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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2026 at 12:14 am
In April, 1961, the CIA tried to overthrow the Communist regime of Cuba’s “Maximum Leader,” Fidel Castro, at the Bay of Pigs.
When that failed, President John F. Kennedy ordered Castro’s removal through a campaign of sabotage and assassination.
These covert operatives became known within the CIA as the Special Group, and were ultimately supervised by Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s brother and Attorney General.
The war against Castro became known within the CIA as Operation Mongoose.
But not everyone in the CIA was 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.
“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”
Among that “boom and bang” were a series of assassination plots against Castro, in which the Mafia was to be a key player.
Chicago Mobster Johnny Rosselli proposed a simple plan: Through its underworld connections in Cuba, the Mafia would recruit a Cuban in Castro’s entourage, such as a waiter or bodyguard, who would poison him.
The CIA’s Technical Services division produced a botulinus toxin which was then injected into Castro’s favorite brand of cigars. The CIA also produced simpler botulinus toxin pills that could be dissolved in his food or drink.
But the deputized Mafia contacts failed to deliver any of the poisons to Castro.
Rosselli told the CIA that the first poisoner had been discharged from Castro’s employ before he could kill him, and the back-up agent got “cold feet.”
Other proposals or attempts included:
- 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, tea and coffee with other lethal bacteria.
Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And that was how the Cuban government saw the situation.
So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.
Fidel Castro
Nikita Khrushchev
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.
By October, 1962, the Soviet Union had sent more than
- 40,000 soldiers,
- 1,300 field pieces,
- 700 anti-aircraft guns,
- 350 tanks and
- 150 jets
to Cuba to deter another invasion.
Most importantly, Khrushchev began supplying Castro with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Their discovery, on October 15, 1962, ignited the single most dangerous confrontation of the 50-year Cold War.
Suddenly, the United States and the Soviet Union—bristling with nuclear weapons—found themselves on the brink of nuclear war.
At the time, Kennedy officials claimed they couldn’t understand why Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. “Maybe Khrushchev’s gone mad” was a typical public musing.
None of these officials admitted that JFK had been waging a no-holds-barred campaign to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leader.
On October 16, the next day, President Kennedy was informed of the missile installations. He immediately convened a group of his 12 most important advisors, which became known as Ex-Comm, for Executive Committee.
Then followed seven days of guarded and intense debate by Kennedy and his advisors. Some of the participants—such as Air Force General Curtis LeMay—urged an all-out air strike against the missile sites.
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.
Finally, the President decided to to impose a naval blockade.
On October 22, Kennedy went on nationwide TV to announce the discovery of the missiles and his blockade of Cuba.
He warned that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union—and would trigger “a full retaliatory response” upon the U.S.S.R.
John F. Kennedy address the nation
And he demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba:
“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2026 at 12:38 am
On January 29, 2026, President Donald Trump threatened to impose huge tariffs on goods from any country that supplied oil to Cuba. Declaring a national emergency, he aims to cripple the island’s energy supply.
On February 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in Moscow and reaffirmed his support for the island nation. Putin reminded his guest that Russia “will not accept anything of the sort” when discussing the sanctions against the country.
“I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form,” Trump said on March 16. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They are a very weakened nation right now.”
Sixty-two years ago, similar American aggression toward Cuba almost led to full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union—and the end of all life on Earth.
On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro swept triumphantly into Havana after a two-year guerrilla campaign against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro
Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of Cubans began fleeing to America. The first émigrés were more than 215,000 Batista followers. The exodus escalated, peaking at approximately 78,000 in 1962.
Between 1962 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans entered the United States under the Attorney General’s parole authority.
By 2008, more than 1.24 million Cubans were living in the United States, mostly in South Florida, where the population of Miami was about one-third Cuban. Their sheer numbers transformed the state’s political, economic and cultural life. And not entirely for the better.
Many of these Cubans viewed themselves as political exiles, rather than immigrants, hoping to eventually return to Cuba after its Communist regime fell from power.
The large number of Cubans in South Florida, particularly in Miami’s “Little Havana,” allowed them to preserve their culture and customs to a degree rare for immigrant groups.
With so many discontented immigrants concentrated in Florida, they became a potential force for politicians to court.
And the issue guaranteed to sway their votes was unrelenting hostility to Castro. Unsurprisingly, most of their votes went to right-wing Republicans.
John F. Kennedy was the first President to face this dilemma.
During the closing months of the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the CIA had begun training Cuban exiles for an invasion of their former homeland.
The exiles’ goal: To do what Castro had done—seek refuge in the mountains and launch a successful anti-Castro revolution.
But word of the coming invasion quickly leaked: The exiles were terrible secret-keepers. (A joke at the CIA went: “A Cuban thinks a secret is something you tell to only 300 people.”)
Kennedy insisted the invasion must appear to be an entirely Cuban enterprise. He refused to commit U.S. Marines and Air Force bombers.
The invaders landed on April 17, 1961 at the Bay of Pigs—and were quickly overwhelmed, with hundreds of the men taken prisoner.
Kennedy publicly took the blame for its failure: “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” But privately he seethed, and ordered the CIA to redouble its efforts to remove Castro at all costs.
To make certain his order was carried out, he appointed his brother, Robert—then Attorney General—to oversee the CIA’s “Castro removal” program.
Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy
It’s here that America’s obsession with Cuba entered its darkest and most disgraceful period.
The CIA and the Mafia entered into an unholy alliance to assassinate Castro—each for its own benefit:
The CIA wanted to please Kennedy.
The mob wanted to regain its casino and brothel holdings that had made Cuba their private playground in pre-Castro times. They also hoped to use their pose as patriots to win immunity from future prosecution.
The CIA supplied poisons and explosives to various members of the Mafia. It was then up to the mobsters to assassinate Castro.
The CIA asked Johnny Roselli, a mobster linked to the Chicago syndicate, to go to Florida in 1961 and 1962 to organize assassination teams of Cuban exiles. They were to infiltrate their homeland and assassinate Castro.
Johnny Roselli
Rosselli called upon two other crime figures: Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, the Costra Nostra chieftain for Tampa, for assistance.
Sam Giancana
Giancana, using the name “Sam Gold” in his dealings with the CIA, was meanwhile being hounded by the FBI on direct orders of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
The mobsters were authorized to offer $150,000 to anyone who would kill Castro and were promised any support the Agency could yield.
Giancana was to locate someone who was close enough to Castro to be able to drop pills into his food. Trafficante would serve as courier to Cuba, helping to make arrangements for the murder on the island.
Rosselli was to be the main link between all of the participants in the plot.
Some authorities believe that the Mob made a genuine effort to “whack” Fidel.
Others are convinced the mobsters simply ran a scam on the government. They would pretend to carry out their “patriotic duty” while in fact making no effort at all to penetrate Castro’s security.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 28, 2025 at 12:25 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.”
After retiring from the State Department in 2020, Yovanovitch became a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Another hero-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.
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.
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, 2021, 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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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2025 at 12:10 am
Next up: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich (September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975)
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.
Third hero: Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1992, he received his Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2007.
From 2017 to 2018 he commanded the USS Blue Ridge. In November, 2019, he was given command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
On March 24, 2020, reports circulated that three members of the crew had tested positive for COVID-19. The next day the number of stricken sailors increased to eight. A few days later, it was “dozens.” The sailors reportedly became ill at sea, two weeks after a port call at Danang, Vietnam.
The initial cases were airlifted to a military hospital. The Roosevelt was ordered to Guam. After the ship docked on March 27, 2020, all 5,000 aboard were ordered to be tested for the virus. But only about 100 stricken sailors were allowed to leave the ship. The rest remained on board.
On March 30, Crozier emailed a four-page internal letter to multiple Naval officials, pleading to have the majority of the crew evacuated and quarantined on shore. Given the crowded sleeping quarters and narrow passageways of the vessel, Crozier wrote that it was impossible to follow social distancing and quarantine procedures:
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do. We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our Sailors….
“This is a necessary risk. Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”
Brett Crozier
Crozier sent his letter via a non-secure, unclassified email to 20-30 recipients, as well as the captain’s immediate chain of command. He reportedly believed that his immediate supervisor would not allow him to send it.
And his superior later confirmed that he would not have allowed Crozier to send it.
On March 31, someone leaked the letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published it.
On April 1, the Navy ordered the aircraft carrier evacuated. A skeleton crew of 400 remained aboard to maintain the nuclear reactor, the fire-fighting equipment, and the ship’s galley.
On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by acting United States Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly.
By that time, about 114 crew members—out of a total of around 4,000—reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
As Crozier disembarked, sailors loudly saluted him with a standing ovation: “Cap-tain Cro-zier!”
Crozier was reassigned to a shore position and retired in 2022.
Modly claimed that Crozier’s letter “raised alarm bells unnecessarily. It undermines our efforts and the chain of command’s efforts to address this problem, and creates a panic and this perception that the Navy’s not on the job, that the government’s not on the job, and it’s just not true.”
It was true.
Actually, the Trump administration had frittered away January and February, with President Donald Trump giving multiple—and misleading—press conferences. In these, he played down the dangers of COVID-19, saying that “we’re on top of it”—even as the virus spread across the country.
“It was a betrayal. And I can tell you one other thing: because he did that he put it in the public’s forum and it is now a big controversy in Washington, DC,“ continued Modly. [Italics added]
This was the United States Navy under Donald Trump—who threw “betrayal” and “treason” at anyone who dared reveal the truth about institutional crimes and failures.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2025 at 12:10 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Five heroes, five villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; three are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); three American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky).
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a major Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 26 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, 1937, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Postage stamp honoring Mikhail Tukhachevsky
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2025 at 12:11 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as Gaius Caligula, Adolf Hitler and—possibly—Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Joseph Stalin
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Then, on March 4, 1953, Moscow Radio announced: “During the night of March 1-2, while in his Moscow apartment, Comrade Stalin suffered a cerebral hemorrhage affecting vital areas of the brain.”
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. He was 73 and in poor health from a lifetime of smoking, drinking and little exercise.
But he could have died of unnatural causes.
In the 2004 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, Vladimir P. Naumov, a Russian historian, and Jonathan Brent, a Yale University Soviet scholar, assert that he might have been poisoned.
If this happened, the occasion was during a final dinner with four members of the Politburo. Two of these were Lavrenti P. Beria, chief of the secret police, and Nikita S. Khrushchev, who eventually succeeded Stalin.
The authors believe that, if Stalin was poisoned, the most likely suspect was Beria. The method: Slipping warfarin, a tasteless and colorless blood thinner also used as a rat killer, into his glass of wine.
In Nikita Khrushchev’s 1970 memoirs, he quotes Beria as telling Vyacheslav M. Molotov, another Politburo member, two months after Stalin’s death: “I did him in! I saved all of you.”
It’s entirely possible that Donald Trump’s “Presidency-for-Life” may end by natural causes.
He’s 79, and despite his repeated boastings that he’s the healthiest President in United States history, clearly he isn’t.
He is grotesquely overweight, doesn’t exercise, falls asleep in public appearances and slurs his words. Much of his diet consists of greasy, artery-clogging fast food—such as from McDonald’s and KFC.
He stays up late at night, pouring out his hatred for countless real and imagined enemies on his website, Truth Social.
But that is not the only way his reign could disappear.
Since retaking office on January 20, Trump has ruled as de-facto dictator. Among his outrages.
- Turning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into his personal Gestapo. Nearly 150,000 people—both illegal aliens and American-born citizens—were arrested between January and late July 2025.
- Purging FBI agents who rightly investigated his illegally confiscating classified documents and inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress.
- Attacking CBS and ABC for their news departments’ accurately covering his litany of mistakes and crimes.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James for carrying out their legal responsibilities.
- Forcing ABC to (temporarily) cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live! because the comedian made jokes about him.
- Shutting down the Federal Government over Democrats’ refusal to back his gutting of Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to give tax breaks to billionaires.
On June 14, more than five million Americans protested Trump’s rule with a “No Kings” march. And nearly seven million participated in the October 18 march. More are planned.
* * * * * * * * * *
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science, offers a stern warning for Trump—a warning he has steadfastly ignored.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In his masterwork, The Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli notes how important it is for rulers to make themselves loved—or at least respected—by their fellow citizens:
“Note how much more praise those Emperors merited who, after Rome became an empire, conformed to her laws like good princes, than those who took the opposite course.
“Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus and Marcus Auelius did not require the Praetorians nor the multitudinous legions to defend them, because they were protected by their own good conduct, the good will of the people, and by the love of the Senate.
“On the other hand, neither the Eastern nor the Western armies saved Caligula, Nero, Vitellius and so many other wicked Emperors from the enemies which their bad conduct and evil lives had raised up against them.”
In his better-known work, The Prince, Machiavelli warns rulers who—like Donald Trump–are inclined to rule by fear:
“A prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred: for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together.”
By Machiavelli’s standards, Trump has made himself the perfect target for a conspiracy:
“When a prince becomes universally hated, it is likely that he’s harmed some individuals—who thus seek revenge. This desire is increased by seeing that the prince is widely loathed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 21, 2025 at 12:10 am
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 20, 2025 at 12:10 am
Long before he took office for the first time on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump never intended to rule as an ordinary President.
Under the Constitution, a President can hold office for—at most—eight years. But a “President-for-Life” can rule until he dies.
That was—and remains—his ambition.
In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, Trump revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government.
He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors.
Xi Jinping
Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.
Among these:
- American Intelligence: Even before taking office, Trump refused to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) that Russian Intelligence agents had intervened in the 2016 election to ensure his victory.
- “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
- And when FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning.
- American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the midterm elections.
- He threatened to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
- American military agencies: In 2018, Trump refused to visit an American cemetery near Paris and referred to U.S. Marines buried there as “losers” and “suckers.”
- Trump regularly abused military officials, calling Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley a “dumbass” and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis “the world’s most overrated general.”
Seal of the Department of Defense
- The press: On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- Appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, 2017, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
- The judiciary: Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle US District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first Muslim travel ban.
- In one tweet, Trump claimed: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
- At Trump’s bidding, White House aide Stephen Miller attacked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government.”
Donald Trump
Even after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump continued his attacks on one cherished American institution after another:
- Facing 91 criminal counts in four cases, he discredited the judicial system, attacking judges, prosecutors, witnesses—and even their family members.
- He attacked Independent Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged” and accused him of trying to invalidate his candidacy for President in 2024.
- He attacked retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley for calling him “a wannabe dictator,” and said that Milley deserved execution as a traitor.
- Milley had successfully averted war with China by calling his Chinese military counterparts in the final weeks of Trump’s administration to assure them that Trump was not planning to attack China.
- He claimed voter fraud where none existed, casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.
- He claimed himself to be the victim of “the deep state” inside the federal bureaucracy.
- He attacked the integrity of the FBI—causing previously “law and order” Republicans to demand its defunding.
* * * * * * * * * *
Donald Trump isn’t crazy, as many of his critics charge. He knows exactly what he’s doing—and why.
He intends to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. If he succeeds, there will be:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtles toward a nuclear disaster.
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge him for re-election in 2028—or any other year..
- No candidate—Democrat or Republican—to challenge his remaining in office as “President-for-Life.”
A dictator can die of illness or old age.
China’s Communist ruler, Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, at 82, from a series of heart attacks.
And Spain’s Fascist tyrant, Francisco Franco, died on November 20, 1975, at 82, of congestive heart failure.
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 3, 2025 at 12:09 am
It’s commonplace to read about the role sex plays in motivating behavior. But the power of ego to determine history is often ignored.
Consider the role that ego played in igniting the American Civil War (1861 – 1865).
According to The Destructive War, by Charles Royster, it wasn’t the cause of “states’ rights” that led 11 Southern states to withdraw from the Union in 1860-61. It was their demand for “respect,” which, in reality, translates into “e-g-o.”
“The respect Southerners demanded did not consist simply of the states’ sovereignty or of the equal rights of Northern and Southern citizens, including slaveholders’ right to take their chattels into Northern territory.
“It entailed, too, respect for their assertion of the moral superiority of slaveholding society over free society,” writes Royster.
It was not enough for Southerners to claim equal standing with Northerners; Northerners must acknowledge it. But this was something that the North was less and less willing to do.
Finally, its citizens dared to elect Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln and his new Republican party damned slavery—and slaveholders—as morally evil, obsolete and ultimately doomed. And they were determined to prevent slavery from spreading any further throughout the country.
Southerners found all of this intolerable.
The British author, Anthony Trollope, explained to his readers: “It is no light thing to be told daily, by our fellow citizens…that you are guilty of the one damning sin that cannot be forgiven.
“All this [Southerners] could partly moderate, partly rebuke and partly bear as long as political power remained in their hands. But they have gradually felt that this was going, and were prepared to cut the rope and run as soon as it was gone.”
Only 10% of Southerners owned slaves. The other 90% of the population “had no dog in this fight,” as Southerners liked to say.
Yet they so admired and aspired to be like their “gentleman betters” that they threw in their lot with them.
There were some Southerners who could see what was coming—and vainly warned their fellow citizens against it.
One of these was Sam Houston, the man who had won Texas independence at the 1836 battle of San Jacinto and later served as that state’s governor.
Sam Houston
On April 19, 1860, addressing a crowd in Galveston, he said: “Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you.
“But I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states’ rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates.
“But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South.”
Four years later, on April 9, 1865, Houston’s warning became history.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.
Huge sections of the South had been laid waste by Union troops and more than 258,000 Southerners had been killed.
And slavery, the mainstay of Southern plantation life, had been ended forever.
The South had paid an expensive price for its fixation on ego.
Even more proved at risk a century later, when President John F. Kennedy faced off with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
John F. Kennedy
In August, 1961, faced with the embarrassment of East Berliners fleeing by the thousands into West Germany, the Soviet leader erected the infamous Berlin Wall, sealing off East and West Berlin.
Khrushchev pressed his advantage, threatening Kennedy with nuclear war unless the Americans abandoned their protection of West Berlin.
In April, Kennedy had been humiliated at the Bay of Pigs when a CIA-sponsored invasion failed to overthrow the Cuba’s Fidel Castro. So he was already on the defensive when he and Khrushchev met in Vienna.
Kennedy’s reaction: “If Khrushchev wants to rub my nose in the dirt, it’s all over.”
In short: Kennedy was prepared to incinerate the planet if he felt his almighty ego was about to get smacked.
Nuclear missile in silo
What has proved true for states and nations proves equally true for those leading every other type of institution.
Although most people like to believe they are guided by rationality and morality, all-too-often, what truly decides the course of events is their ego.
For pre-Civil War Southerners, it meant demanding that “Yankees” show respect for slave-owning society. Otherwise, they would leave the Union.
For Kennedy, it meant playing a game of “chicken,” backed up with nuclear missiles, to show Khrushchev who Numero Uno really was.
And during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October, 1962, humankind almost disappeared as Kennedy set out to make Khrushchev “blink.”
It is well to keep these lessons from history in mind when choosing political leaders—and when making our own major decisions.
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In Bureaucracy, EDUCATION, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 28, 2025 at 12:06 am
Sixty-one 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 atmospheric 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.
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.
For example: Republicans cannot agree with Democrats that the violent January 6, 2021 attempt by Donald Trump’s supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election qualified as treason.
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.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry and Secretary of Energy showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court. He thought there were eight:
Rick Perry
“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.”
And as if to underscore his contempt for education, newly-reelected President Trump intends to eliminate the Department of Education. His choice to temporarily head it: Linda McMahon, best known as the former president (1980 – 2009) of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Trump wants McMahon “to put herself out of a job.”
And McMahon agrees: “I want to invite all employees to join us in this historic final mission on behalf of all students.”
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.
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AMERICA’S BRUSH WITH ARMAGEDDON: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2026 at 12:14 amIn April, 1961, the CIA tried to overthrow the Communist regime of Cuba’s “Maximum Leader,” Fidel Castro, at the Bay of Pigs.
When that failed, President John F. Kennedy ordered Castro’s removal through a campaign of sabotage and assassination.
These covert operatives became known within the CIA as the Special Group, and were ultimately supervised by Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s brother and Attorney General.
The war against Castro became known within the CIA as Operation Mongoose.
But not everyone in the CIA was 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:
“Bobby (Kennedy) wanted boom and bang all over the island,” recalled Halpern. “It was stupid. The pressure from the White House was very great.”
Among that “boom and bang” were a series of assassination plots against Castro, in which the Mafia was to be a key player.
Chicago Mobster Johnny Rosselli proposed a simple plan: Through its underworld connections in Cuba, the Mafia would recruit a Cuban in Castro’s entourage, such as a waiter or bodyguard, who would poison him.
The CIA’s Technical Services division produced a botulinus toxin which was then injected into Castro’s favorite brand of cigars. The CIA also produced simpler botulinus toxin pills that could be dissolved in his food or drink.
But the deputized Mafia contacts failed to deliver any of the poisons to Castro.
Rosselli told the CIA that the first poisoner had been discharged from Castro’s employ before he could kill him, and the back-up agent got “cold feet.”
Other proposals or attempts included:
Americans would rightly label such methods as ”terrorist” if another power used them against the United States today. And that was how the Cuban government saw the situation.
So Castro appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, for assistance.
Fidel Castro
Nikita Khrushchev
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.
By October, 1962, the Soviet Union had sent more than
to Cuba to deter another invasion.
Most importantly, Khrushchev began supplying Castro with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
Their discovery, on October 15, 1962, ignited the single most dangerous confrontation of the 50-year Cold War.
Suddenly, the United States and the Soviet Union—bristling with nuclear weapons—found themselves on the brink of nuclear war.
At the time, Kennedy officials claimed they couldn’t understand why Khrushchev had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. “Maybe Khrushchev’s gone mad” was a typical public musing.
None of these officials admitted that JFK had been waging a no-holds-barred campaign to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leader.
On October 16, the next day, President Kennedy was informed of the missile installations. He immediately convened a group of his 12 most important advisors, which became known as Ex-Comm, for Executive Committee.
Then followed seven days of guarded and intense debate by Kennedy and his advisors. Some of the participants—such as Air Force General Curtis LeMay—urged an all-out air strike against the missile sites.
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.
Finally, the President decided to to impose a naval blockade.
On October 22, Kennedy went on nationwide TV to announce the discovery of the missiles and his blockade of Cuba.
He warned that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union—and would trigger “a full retaliatory response” upon the U.S.S.R.
John F. Kennedy address the nation
And he demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba:
“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.”
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