despite a series of ailments, including Addison’s disease (a malfunction of the adrenal glands) and an injured back that required the use of a brace.
His wit was sophisticated and often self-deprecating. Addressing an assembly of Nobel Prize winners at the White House, he said: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
JFK making a joke at a press conference
And his sense of humor often defused otherwise ticklish problems. During the 1960 Presidential race, he was sharply criticized for relying on his millionaire father for much of his funding. At a campaign rally, he deflected the charge with humor:
“I just received a telegram from my generous Daddy. It says: ‘Dear Jack: Don’t buy one more vote than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’”
Another controversy emerged when he named his brother, Robert, Attorney General. Critics charged that the appointment smacked of nepotism—and that Robert didn’t have enough legal gravitas to be the nation’s chief law enforcement offer.
“I see nothing wrong in giving Robert a little experience before he goes out to practice law,” he said at a press conference.
His highly-polished rhetoric—produced by wordsmiths such as Theodore Sorensen—dazzled audiences. His Inaugural Address was acclaimed by Democrats and even most Republicans.
Its signature line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” has become as famous as Abraham Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
His speeches often urged Americans to seek a higher cause than mere self-interest. Speaking of the role of the arts in a nation’s life, he said:
“It may be different elsewhere, but [in] democratic society…the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may.”
Memorial at the Arlington gravesite for John F. Kennedy
But he could be blunt and profane in private.
“My father always told me all businessmen were sonsofbitches, but I never believed it till now,” he said in private when the steel companies made an inflationary price increase in 1962.
Like Richard Nixon, Kennedy installed a secret taping system in the White House. And, as with Nixon, this picked up many of his profanities. Unlike Nixon, however, Kennedy died before his secret taping system was discovered.
Kennedy impressed many journalists with his capacity for detail.
“He swallows and digests whole books in minutes. His eye seizes instantly on the crucial point of a long memorandum. He confounds experts with superior knowledge of their field,” wrote Games McGregor Burns in 1961.
Having briefly worked as a journalist (covering the opening of the United Nations Assembly in 1945) JFK understood and catered to the sensitivities of the Washington press corps.
Using charm, wit, candor and selective accessibility, he cultivated his own favored group of reporters. Critics charged that he was manipulating the media—and they were right.
Sometimes the manipulation was heavy-handed. He pressured The New York Times to censor its coverage of actions he intended to take—such as during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But he failed to coerce the Times to remove David Halberstam, its Vietnam correspondent, whose highly critical articles cast doubt on the effectiveness of the American military commitment to Vietnam.
A major part of Kennedy’s appeal lay in his glamorous background. He was born—on May 29, 1917—into a large, robust family headed by wealthy and powerful financier Joseph P. Kennedy.
He attended Princeton and Harvard, graduating from the latter with top honors.
During World War II he became a Naval hero in 1943 after a Japanese destroyer sliced his PT boat in half—by towing an injured shipmate to safety on a South Pacific island. From there, Kennedy persuaded a native to summon rescue help from the U.S. Navy.
Kennedy had no plans for a postwar political career. That had been assigned to his elder brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., by their ambitious father, who was determined to seat the first Irish Catholic President.
After learning of his younger brother’s heroism, Joseph volunteered for a dangerous Naval bombing mission. On August 12, 1944, he and a co-pilot flew an explosives-laden plane from England toward France.
While over the English Channel, they were supposed to parachute from the aircraft—after activating a remote control system to send the plane crashing into a German command center.
But the plane mysteriously exploded before the pilots could eject—and before the plane reached its target.
The death of his elder brother ended John F. Kennedy’s plans for a career as a writer. Joseph Kennedy, Sr., insisted that “Jack” assume the political career that the Kennedy patriarch had assigned for his dead brother.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 12, 2022 at 4:09 pm
John F. Kennedy fired the imaginations and captured the hearts of Americans and foreign citizens as no President since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Millions who voted for him—or against him or didn’t vote at all—still believe that, if only he had lived to be re-elected, America would have entered a truly Golden Age.
Kennedy certainly encouraged such belief. Asked for his definition of happiness, he quoted the ancient Greeks: “The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.”
More than 53 years after his death on November 22, 1963, he remains frozen in time. Assassinated at age 46, he remains forever young, vigorous and charming.
But even if he had not been assassinated, his Presidency could have ended in disaster.
After his 1953 marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier, he continued to pursue both a married and a bachelor life. Rumors of Kennedy’s extramarital affairs swirled throughout his Senatorial career and followed him into the White House.
His conquests included secretaries, wives of friends, strippers, movie stars (such as Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich) prostitutes and even a mobster’s mistress.
Various theories have been advanced for his taking such dangerous risks with his political career:
- As a victim of Addison’s Disease (insufficiency of the adrenal glands) he had been told by doctors he might not live beyond 35.
- As a result of the cortisone he took to control his Addison’s, his libido was greatly enhanced.
- After escaping death with the sinking of PT-109, he decided to cram as much excitement into his life as possible.
- His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., a notorious womanizer, had encouraged him and his three other sons to sleep with as many women as possible.
During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Frank Sinatra—who had become smitten with Kennedy and was determined to see him elected—introduced him to a “good time girl” named Judith Campbell.
Judith Campbell
Whether Kennedy knew it or not, Campbell was also sleeping with Sam Giancana—the most-feared Mafia boss in Chicago. And it wasn’t long before Giancana learned about her trysts with Kennedy.
As a favor to Sinatra, Giancana and his fellow mobsters used their powerful influence to ensure that JFK carried Illinois in 1960.
Sam Giancana
In turn, JFK’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy had promised Giancana that the Mob would get a free ride under a Kennedy Presidency.
When JFK appointed his brother, Robert, Attorney General, the latter declared war on organized crime. Giancana and his fellow hoods felt betrayed.
Giancana often raged to Campbell: “If it wasn’t for me, your boyfriend wouldn’t be President.” And having knowledge of her scandalous relationship with JFK, Giancana could have exposed Kennedy to a shocked public.
And if Giancana hadn’t done it, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover might have.
John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy
Hoover, under relentless pressure from Robert Kennedy to crack down on the Mob, had, through illegal electronic surveillance, discovered the Giancana-Campbell-Kennedy connection.
Always fearful that he might be replaced as FBI director, Hoover had quickly alerted the Attorney General to his latest discovery in February, 1962. Neither RFK nor JFK could dare fire Hoover now.
White House telephone logs reveal that, from January, 1961 until February, 1962, Campbell phoned the White House 70 times.
After Hoover informed Robert Kennedy of Campbell’s status with the President, she made only one more call to Kennedy. It was then that the President said the affair was over.
Similarly, the President’s on-and-off affair with Marilyn Monroe put him in an equally dangerous position. Monroe’s behavior, fueled by emotional instability, alcohol and pills, became increasingly erratic. And she grew convinced that Kennedy should divorce Jackie and make her the new First Lady.
Rumors still circulate that the President sent Robert Kennedy—who was by now an old hand at cleaning up JFK’s messes—to tell Monroe their relationship was over.
Whatever secrets Monroe may have been able to reveal about her relationship with Kennedy, she took them to the grave in an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills on August 5, 1962.
In his 1995 bestseller, The Dark Side of Camelot, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh got several former members of Kennedy’s Secret Service detail to speak about JFK’s extramarital sex life.
They revealed that they had not been allowed to search any of the women Kennedy cavorted with.
Any of these women could have injected the President with a poisonous hypodermic. Or secretly tape recorded their trysts with Kennedy for blackmail purposes.
Kennedy believed he would be re-elected in 1964—especially if his opponent was Barry Goldwater, the Republican Senator from Arizona.
And he almost certainly would have been re-elected; Lyndon Johnson scored a smashing victory over Goldwater that year.
But it’s also possible that Kennedy could have been forced to resign in disgrace over his affairs with Campbell, Monroe or any number of other women.
Such a fate overtook British Secretary of State for War John Profumo in 1962. In 1961, he had begun an affair with Christine Keeler, an attractive model. But Keeler was also bedding Yevgeney Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Britain.
When the press learned about the threesome, Profumo was forced to resign, his 22-year political career destroyed.
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JFK: “CAMELOT” ENDED SIXTY YEARS AGO: PART TWO (OF TEN)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 10, 2023 at 12:10 amDuring the 1960 Presidential campaign, then-Senator John F. Kennedy promised to build a Peace Corps to train people in underdeveloped nations to help themselves.
In March, 1961, the program went into effect, with the President’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, as director.
Starvation, illiteracy and disease were the enemies of the Corps. Any nation wanting aid could request it. The first group of volunteers went to the Philippines, the second to Ecuador and the third to Tanganyika.
The problems of the underdeveloped world were too great for any single organization to solve. But the Corps lifted the spirits of many living in those countries. And it captured the imagination of millions of Americans—especially those of thousands of idealistic youths who entered its ranks.
John F. Kennedy
To combat the growing Communist threat to Latin America, Kennedy established the Alliance for Progress. He defined the Alliance’s goal as providing “revolutionary progress through powerful, democratic means.”
Within two years he could report:
“Some 140,000 housing units have been constructed. Slum clearance projects have begun, and 3,000 classrooms have been built. More than 4,000,000 school books have been distributed.
“The Alliance has fired the imagination and kindled the hopes of millions of our good neighbors. Their drive toward modernization is gaining momentum as it unleashes the energies of these millions.
“The United States is becoming increasingly identified in the minds of the people with the goal they move toward: a better life with freedom,” said Kennedy.
Critics of the program, however, charged that the President was trying to “dress up the old policies” of Franklin D. Roosevelt in new rhetoric. Since FDR’s time, the United States has believed in giving economic aid to Latin America.
Much—if not most—of these billions of dollars wound up in the pockets of right-wing dictators, such as Anastasio Somoza and Rafael Trujillo.
Meanwhile, Kennedy was urging action on another front—that of outer space.
“This generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space,” declared the President. He committed the United States to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
As indeed it happened less than six years after his death—on July 20, 1969.
Kennedy’s idealistic rhetoric masked his real reason for going to the moon: To score a propaganda victory over the Soviet Union.
Another of his anti-Communist goals: To remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba at almost any cost.
Fidel Castro
Immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert–who was then the Attorney General—to oversee a CIA program to overthrow Castro.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro—each for its own benefit:
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
“We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter,” then-former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara testified before Congress about these efforts. “And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.”
Nor was everyone in the CIA enthusiastic about the “get Castro” effort.
“Everyone at CIA was surprised at Kennedy’s obsession with Fidel,” recalled Sam Halpern, who was assigned to the Cuba Project. “They thought it was a waste of time. We all knew [Fidel] couldn’t hurt us. Most of us at CIA initially liked Kennedy, but why go after this little guy?
“One thing is for sure: Kennedy wasn’t doing it out of national security concerns. It was a personal thing. The Kennedy family felt personally burnt by the Bay of Pigs and sought revenge.”
It was all-out war. Among the tactics used:
But all of these efforts failed to assassinate Castro—or overthrow the Cuban Revolution he was heading.
“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”
Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And the Cuban government saw the situation exactly the same way.
So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.
Khrushchev was quick to comply: “We must not allow the Communist infant to be strangled in its crib,” he told members of his inner circle.
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