Barrack Obama was in no way prepared to become President of the United States of America. In his confrontations with Putin over the Ukraine and over Syria, among many other things, he demonstrated that fact.
However, this is not the first time an American President has shown no backbone, faltered and made serious mistakes with a Russian leader. In the last century there was another Democrat President who was unprepared for his duties; whose inexperience and liberal mind set caused him to make serious errors in judgments and those errors set up a confrontation that might have caused a nuclear war. No I am not referring to James E. Carter; I am referring to John F. Kennedy. Let’s do some comparisons between Kennedy and Obama.
There are some comparisons one can make between Kennedy and Obama; there are others that can’t.
Here are some comparisons they share:
• Kennedy was unusually ill prepared to become President.
• So was Obama.
• At the time of his election, Kennedy was a political dilettante who had, shall we say, many interesting outside interests most of them having nothing to do with politics.
• It is now clear Obama was a political dilettante, startlingly unprepared to assume the Presidency, who after his election arrogantly disregarded Congress and often the will of the American people, whose political ambitions lay in areas that were designed to subvert traditional American politics.
Both men displayed charisma; they came over well in speeches and on television. Both men demonstrated an innate ability to sell themselves to the public. Both men were articulate and had the ability to make people like them. But my God, why do we elect Presidents because they have the same talents required of a late night talk show host? Have we completely disregarded the need fora resume of past successes, for knowhow and a record of past achievements for our presidents?
These are some comparisons they do not share:
• John Kennedy was born, raised and grounded as an American.
• Barrack Obama was not.
• John Kennedy volunteered to join the U.S. Navy during war time and served with distinction.
• Barrack Obama never served in the U.S. Military.
• John Kennedy served in combat in World War II where he was decorated for his heroism.
• Barrack Obama knew nothing about being in our military or being involved in a combat situation.
So why do I say John Kennedy’s ill preparedness as President came close to getting us involved in a war with Russia? Well there was a plethora of highly classified information that was made public after the Soviet Union collapsed; its classified records were made public and open to research by governments, historians and the media. Remember, although the following quotes are confirmed and are on record, most Americans have never heard of them.
When Kennedy was elected President, Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union (Russia). After he was elected, Kennedy strove to have a meeting with Khrushchev because Kennedy was of the opinion he could sweet talk Khrushchev around and perhaps prevent a nuclear conflict by miscalculation, then continue through his personal abilities and intellect to solve most of the problems between the two countries, typical mind set of an inexperienced man of liberal persuasion.
Khrushchev was also interested in meeting Kennedy because after Kennedy’s “Bay of Pigs” fiasco, he wanted to size him up in person, see how tough Kennedy was in a one on one situation where he could test him. Kennedy was about to receive a sobering education.
I will be quoting from John Kagan’s book, “On the Origins of War.” The reason for that is Mr. Kagan is one of the best authority’s on military/political history I have read and he lays out very well the information on this subject I am interested in providing.. So let’s get started.
As just a taster, I will start off with what Khrushchev thought of Kennedy after their first meeting in Vienna. The meeting both Kennedy and Khrushchev wanted took place in Vienna, shortly after the “Bay of Pigs” disaster. Here is a statement, verified by historical published records, and made by Khrushchev to his people after that first meeting.
Kagan: Khrushchev: “Look we helped elect Kennedy last year. Then we meet with him in Vienna, a meeting that could have been a turning point. But what does he say?” “Don’t ask for too much. Don’t put me in a bind. If I make too many concessions, I’ll be turned out of office.” (Those were Kennedy’s actual words) Khrushchev continues, “Quite a guy! He comes to a meeting but can’t perform. What the hell do we need a guy like that for? Why waste time talking to him?”
RLH-It is difficult to believe an American President would show so much weakness and ignorance. But as the record shows, Kennedy did. They say first impressions are important. From their first meeting on, Khrushchev believed Kennedy was a push over. That belief almost had cataclysmic results.
RLH-“Kennedy’s” don’t ask for too much. Don’t put me in a bind. If I make too many concessions, I’ll be turned out of office.” Doesn’t that eerily sound, over fifty years later, like Obama pleading with the Russian President Medvede on that infamous “open mike?”
RLH-“Obama: on all these issues but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him (Putin) to give me space.” “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”
RLH-We have two Democrat Presidents, decades apart but both having no idea how a tough American President deals with threating adversaries. In both cases the American public was ill served by our so called media. We never heard anything about the reality of the Kennedy/Khrushchev confrontations until years later after Kennedy’s death. However, Kennedy’s performance at that meeting in Vienna was well known in Washington by politicians and the media. All we heard from the elite media in Kennedy’s first years in office was, aren’t things lovely in Camelot and aren’t we lucky to have Jackie and Johnny in the White House.
RLH-We never would have heard anything about Obama’s treacherous whining to Medvedev, if it hadn’t been for that open mike, because we sure as hell didn’t hear much about Obama’s career policy of disinformation, misinformation, half-truths and dammed lies during his presidency from our corrupt media.
RLH=Kennedy’s meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna was just the start of his showing weakness to the Russian leader. There were even more dangerous situations coming up.
RLH-I am only going into two areas of the Kennedy/Khrushchev confrontations in this essay. They will be the “Bay of Pigs” tragedy and the “Berlin Wall” catastrophe. . So this essay will be on Kennedy’s performance as President in; The Bay of Pigs, and The Berlin Wall. Just trying to bring some clarity and truth to the Kennedy legend and the similarity of Obama’s and Kennedy’s dangerous Presidency’s. The “Cuban Missile Crisis” deserves its own work and will come later.
RLH-The sole intent here is to show why American Presidents must be strong, formidable and confident, know who their adversaries are, what they stand for and what those adversary’s political goals are. Then our President’s must absolutely have the desire, knowledge, strength and courage to challenge and overcome threats made by those they come up against in order to maintain American’s and the free world’s definition of what constitutes Western freedom,, our culture and civilization. As we will record Kennedy initially didn’t understand those responsibilities and as we have seen Obama operated under a different agenda. Thank God we now have a president, Donald Trump, who has the attitudes and beliefs that an American president needs and is not afraid to use them.
However before we start on the Kennedy/Khrushchev, here is an example of what a strong American President did when he was confronted by Khrushchev:
Kagan: “In 1955 the Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen bomb (Hydrogen, not atomic) dropped from an airplane before the United States was capable of such a feat. 1957 the Soviets put into orbit “Sputnik”, the first artificial satellite propelled by rockets of a power not yet achieved by the Americans. It was now theoretically possible for the Soviets to place a nuclear warhead on a rocket-driven missile powerful enough to reach the Unites States and against which there was no defense.”
“But in the late 1950’s the Russians did not yet have a guidance system that would make the missiles effective weapons, nor could they bear the great expense of producing and deploying enough nuclear missiles for a safe and effective first strike in the face of vast American superiority in long-range bombers armed with atomic bombs.” (Thank you Strategic Air Command, (SAC) my words – RLH)
RLH-Then Khrushchev embarked on a strategy of bluff to try and achieve his political goals. It was known in the U.S. as the “missile gap.” Khrushchev’s bluff was his knowledge the U.S. didn’t know about the Soviet shortcomings, in other words we didn’t know that the Russian’s didn’t have the technology to target those missiles.
RLH-The most important target of Khrushchev’s bluff strategy was Germany and especially Berlin.
Kagan: “In November 1958, therefore, Khrushchev tried to use his putative (supposed) advantage in nuclear missiles to force a German solution. Unlike previous demands and threats, this one took the form of an ultimatum, promising to turn over control of the routes of access to Berlin, including those in the air to the East German government. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko rattled the Soviet missiles, warning that in an outbreak of war over Berlin, modern military technology guaranteed that the horrors of war would inevitably spread to the continent of America. Khrushchev was attempting to run a total bluff. He had rockets that could orbit a satellite, but were worthless militarily because those rockets couldn’t accurately target the U.S.
Kagan: “But, during what remained of the Eisenhower administration, Khrushchev’s bluff did not work. The General, who was still President of the United States by God, was confident of American nuclear superiority and counted on its deterrent power.”
“Eisenhower replied, (to Khrushchev) “If resort to arms would become necessary, our troops in Berlin would be quickly overrun, and the conflict would almost inevitably be global war. For this type of war our nuclear forces are more than adequate.”
RLH-In other words, the old General told Khrushchev to stick his threats up one of his larger orifices.
Keep Eisenhower’s strong and tough response to Khrushchev’s demands in mind as we now go into Kennedy’s performance in the first years of his term in office.
The Bay of Pigs:
RLH-In late 1958 Fidel Castro and his forces were in position to topple Fulgencio Batista the President of Cuba. Batista then fled Cuba on New Year’s Day, 1959. Castro now controlled Cuba. In February 1960 the first steps by the Soviet Union to bring Cuba into its orbit took place. The game was on.
Kagan: “In March 1960 Eisenhower accepted a CIA recommendation to arm and train Cuban exiles for the purpose of overthrowing the Castro regime. But when Kennedy took office the decision to attack Cuba had not been made. At 43, Kennedy was the youngest man elected President in American history. Insiders knew that his political victories had been won, in considerable part, with the vast sums of money spent by his father, Joseph Kennedy. That in his years in the Senate Kennedy had been a dilettante who had few achievements, little weight, and not much respect.”
RLH- Those comments are pretty much an exact description of Obama’s U.S. Senate career.
Kagan: Kennedy’s inaugural address:
“Let the word go forth…to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage….We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
Kagan: “On no subject was this clearer than on the administrations treatment of Cuba. (During his election campaign) Kennedy had accused the Republicans of creating, “Communisms first Caribbean base.” “He blamed them for allowing “a communists menace” to arise only eight jet minutes from Florida.”
RLH-Kennedy’s comments remind me of Obama’s attack on Bush for fighting the wrong war in Iraq. Obama was adamant that the right war was in Afghanistan not Iraq. After Obama’s election, we saw how much baloney he was selling then.
Kagan: “By the time Kennedy took office, the plan in place was, a considerable amphibious force, supported by paratroopers dropped behind the town, would land at the town of Trinidad, which was far from Castro’s main army and near the Escambray Mountains, to which the Cuban exiles could escape in safety if the landing failed. They would be supported by air strikes from American planes that would protect the beachhead.”
Kagan: “Kennedy did not like the plan because it was “too spectacular” and would “put us in so openly, in view of the world situation.” To meet his objections the CIA framed a compromise plan. The landing would be at the Bay of Pigs, west of Trinidad. At Kennedy’s further request the “noise level” was reduced by a decision to make the landings at night.
RLH-A night amphibious landing increases the SNAFU possibilities by a factor of 10, example there were no night landings in WW-II. Not in North Africa, not in Sicily, not in the invasion of Normandy and not on any island the Marines landed on in the Pacific.
Kagan: “Kennedy was comforted further by the thought that if the mission failed the invaders could still “melt into the mountains”. It seems that somewhere in the discussion there was a failure of communications that concealed the fact that the new landing site was too far from the mountains to permit such an escape.”
Kagan: “Kennedy would tell Theodore Sorensen that he had been reluctant to use American forces in Cuba because he feared that Khrushchev might use American involvement as a pretext to move against Berlin.”
Kagan: “The first step was to be an air strike against Cuban airfields flown by Cuban exiles flying American B-26 bombers.”
“These relics from World War II were slow, unwieldy, unsuited to air cover and constantly developing engine trouble. As part of the plot to conceal American involvement, they took off from relatively distant bases in Nicaragua, which made the flights longer, more dangerous, more exhausting and there time over target (TOT) limited.”
RLH-The original plan was that those B-26’s were to be flow from Guatemala, which was much closer to their combat objectives in Cuba, Kennedy moved the airplanes starting points from Guatemala to Nicaragua, why? Flying from Nicaragua gave the bombers much less time over target and crippled effective air support.
Kagan: “Kennedy at the last moment reduced the number of bombers below the sixteen originally intended, saying “I want it minimal.” Only six planes flew.” It should now be apparent Kennedy did not want to go through with this invasion but after all his rhetoric prior to the election about how he would not have allowed Castro to have achieved success there he was locked into taking some kind of action over Cuba.”
Kagan: “On April 17th about fourteen hundred Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs. Without air cover they were easy targets for Castro’s air force and were pinned down on the beach. Adlai Stevenson, American Ambassador to the United Nations was not told the truth (about the Cuban exiles landing) until after his public denial before the General Assembly; he threatened to resign, and along with other foreign policy advisers, argued against further American involvement. Kennedy cancelled further air strikes that could have decimated the reminder of Castro’s air force: the strikes were not to be flown until after the exiles had secured a Cuban beachhead.”
Kagan: “Just before midnight of Tuesday, April 18th, Kennedy met with his civilian and military advisers at the White House to decide how to cope with what was turning out to be a catastrophe at the Bay of Pigs. The Navy asked to be allowed to send jet planes from an aircraft carrier to protect the men on the beach and planes bringing them supplies. Admiral Arleigh Burke of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “Let me take two jets and shoot down the enemy aircraft.” Kennedy refused, repeating that he was determined not to use American Forces in combat. Burke then suggested bringing in a destroyer. Later he said that, “one destroyer opening fire could have knocked the hell out of Castro’s tanks. It might have changed the whole course of the battle.” The President refused; “Burke he said, I don’t want the United States involved in this.” The admiral replied in a loud voice, “Hell Mr. President we are involved.”
Kagan: “Among those expressing disgust was former Secretary of State Dean Acheson who told a group of Foreign Service officers, “The European view was that they were watching a gifted young amateur practice with a boomerang then, they saw to their horror, that he had knocked himself out.”
Kagan: “After the failure at the Bay of Pigs former President Eisenhower asked why Kennedy failed to provide air cover, and the President responded that he had been worried that the Soviets would make trouble in Berlin. Eisenhower asserted that that is exactly the opposite of what would have really happened. The Soviets follow their own plans, and if they see us show any weakness, then is when they press us the hardest. The failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they otherwise would not do.”
Unintended Consequences:
Kagan: “To Nikita Khrushchev, the man who had sent tanks into Hungary to assert Soviet control, (and would do the same thing to Czechoslovakia in 1968) the behavior of the United States toward Cuba must have seemed all but incredible. In his memoirs, Khrushchev observed that Cuba was only a few miles from the American shore and it is stretched out like a sausage, a shape that makes it easy for attackers and incredibly difficult for the island’s defenders.”
RLH-Khrushchev is also on record as saying to his cabinet he could not believe that one of the most powerful countries in the world would allow a tiny, weak country like Cuba to embarrass them to the world and still take no action to crush Cuba.
Kagan: “To the Soviet leader the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs may have suggested that his American counterpart lacked resolve; that he was as some American critics asserted in a play on the title of a book published by the President, “all profile and no courage.”
RLH-President Kennedy’s weakness, lack of resolve and betrayal of so many Cuban’s, made the United States appear weak to the world and especially to the Soviet Union. His unforgivable decisions at the “Bay of Pigs” caused the death not only of the plan to remove Castro, but of far too many brave Cuban men who deserved far better; men who died or were captured by Castro; does Kennedy’s performance then, remind anyone of Obama’ performance in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, the Ukraine?
The “Bay of Pigs” disaster was on President Kennedy like “BenghazI” was on President Obama.
Germany, Berlin and the Wall:
Kagan: “The Potsdam agreements of July 1945, signed by President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Chairman Stalin, provided for a de facto division of Germany into an Eastern zone, governed by the Soviet Union and Western zones, overseen by the United States, Great Britain and France and Berlin was divided in the same way. This proved to be annoying and embarrassing for the Soviets and their Communists puppets in East Germany; for the freedom and economy of West Germany and West Berlin presented a stark contrast to the bleak and brutal Eastern zones.”
RLH-While the borders between the Western Powers zones, West Germany, and the Russian zone of Germany and East Germany, were militarily tightly closed, the different zones in Berlin were not closed, Berlin was an open city, West Berlin was an easy access for those German’s fleeing the Russian zone. Almost immediately, after the Potsdam agreement was signed, Germans in the Russian zone started to leave for the Western powers zones, migrating into West Berlin and then on to West Germany via aircraft or ground transportation. Over the years, approximately 2.5 to 3 million East Germans had left the East German/Russian zone. By 1961 up to one thousand East Germans were running out of East Germany through Berlin per day! )
RLH-By 1961, the contrast between what was taking place in the Russian controlled zones, East Germany and East Berlin, and what was taking place in the West was startling. The Russian zone was still controlled by Marxist/Communist/Socialist economic theories the same theories that eventually bankrupted the old Soviet Union. Those theories have failed everywhere they’ve been tried, maybe Obama should have read a little economic history. Oh that’s right he was still trying to “Fundamentally Transform America” into a European Socialist country. His international and economic policies worked out about as well as Obama Care.
RLH-in the 1960’s West Germany and especially West Berlin were thriving with a capitalist economy, new building construction, retail goods proliferated, food stuffs available everywhere, new German automobiles on sale. The words used to describe what was taking place there were: “The German Economic Miracle” which saw economic growth there, in the late 1960’s, reach an amazing 8% a year at one time. The West German Deutsch Mark became a valuable currency.
In contrast, East Berlin and Russian controlled East Germany were still desolate. Drab buildings, much war damage still not repaired long lines for inferior food stuffs, long lines to purchase almost anything on those rare occasions when anything was available, trying to purchase an automobile was a joke, they weren’t available, and the East German Reich Mark was a currency worth almost nothing outside East Germany.
By 1961, the Communist leader of East Germany, the puppet, Walter Ulbricht, was in a panic mode. Not only was he hemorrhaging millions of his population, but most of the people he was losing, were the cream of his population; Engineers, doctors, professors, lawyers and far too many University students.
The Soviet Union, under Khrushchev, considered East Germany, the most important satellite country under its control. The Soviets knew from experience during the World War II, that Germany had put together the most advanced industrial, technological and engineering base in the world during those years. It was the German technological/engineering people the Soviets had captured and sent to Russia that had constructed their space/rocket/missile programs, it was those same people who were putting together their jet propelled military aircraft programs. The Russian’s would have been far behind the West without German input in those areas.
For their own reasons, Khrushchev and Ulbricht had to stop the brain drain.
It had become more that just embarrassing to them, for the world to see the deluge of German’s leaving their East German “worker’s paradise” for “evil capitalistic” West Germany and the Western Powers zones. Berlin was the big problem, so long as there was an escape hatch through East Berlin to West Berlin and then on to West Germany, that problem would continue. In 1961 Khrushchev and Ulbricht decided to slam down the escape hatch..
Never before in modern history had a regime locked up its own population. From then on, any East German who wished to leave East Germany was risking his or her life. Over the years, at least 136 people died making that attempt.
The question was, were the Western Powers going to allow Khrushchev to abrogate written international agreements and get away with sealing off East Berlin? Was President Kennedy, the leader of the most powerful country in the world, going to show strong leadership, stand up to Khrushchev and demand the Soviets comply with agreements they had previously signed? After his performance at the Bay of Pigs, many had doubts, including Khrushchev.
Here are remarks on that subject from General Maxwell Taylor, the WW-II Commander of the 101st Airborne Division and subsequently many other high profile military and civilian positions:
Kagan: “General Maxwell Taylor recalled that the meet of Kennedy with Khrushchev in Vienna had so impressed Khrushchev with the un-readiness of this young man to lead a great country like the United States, plus the experience he had seen in the Bay of Pigs, lead him (Khrushchev) to believe he could shove this young man any place he wants.”
Kagan: “He wasn’t prepared for the brutality of Khrushchev’s presentation.” “When he reached the American residence in Vienna Kennedy was interviewed by James Reston of the New York Times, who asked, “Pretty Rough”? The President replied, “Roughest thing in my life.”
(Kennedy to Reston) “I think he did it because of the Bay of Pigs.” “I think he thought that anyone who was as young and inexperienced as to get into that mess could be taken.” “And anyone who got into it and didn’t see it through had not guts.” “So he just beat hell out of me.” I’ve got a terrible problem.” “If he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts, until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.” “So we have to act.”
RLH-The good news was Kennedy was starting to realize what game he was in and how it had to be played. The bad news was that Kennedy was still not ready to act in Berlin.
President Kennedy’s state of mind over the situation in Berlin was not where it should have been. He didn’t seem to want to realize that every time a countries leadership backs down from a tyrant, the tyrant is never satisfied they always see the backing down as weakness and will push for more. History has proven those rules time and time again. However, inexperience, confusion, weakness, pressure, and bad advice will often overcome common sense and historical truths.
Will some people now understand why President Trump is so involved with the North Korea situation and why he takes the tough and threatening positions he takes? So where was Kennedys mind in 1961?
Kagan: “Khrushchev’s threats about Berlin made a powerful impression on Kennedy. After Vienna, even more than before, the problem of Berlin became an obsession with him.”
Kagan: (Kennedy) “It seems silly for us to be facing an atomic war over a treaty preserving Berlin as the future capital of a reunited Germany when all of us know that Germany will probably never be united.” RLH -Really!
Kagan: (Kennedy) “Kennedy told foreign policy adviser Walt Rostow that Khrushchev will have to do something to stop the flow of refugees. Perhaps build a wall. And we won’t be able to prevent it. I can hold the Alliance together to defend West Berlin, but I cannot act to keep East Berlin open.”
RLH-With Kennedy’s “Perhaps build a wall” comment it is clear he had already acquiesced, in his mind, to a wall being built to separate Berlin in violation of international agreements. Kennedy had already chosen to let Khrushchev get away with it.
RLH-Kennedy felt he had to allow Khrushchev to pressure him over Berlin because he was fearful that Khrushchev would initiate a war there, due to the humiliation Soviets were experiencing in Berlin.
Kagan: “But as we have seen, Eisenhower, in fact, had imposed political humiliation on the Chairman in 1958 by ignoring his Berlin ultimatum and the world had not come to an end.”
Kagan: “It sometimes seemed as if Kennedy was more annoyed with his German allies than with the Soviets, but it was Khrushchev who was determined to press the issue and force a crisis.” “The East German population rapidly was becoming an aging society ever more difficult to support as the ablest younger people fled to the West.”
Kagan: “On the other hand, Kennedy made no reference to the guarantee of free access between East and West that was part of the Potsdam agreement; he spoke of the boundary between the two sections as a “frontier of peace,” and the defense of “West Berlin” not of Berlin. It was easy for a careful reader to see the speech as including an invitation to shut East Berlin off from the West.”
The Wall goes up:
Kagan: “On August 5, therefore Khrushchev agreed to the construction of a barrier at the sector border the following weekend, at midnight of the night of August 12-13. First they would erect a barbed-wire fence. If, as they expected the West did not use force against, they would replace it with a solid wall.”
Kagan: “On August 9th Khrushchev told his generals that, “we’ll just put up the serpentine barbed wire and the West will stand there like dumb sheep. And while they are standing there, we’ll finish the wall.”
Kagan: “Kennedy’s reaction was like “the curious behavior of the dog in the night”, in the Sherlock Holmes story. The curious behavior was that he did nothing!”
Kagan: “The only response from Washington was a statement that “the violations of existing agreements will be the subject of vigorous protests through appropriate channels.” (I guess at that time no one had thought up the Obama’s word “consequences” yet.) Ron..
Kagan: The President spoke to General Lucius Clay (the U.S. commander in West Berlin) on the telephone. The general expressed his opinion that the Soviets were not going to do anything. Kennedy responded: “I’m glad of that. I know you people over there haven’t lost your nerve,” Clay answered, “Mr. President, we’re not worried about our nerves, and we’re worrying about those of you people in Washington.”
Kagan: “At a luncheon in the White House a hawkish Texas publisher told the President, “We can annihilate Russia and should make that clear to the Soviet government ….You and your administration are weak sisters.” “The situation (Berlin) called for a “man on horseback”…Many people in Texas and the Southwest think you are riding Caroline’s tricycle.”
Kagan: “On his return from West Berlin Vice President Johnson told reporters “off the record” that the Berlin crisis was the result of the American performance in the Bay of Pigs. “Khrushchev, he said, “has tasted blood in Cuba and now in Berlin, and he is out for more. “He thinks he can push a young President around and a new administration and is probing to see how far he can go.”
Kagan: “Eisenhower privately was appalled by Kennedy’s failure to defend the Potsdam agreement.”
Kagan: Dean Acheson (former Secretary of State) and General Lucius Clay thought that if the Americans had acted vigorously and swiftly they could have prevented the erection of the wall without danger.”
Kagan: “Wolfgang Leonhard, a former Communist who had been in Moscow during the war and was a charter member of the East German government under Ulbricht after the fall of Berlin (in WW-II). He urged that Western military forces move right up to the “frontier of peace” at once. “He was confident that Khrushchev would retreat, just as Hitler would have done had he been confronted by military force in” (In several confrontations prior to WW-II) Ron..
RLH-So the real danger that was taking place in 1961, between Kennedy and Khrushchev, should now be apparent. Khrushchev was a gambler and a chancer. He now believed he had a patsy in the White House. He believed by pressuring Kennedy, he would submit and that submission might put Soviet Russian in a historically advantageous world position. The Communism might actually become the real power in the world. But he also knew that his beliefs were based on bluff and so did many of his contemporaries in the Soviet government. That will play out in the “Cuban Missile Crisis.”
And so in 1961 we had a young, inexperienced President without any solid background of real political success, other than an election, a President who had allowed his fears to overcome his courage, a President without any international acumen, and because of those deficiencies, he was putting our country in great danger.
We stared a similar situation in 2008 with the election of Barrack Obama. But while Kennedy, at his center, believed in the traditional American he grew up in and fought for, we had a completely different man with a completely different set of values in the White House with President Obama. Also young and inexperienced, a political dilettante with no qualifications other than being a “community organizer,” who told everyone prior to his first election, he intended to “fundamentally transform America.” What arrogance, what conceit, how could so many of our countrymen and women have fallen for that bull spit? Obama was famous for his compelling track record of backing down when challenged and failure to achieve goals both international and domestic
So the record of these two Democrat Presidents is one of weakness and failure. But the real danger is yet to come under President Kennedy, the “Cuban Missile Crisis.” Did he learn from the past?”
R. L. Howard, February 2018
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