Posts Tagged ‘DAILY KOS’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 11, 2022 at 11:58 am
President Kennedy’s untimely death has since fueled arguments over how, if he had lived, he would have dealt with Vietnam.
In his memoirs, former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote: “Kennedy would have never let his country get bogged down in Vietnam.”
But David Halberstam, who covered the early years of the war for The New York Times, came to a different conclusion.
David Halberstam in Vietnam
In his bestselling 1972 book, The Best and the Brightest, he wrote that although Kennedy questioned the wisdom of a combat commitment, he had never shown those doubts in public.
In public, he had expressed doubts only about the Diem regime—whether it held enough support among the Vietnamese to win the war.
His successor had to deal with Kennedy’s public statements, all supportive of the importance of Vietnam.
And it was that successor, newly-elevated President Lyndon B. Johnson, who decided, in 1965, to commit heavy military forces to protecting “freedom-loving” South Vietnam.
In short: Even if Kennedy had intended to withdraw American forces after winning re-election in 1964, he made a fatal mistake: He assumed there would always be time for him to do so.
Historian Thurston Clarke, in his 2013 book JFK’s Last Hundred Days, reached a totally different conclusion: That Kennedy planned to quietly remove American military advisers regardless of the military situation.
Like Halberstam, Clarke believes that Kennedy intended to gradually withdraw troops from Vietnam—but felt he could not afford to inflame the Right during an election year.
Essentially, the question, “What would Kennedy have done?”—on Vietnam, civil rights, relations with the Soviet Union—lies at the heart of his continuing fascination among Americans.
For millions, the later turmoil of the 1960s remains such a traumatic memory that they assume: “America would have had to be better-off if Kennedy had lived.”
But much of Kennedy’s proposed legislation—such as his civil rights act—did not become law until President Johnson overcame conservative opposition to it.
Johnson had first been elected to the House of Representatives in 1937, where he gained influence as a protégé of its speaker, Sam Rayburn. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and eventually became one of its most powerful members—especially after becoming its Majority Leader in 1954.
Johnson knew the strengths and weaknesses of his political colleagues, and he ruthlessly exploited this knowledge to ensure the passage of legislation he supported.
Kennedy had served in the House from 1946 to 1952, and from 1952 to 1961 in the Senate. But he had never been a major leader in either body.
It was as a Senator that he wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. But it was also as a Senator that he refused to vote on whether U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy should be censured by his Senatorial colleagues.
In 1954, the Senate voted to condemn McCarthy, whose slanders of Communist subversion had bullied and frightened Americans for four years. McCarthy’s influence as a political figure died overnight.
Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, was a strong McCarthy supporters. And Robert F. Kennedy had briefly worked for McCarthy’s Red-baiting Senate subcommittee.
JFK’s refusal to say how he would have voted on censuring McCarthy damaged his support among liberals during the 1960 election.
Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that Kennedy should show “more courage and less profile.”
Although Lyndon Johnson’s legislative achievements as Senator and President remain unprecedented, he has become a pariah figure among Democrats.
His 1965 decision to wage all-out war in Vietnam ignited nationwide protests and elected Richard M. Nixon as President in 1968.
Like a doomed character in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, he has largely become an un-person.
Meanwhile, John F. Kennedy continues to endlessly fascinate Americans. In poll after poll they continue to rate him highly—even though he served less than three years in the White House.
Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written about JFK. On the big screen he’s been depicted by actors such as Cliff Robertson (PT-109), Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days) and James Marsden (The Butler).
Movie poster for PT-109
On TV, he’s been portrayed by William Devane (The Missiles of October), William Petersen (The Rat Pack), Martin Sheen (Kennedy), James Franciscus (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy) and Cliff De Young (Robert Kennedy and His Times).
William Devane as John F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October
Kennedy has even appeared on Saturday Night Live (perhaps most famously in a sketch where he chides then-President Clinton for his tawdry choices as a womanizer).
He even figured in a 1986 episode of the revised Twilight Zone episode where a history professor travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination.
The result: JFK is saved but Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev is murdered and World War III erupts.
In 2013, the Internet Movie Database listed a total of 94 movies, mini-series. TV dramas and even comedies featuring the character of John F. Kennedy.
Roads, bridges, tunnels, highways, parks, playgrounds and schools have been named after him.
As Thurston Clarke wrote in JFK’s Last Hundred Days: “There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is in of itself an index of majority opinion. By that standard, Kennedy was a great President.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 8, 2022 at 9:43 am
The Kennedy administration’s unprecedented attack on organized crime has led some law enforcement experts to believe the Mob engineered President Kennedy’s assassination.
One of these is G. Robert Blakey, father of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. As the former Chief Counsel and Staff Director to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (1977–1979) he oversaw the second official inquiry into the Kennedy assassination.
As a result, he believes the Mob had ample means, motive and opportunity to arrange for a “nut” to kill the President.
In his 1980 book, The Plot to Kill the President, Blakey asserted:
- Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy.
- An unknown confederate of Oswald’s, firing from the “grassy knoll,” also shot at Kennedy but missed.
- The conspiracy was rooted in organized crime and involved Mafia boss Santos Trafficante of Miami and/or Mafia boss Carlos Marcello of New Orleans.
The 1983 TV mini-series, “Blood Feud,” clearly implied that the Mob was responsible. At its heart lay the 10-year conflict between Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa, then president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union.
This was also the plot of American Tabloid, a 1995 novel by James Ellroy.
But investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that during the five years he researched The Dark Side of Camelot, his expose of the hidden life of President Kennedy, he didn’t uncover any evidence of such a plot.
After Robert Kennedy left the Justice Department in 1964 to run for the post of U.S. Senator from New York, the Justice Department slacked off its push against the crime syndicates.
But the war was resurrected during the Nixon administration and has remained a top priority ever since.
Perhaps the most controversial legacy of the Kennedy administration remains the President’s dealings with the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.,
In 1954, the French—who had controlled Vietnam for 80 years—were forced to withdraw their military forces from the country. Their army had suffered a humiliating defeat at Dienbenphu and the French citizenry—still recovering from defeat and Nazi occupation during World War II—demanded an end to the disastrous conflict.
Into this political vacuum stepped the victorious North Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh.
Kennedy—then U.S. Senator from Massachusetts—had visited Vietnam while the French were still trying to hold onto one of their last colonial possessions. And he had urged them to withdraw and allow the Vietnamese to govern themselves.
But President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of Ho’s overwhelming popularity throughout Vietnam due to his battles against Japanese and French colonialists. In any nationwide election, Ho was certain to win the presidency.
But Eisenhower felt he couldn’t allow an avowed Communist to rule Vietnam. With the North under firm Communist control, America focused its attention on the South.
Searching for an acceptable alternative, Eisenhower found him in Ngo Dinh Diem—a mandarin in a nation swept by revolution, a Catholic in a nation with an 80% Buddhist population.
In 1954, America began backing Diem. Although his first years were marked by social progress, he later became increasingly oppressive toward the Buddhist majority. Corruption openly flourished among government and army officials.
Ngo Dinh Diem
In 1960, North Vietnam launched an aggressive campaign of infiltration and assassination across South Vietnam.
In 1961, President Kennedy sent 400 Green Berets and 100 other military advisers to South Vietnam to offer support.
Diem requested American financing of a 100,000-man increase in his army. Kennedy agreed to an increase of 30,000. Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that 40,000 U.S. troops would be needed to “clean up the Vietcong threat.”
Kennedy underestimated the reaction of North Vietnam, whose forces were fighting what they believed was a crusade. As American troop strength increased, the North escalated its own commitment.
From 1961 to 1963, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam steadily rose from 685 to 16,732. American minesweepers patrolled the coasts while their aircraft engaged in surveillance.
For the first time, Americans became casualties of the war–especially those in helicopter combat-support missions.
Meanwhile, Diem—urged by his influential brother, Nhu, who ran the secret police—cracked down on the Buddhists.
Government troops fired on a peaceful demonstration in May, 1963. In protest, Buddhist monks burned themselves to death before TV cameras.
Nhu’s beautiful and powerful wife, Madame Nhu, fed growing world outrage by her ridicule of “monk barbecue shows.”
American efforts to stop Diem’s anti-Buddhist campaign failed. On August 21, 1963, Diem’s police shot their way into Buddhist pagodas, killing scores and arresting hundreds.
This finally convinced the Kennedy administration that Diem would never gain the popular support he needed to win the war against the Communist North.
As a result, the administration offered support to South Vietnamese military officers planning a coup against Diem.
On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese army units stormed the presidential palace. Diem and Nhu fled, but were caught and shot. Madame Nhu, visiting the U.S. at the time, escaped death, accusing Kennedy of supporting the coup.
The administration issued a flat denial.
Diem’s assassination was followed 21 days later by Kennedy’s own.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 7, 2022 at 9:24 am
John F. Kennedy became President when civil rights suddenly became a burning issue throughout the Nation.
At Kennedy’s request, dozen of law firms sent lawyers South, so civil rights demonstrators would not lack counsel.
Prominent blacks such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert C. Weaver and George L.L. Weaver were appointed, respectively, to the Supreme Court, the Housing and House Finance Agency and the office of Assistant Secretary of Labor.
But Kennedy was highly reluctant to push for a civil rights bill addressing the overall issues of racial discrimination.
The reason: Most of the chairman of House and Senate committees were deeply conservative Southern racists–whether Republican or Democrat. They decided whether Kennedy’s foreign policy initiatives would be approved or opposed–especially his bills for increased foreign aid.
Kennedy believed he could not offend such men without jeopardizing the legacy he wanted to achieve in foreign policy.
This timidity, in turn, led many prominent blacks—such as Martin Luther King and Malcom X—to believe they would see no innovative moves on Kennedy’s part.
But events forced Kennedy’s hand.
On September 30, 1962, the President sent deputy U.S. marshals and National Guardsmen into Mississippi to restore order. Rioting had erupted when, by federal court order, James Meredith, a black, was enrolled at the state university.
Kennedy’s problems in winning support for his civil rights program arose in the folkways of the Nation. When laws run counter to a nation’s folkways, the laws lose.
In backing the admission of Meredith, the President chose an incident which would set off shockwaves for black rights.
Kennedy held mixed emotions about the demand for civil rights by blacks. On one hand, as an Irish Catholic, he grew up with stories about longtime discrimination against his ancestors (such as the “No Irish Need Apply” signs posted by numerous employers).
On the other hand, he had been born into a world of power and wealth, and he had to grope his way toward understanding the problems of the oppressed.
Another major confrontation broke out between Kennedy and the forces of segregation on June 11, 1963. Alabama Governor George C. Wallace personally blocked the entrance of two black pupils to the University of Tuscaloosa.
The President, watching on TV, federalized the Alabama National Guard, which Wallace had used to ring the school. Wallace withdrew and the students were admitted and enrolled.
That same day, Kennedy addressed the nation on the need for genuine equality for all Americans: “The question is whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”
JFK addresses the nation on civil rights
And he called on Congress to pass his civil rights bill, which had been stalled by the legislators.
On August 28, 1963, 200,000 civil rights demonstrators flooded Washington, D.C., for a massive rally.
Fearing that violence would erupt—embarrassing his administration and setting back the cause of civil rights—Kennedy had sought to persuade Dr. Martin Luther King, the march’s chief figure, to cancel the proposed march.
But King and his fellow organizers were determined to go through with it. They had, they said, waited too long for justice to be satisfied with anything less.
The dignity and peacefulness of the rally–and, most especially, King’s soaring “I Have a Dream” speech–won tremendous sympathy throughout the country. Kennedy met with civil rights leaders afterward to offer his support.
Martin Luther King during the March on Washington
But Kennedy’s civil rights bill remained stalled in Congress until 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson used the assassinated Kennedy’s new status as a martyr to gain enough support for its passage.
Meanwhile, on yet another front, the Kennedy administration was waging an unprecedented war against organized crime.
This was primarily the work of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. As chief counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1957–59), he had interrogated about 800 mobsters who had been summoned by subpoena.
And he had learned, firsthand, how ineffective the FBI and Justice Department were at bringing such powerful criminals to justice. The FBI had long steered clear of organized crime investigations, largely because its director, J. Edgar Hoover, feared corruption of his agents.
Upon taking office as Attorney General, he greatly expanded the number of attorneys assigned to the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Section. And, more important, he used his status as brother to the President to jawbone FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover into attacking the Mob.
The FBI installed illegal microphones in Mob hangouts throughout the country and started building cases against such mobsters as Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante and Carlos Marcello.
The administration’s attack on the Mob has led some historians to believe the assassination of President Kennedy was Mob-orchestrated.
The reasons:
- Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, solicited Mob money and influence for his son’s 1960 Presidential campaign.
- Through singer Frank Sinatra, the elder Kennedy assured Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana that the mob would get a free ride if his son were elected President.
- The CIA, seeking any way to topple Fidel Castro, enlisted the Mafia to assassinate him.
- But Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, ignored the Mob’s “contributions” and pressed his war against the syndicates
- As a result, mobsters felt betrayed and lusted for vengeance.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2022 at 10:46 am
By October, 1962, Nikita Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, had supplied Cuba with more than 40,000 soldiers, 1,300 field pieces, 700 anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks and 150 jets.
The motive: To deter another invasion.
Khrushchev also began supplying Castro with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Their discovery, in October, 1962, ignited the single most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War.
John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 16, Kennedy was shown photographs of nuclear missile sites under construction on the island. The pictures had been taken on the previous day by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane.
Suddenly, the two most powerful nuclear countries—the United States and the Soviet Union—appeared on the brink of nuclear war.
Kennedy officials claimed they couldn’t understand why Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. “Maybe Khrushchev’s gone mad” was a typical musing.
The Kennedy administration never admitted that JFK had been waging a no-holds-barred campaign to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leader.
Kennedy convened a group of his 12 most important advisers, which became known as Ex-Comm, for Executive Committee.
For seven days, Kennedy and his advisers intensely and privately debated their options. Some of the participants—such as Air Force General Curtis LeMay—urged an all-out air strike against the missile sites.
Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General (and the President’s brother) opposed initial calls for an air strike.
It would be, he said, “a Pearl Harbor in reverse.” And, he added: “I don’t want my brother to go down in history as the Tojo of the 1960s.”
Robert F. and John F. Kennedy
Others—such as Adlai Stevenson, the United States delegate to the United Nations—urged a reliance on quiet diplomacy.
It was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara who suggested a middle course: A naval blockade—a “quarantine” in Kennedy’s softened term—around Cuba. This would hopefully prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island.
The President insisted that the missiles had to go—by peaceful means, if possible, but by the use of military force if necessary.
Kennedy finally settled on a naval blockade of Cuba. This would prevent additional missiles from coming in and give Khrushchev time to negotiate and save face.
On October 22, President Kennedy appeared on nationwide TV to denounce the presence of Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba.
He demanded their withdrawal, and warned that any missile launched against any nation in the Western hemisphere would be answered with “a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
Kennedy ordered American military readiness raised to a level of Defcom-2—the step just short of total war.
The United States had about 27,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviets had about 3,000. In a first nuclear exchange, the United States could have launched about 3,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviets about 250.
Nuclear missile in silo
On October 28, Khrushchev announced that the missile sites would be destroyed and the missiles crated and shipped back to the Soviet Union.
In return, Kennedy gave his promise—publicly—to lift the blockade and not invade Cuba
Privately, he also promised to remove obsolete Jupiter II nuclear missiles from Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union. Those missiles were, in effect, the American version of the Russian missiles that had been shipped to Cuba.
The world escaped nuclear disaster by a hair’s-breath.
Khrushchev didn’t know that Kennedy had intended to order a full-scale invasion of Cuba in just another 24 hours if an agreement couldn’t be reached.
And Kennedy and his military advisors didn’t know that Russian soldiers defending Cuba had been armed with tactical nuclear weapons.
If warfare of any type had broken out, the temptation to go nuclear would have been overwhelming.
The Cuban Missile Crisis marked the only time the world came to the brink of nuclear war.
The Right attacked Kennedy for refusing to destroy Castro, thus allowing Cuba to remain a Communist bastion only 90 miles from Florida.
The Left believed it was a needless confrontation that risked the destruction of humanity.
For Kennedy, forcing the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba re-won the confidence he had lost among so many Americans following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
It also made him face the brutal truth that a miscalculation during a nuclear crisis could destroy all life on Earth.
He felt he could now move—cautiously—toward better relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Ironically, the crisis had the same effects on Khrushchev—who had witnessed the horrors of Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of at least 22 million Soviet citizens.
Slowly and carefully, Kennedy and Khrushchev negotiated the details of what would become the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
Underground tests would continue, but the amounts of deadly strontium-90 radiation polluting the atmosphere would be vastly reduced.
The treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union on July 25, 1963.
Kennedy considered it his greatest achievement as President, saying in a speech: “According to a Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. My fellow Americans, let us take that first step.”
2012 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ALTERNET, AP, BARACK OBAMA, BAY OF PIGS, BBC, BERLIN WALL, BILL CLINTON, BRUCE GREENWOOD, BUZZFEED, CARLOS MARCELLO, CBS NEWS, CIA, CIVIL RIGHTS, CLIFF ROBERTSON, CNN, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DAILY KOS, DAVID HALBERSTAM, DONALD J. TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIDEL CASTRO, FRANK SINATRA, HERMAN CAIN, ICH BEN EIN BERLINNER SPEECH, INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, J. EDGAR HOOVER, JAMES MARSDEN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MAFIA, MALCOM X, MARTIN LUTHER KING, MARTIN SHEEN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MOVIES, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NPR, NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY, POLITICO, PT-109, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICK PERRY, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, SALON, SAM GIANCANA, SANTOS TRAFFICANTE, Sarah Palin, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, THE BUTLER, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RAT PACK, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THIRTEEN DAYS, TIME, TWILIGHT ZONE, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, WILLIAM DEVANE, WILLIAM PETERSON
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 5, 2022 at 9:31 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.
John F. Kennedy
In March, 1961, the program went into effect, with the President’s brother-in-law, Sergent 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.
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 has wound up in the pockets of various 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 July 4, 2022 at 11:55 am
This October 16 – 28 will mark 60 years since the world hovered on the brink of nuclear oblivion.
It was the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. And it was the supreme test of John F. Kennedy’s leadership as the 35th President of the United States.
He served as President for only two years, ten months and two days.
Yet today—-61 years since he took office, and 59 years since his assassination—millions of Americans still remember Kennedy with reverence, even awe. This despite decades of highly embarrassing revelations about his scandalous private life.
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, and 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 History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 25, 2022 at 12:12 am
After being fired as town marshal of Abilene, Kansas, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok lived another five years. But they weren’t good ones.
Unlike William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Hickok couldn’t adjust to the changing West.
It was becoming less wild. His scouting days were over—the Indian wars were rapidly coming to an end.
(On June 25, 1876, barely two months before his own death, the Sioux and Cheyenne would wipe out the other famous “Long Hair” of the plains—George Armstrong Custer—at the battle of Little Bighorn.)
And most towns, like Abilene, increasingly had little use for lead-slinging lawmen like Hickok.
James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok
Worst of all, he was going blind—either from a venereal disease he had contracted or from the glare of too many prairie sunrises.
In 1873, Hickok tried his hand as an actor in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. But he was a terrible performer—and knew it.
The fault, however, did not lie entirely with him. Even Laurence Oliver would have rebelled at spouting lines like: “Fear not, fair maiden, for you are ever safe with Will Bill, who has sworn to defend to the death your maidenly virtue.”
Not that the audiences cared. They had come to see legendary plainsmen—such as Hickok and Cody—in the flesh, not great theater.
Hickok asked Cody to release him from his contract. Cody refused. So Hickok once again turned to his guns for a solution.
In this case, it meant shooting blanks into the legs and buttocks of “dead” Indians who suddenly sprang to life and rushed off the stage. And one night, Hickok put a real bullet through a stage light that was hurting his already sensitive eyes.
That, finally, convinced Cody that Hickok’s acting days were over.
In March, 1876, he married Agnes Lake Thatcher, a circus acrobat several years his senior.
In April, he told Agnes he was heading for the gold rush country of Deadwood, South Dakota. After he made his fortune, he would send for her.
But she never saw him again.
Deadwood was the sort of town the National Rifle Association wants to see replicated across modern-day America. Everyone wore a gun, and there was no town ordinance against doing so. Nor were there any law-enforcers like Hickok to protect the public from the kill-crazy antics of liquored-up gunmen.
Grave of “Wild Bill” Hickok
Worse for Hickok, he had two strikes against him: His reputation as a matchless gunfighter had preceded him—and his failing vision put him at a disadvantage in backing it up.
Arriving in Deadwood, he quickly decided that the strenuous life of a gold-miner was not for him. Instead, he would seek his fortune as he often had—in saloons as a gambler.
And, as he had so often, he spent more of his time losing money than making it.
On August 2, 1876, his long trail of bad luck finally ran out.
He had always sat with his back to a wall, as a precaution against ambush. On this afternoon, he found his preferred seat taken by another gambler named Charles Rich. Hickok asked Rich to trade places with him, but when the latter refused, Hickok didn’t press the matter.
Hickok paid no attention as a whiskey bum named Jack McCall walked around to the corner of the saloon to where the ex-lawman was playing.
Jack McCall
The previous night, Hickok had won considerable money from McCall in a poker game—and had generously given him back enough to buy something to eat.
Suddenly, McCall pulled a double-action .45 from under his coat, shouted “Take that!” and shot Hickok in the back of the head.
Hickok died instantly. He was 39.
As he slid from the table, he dropped the cards he had been holding—a pair of eights and another pair of Aces, which has ever since been known as “the dead man’s hand.”
McCall was “tried” by a mining court. He claimed that Hickok had murdered his brother and he had sought revenge. He was acquitted.
He headed for Wyoming, where he incessantly bragged that he had killed the famous “Wild Bill” Hickok.
McCall was arrested in Laramie and charged with murder. The trial in Deadwood was found to have been invalid—owing to the town’s being in Indian territory and outside the reach of United States law.
Once again forced to stand trial, McCall found himself convicted. On March 1, 1877, he was hanged. Later, it was discovered that McCall had never had a brother.
In its zeal to return to the “glory days” of the Wild West, the National Rifle Association deliberately overlooks an uncomfortable truth: It was men like Hickok who brought order and safety to countless towns—by forbidding the wearing of firearms.
If worn into town, they were to be surrendered at the marshal’s office—and returned when the visitors left. Those who resisted could leave town in a hearse.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 24, 2022 at 12:10 am
Almost everyone has heard of “Wild Bill” Hickok—the legendary Western scout, Indian fighter, two-gun lawman and crack shot.
And the legend, not the man, is often invoked—inaccurately—by “gun rights” advocates who seek to reduce the entire Constitution to a single amendment: The Second Amendment.
But there is a vast difference between Hickok the legend—and Hickok the actual man.
For one thing, his real name wasn’t “Bill”—or even “William.” It was James Butler Hickok.
He supposedly got the name “Wild Bill” after thwarting an attempted lynching—and a woman applauded his bravery with: “Good for you, Wild Bill!”
James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok
For another, Hickok didn’t spend most of his life as a town marshal. His gunslinging days as a lawman lasted just two years—1869 to 1871.
And they ended badly. His first stint as a lawman came at Hays City, Kansas. As sheriff, he shot and killed at least two men.
According to legend, one of these shootings occurred when Hickok, looking in a bar mirror, saw a ruffian named Strawhan pull a pistol to shoot him in the back.
The two-gun lawman
Hickok, looking into the mirror, threw a “trick shot” over his shoulder–and nailed Strawhan dead.
Then Hickok’s luck ran out. On July 17, 1870, several members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry attacked him in Drum’s Saloon. Knocked to the floor and repeatedly kicked, Hickok had reason to fear death.
Drawing his pistols, he killed one private and wounded another. Although he had acted in self-defense and the shootings were entirely justifiable, Hickok now faced even greater danger from other, enraged members of the same regiment.
He decided to leave Hays before they could take their revenge.
His next posting as town marshal came in Abilene, Kansas. This stint lasted from April to December, 1871.
And, like his last one as a “town-tamer,” it ended with a deadly shootout.
A major portion of his duties lay in enforcing the “no firearms worn or used in town” edict.
Abilene was a cattle town, the end of the line for many outfits seeking a major railhead where their hundreds of beeves could be dropped off and shipped eastward.
When cowboys—most of them in their teens or early 20s—reached Abilene, they wanted to celebrate. Their long drive was over, and now they could finally get paid. And there were plenty of bars and whores waiting to pick up their newly-issued monies.
This combination of randy men and ready supplies of alcohol and women often led to trouble. One cowboy might make a pass at another’s “lady” for the night. Or an argument might erupt over a card game.
It was Hickok’s duty to make sure that such arguments were settled only with fists. And that meant demanding that all cowboys’ guns be checked at the marshal’s office until the “boys” were ready to leave Abilene.
Hickok’s 1860 .44 caliber Colt Army revolver
This, of course, contradicts the “open carry” demands of the National Rifle Association. And most of its members—if transported to the Old West—would find themselves on the wrong side of Hickok.
And that wasn’t a good place to be—as Texas gambler Phil Coe learned to his dismay.
Coe and Hickok had clashed before.
As co-owner of the Bull’s head Saloon, Coe had advertised its wares with a sign depicting a bull with oversized sexual organs. A number of citizens raged that this was obscene and demanded that the animal’s sexuality be greatly reduced.
The city fathers agreed. Hickok stood nearby with a shotgun while a painter made the necessary deletions.
On October 5, 1971, cowboys were flooding into Abilene, looking for a good time. Coe, feeling in high spirits, decided to celebrate by firing his pistol into the air several times.
The shots quickly brought Hickok to the scene.
“Did you fire that shot?” Hickok demanded.
Coe supposedly replied: “I shot at a dog—and I’ll shoot at another.”
Coe threw a shot at Hickok—which missed.
Hickok whipped out his two revolvers and put two bullets into Coe’s stomach, mortally wounding the Texan, who died three days later.
With Coe’s Texas buddies surrounding him, Hickok suddenly heard someone rushing at him from behind. Hickok whirled and fired twice more—into the chest of his own deputy, Mike Williams, who had been running to his aid.
Hickok, aghast at his mistake, gently carried Williams into a saloon and placed his body onto a billiard table. Then he raged through Abilene, ordering an end to the festivities and knocking down any cowboys foolish enough to resist.
Owing to this latest explosion in violence, the city fathers quickly reached two decision: First, they put an end to Abilene’s years as a major cattle shipping point. From now on, cattlemen were no longer welcome there.
And then they fired Hickok as city marshal in December, 1871.
For James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, it was time to find a new career.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2022 at 12:10 am
On November 6, 2012, Ann Coulter, the Right-wing activist and propagandist, was devastated by the re-election of President Barack Obama.
“People are suffering. The country is in disarray,” she whined during an interview. “If Mitt Romney [the Republican Presidential nominee] cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.
“Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts.”
Mitt Romney
Note the chief reason for her regret: Romney would have been “able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas.”
Unfortunately for Coulter, a majority of Americans rejected this mentality—and the repressive measures that would have accompanied it.
So, naturally, Coulter and her fellow Rightists felt dejected.
One of these was Donald Trump, then a real estate mogul and host of the “reality show” The Apprentice.
Donald Trump
When it became clear that Romney was not going to be America’s 45th President, Trump went ballistic on Twitter. Among his tweets:
- More votes equals a loss…revolution!
- Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.
- We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
- The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!
- He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
To put Trump’s rants into real-world perspective:
- According to Trump, the electoral process works when a Republican wins the Presidency. It only doesn’t work when a Democrat wins.
- “We should march on Washington” conjures up images of another Fascist–Benito Mussolini—marching on Rome at the head of his Blackshirts to seize power. Which, in a democracy, is treason.
- “The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”
Ironically, the 2012 Republican Platform had fully embraced preserving the Electoral College: “We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.
“We recognize that an unconstitutional effort to impose ‘national popular vote’ would be a mortal threat to our federal system and a guarantee of corruption as every ballot box in every state would become a chance to steal the presidency.”
And the loser didn’t win: He lost.
Obama got 60,652,238 votes. Romney got 57,810,407.
But by 2016, Coulter no longer felt dismayed. She felt rejuvenated—for she had found her perfect Presidential candidate: Donald Trump.
Appearing on the Right-wing radio program, “The Eric Metaxes Show,” she said: “It is like the fall of Rome but, thank God, and I am not using the Lord’s name in vain, I mean that absolutely literally, thank God for raising up Donald Trump and giving us a chance to save the country.
“What is the point of talking about abortion or anything else unless you get Donald Trump in to build the wall, deport illegals, end this ‘anchor baby’ nonsense, stop importing 100,000 Muslims a year, in addition to two million Third Worlders per year. It’s madness what this country has been doing.”
Coulter not only spoke on Trump’s behalf—she sang his praises in a 2016 book: In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!
Ann Coulter
According to its dust jacket: “[Ann Coulter] argues that a bull in the china shop is exactly what we need to make America great again.
“In this powerful book, Coulter explains why conservatives, moderates, and even disgruntled Democrats should set aside their doubts and embrace Trump:
“He’s putting America first in our trade deals and alliances, rather than pandering to our allies and enemies.
“He’s abandoned the GOP’s decades-long commitment to a bellicose foreign policy, at a time when the entire country is sick of unnecessary wars.”
To Coulter’s delight, Trump defeated Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on November 9, 2016.
Although Clinton got almost 2.9 million more popular votes, he swamped her in the Electoral College—304 votes to Clinton’s 227.
Suddenly, for Trump, the Electoral College wasn’t “phoney.”
But by May, 2017, four months after Trump had taken office as President, Ann Coulter was ready to abandon him. Her chief complaint: He hadn’t built the wall along the United States-Mexican border he had promised to erect.
“We want the ruthless businessman we were promised,” she told the conservative website, The Daily Caller.
“I guess we have to try to push him to keep his promises. But this isn’t North Korea, and if he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out.
“This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”
In short: She backed a monster to wreak destruction on those she hated.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2022 at 12:10 am
Next hero: Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).
In May 2019, on President Donald Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network-–and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Marie Yovanovitch
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Hunter, had had business dealings in Ukraine.
On October 11, 2019, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Giuliani, might have thought “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.”
Another victim on Trump’s hate-list was Chis Krebs.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda had played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
And where Internet trolls left off, Russian computer hackers took over.
Trump didn’t win a majority of the popular vote. But he got enough help from Russian President Vladimir Putin to triumph in the Electoral College.
So notorious was the role played by Russian trolls and hackers in winning Trump the 2016 election that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
And point man for this was Chris Krebs.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, Krebs had received a B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999, and a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007.
Chris Krebs
Krebs had served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection, and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft.
Now he was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
In preparation for the 2020 Presidential election, Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the November 3, 2020 election went very smoothly.
As a result of the vast increase in election security, Trump not only failed to win the popular vote again but couldn’t get the help he expected from Putin.
On November 17, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.”
Yet, by depriving Trump of Russian help, Krebs ensured a victory for democracy.
On January 6, the House and Senate counted the Electoral Votes—and pronounced Joseph Biden the winner—bringing an end to Trump’s reign of criminality and treason.
In his 1960 poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who had maintained their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives in the face of Trump terror.
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JFK: ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER: PART SIX (OF TEN)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 11, 2022 at 11:58 amPresident Kennedy’s untimely death has since fueled arguments over how, if he had lived, he would have dealt with Vietnam.
In his memoirs, former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote: “Kennedy would have never let his country get bogged down in Vietnam.”
But David Halberstam, who covered the early years of the war for The New York Times, came to a different conclusion.
David Halberstam in Vietnam
In his bestselling 1972 book, The Best and the Brightest, he wrote that although Kennedy questioned the wisdom of a combat commitment, he had never shown those doubts in public.
In public, he had expressed doubts only about the Diem regime—whether it held enough support among the Vietnamese to win the war.
His successor had to deal with Kennedy’s public statements, all supportive of the importance of Vietnam.
And it was that successor, newly-elevated President Lyndon B. Johnson, who decided, in 1965, to commit heavy military forces to protecting “freedom-loving” South Vietnam.
In short: Even if Kennedy had intended to withdraw American forces after winning re-election in 1964, he made a fatal mistake: He assumed there would always be time for him to do so.
Historian Thurston Clarke, in his 2013 book JFK’s Last Hundred Days, reached a totally different conclusion: That Kennedy planned to quietly remove American military advisers regardless of the military situation.
Like Halberstam, Clarke believes that Kennedy intended to gradually withdraw troops from Vietnam—but felt he could not afford to inflame the Right during an election year.
Essentially, the question, “What would Kennedy have done?”—on Vietnam, civil rights, relations with the Soviet Union—lies at the heart of his continuing fascination among Americans.
For millions, the later turmoil of the 1960s remains such a traumatic memory that they assume: “America would have had to be better-off if Kennedy had lived.”
But much of Kennedy’s proposed legislation—such as his civil rights act—did not become law until President Johnson overcame conservative opposition to it.
Johnson had first been elected to the House of Representatives in 1937, where he gained influence as a protégé of its speaker, Sam Rayburn. In 1948, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and eventually became one of its most powerful members—especially after becoming its Majority Leader in 1954.
Johnson knew the strengths and weaknesses of his political colleagues, and he ruthlessly exploited this knowledge to ensure the passage of legislation he supported.
Kennedy had served in the House from 1946 to 1952, and from 1952 to 1961 in the Senate. But he had never been a major leader in either body.
It was as a Senator that he wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. But it was also as a Senator that he refused to vote on whether U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy should be censured by his Senatorial colleagues.
In 1954, the Senate voted to condemn McCarthy, whose slanders of Communist subversion had bullied and frightened Americans for four years. McCarthy’s influence as a political figure died overnight.
Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, was a strong McCarthy supporters. And Robert F. Kennedy had briefly worked for McCarthy’s Red-baiting Senate subcommittee.
JFK’s refusal to say how he would have voted on censuring McCarthy damaged his support among liberals during the 1960 election.
Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that Kennedy should show “more courage and less profile.”
Although Lyndon Johnson’s legislative achievements as Senator and President remain unprecedented, he has become a pariah figure among Democrats.
His 1965 decision to wage all-out war in Vietnam ignited nationwide protests and elected Richard M. Nixon as President in 1968.
Like a doomed character in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, he has largely become an un-person.
Meanwhile, John F. Kennedy continues to endlessly fascinate Americans. In poll after poll they continue to rate him highly—even though he served less than three years in the White House.
Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written about JFK. On the big screen he’s been depicted by actors such as Cliff Robertson (PT-109), Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days) and James Marsden (The Butler).
Movie poster for PT-109
On TV, he’s been portrayed by William Devane (The Missiles of October), William Petersen (The Rat Pack), Martin Sheen (Kennedy), James Franciscus (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy) and Cliff De Young (Robert Kennedy and His Times).
William Devane as John F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October
Kennedy has even appeared on Saturday Night Live (perhaps most famously in a sketch where he chides then-President Clinton for his tawdry choices as a womanizer).
He even figured in a 1986 episode of the revised Twilight Zone episode where a history professor travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination.
The result: JFK is saved but Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev is murdered and World War III erupts.
In 2013, the Internet Movie Database listed a total of 94 movies, mini-series. TV dramas and even comedies featuring the character of John F. Kennedy.
Roads, bridges, tunnels, highways, parks, playgrounds and schools have been named after him.
As Thurston Clarke wrote in JFK’s Last Hundred Days: “There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is in of itself an index of majority opinion. By that standard, Kennedy was a great President.”
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