Newsweek: "A thriving democracy taking root" in Iraq

[Michael Tee]

When Joe Kennedy was laying the groundwork for his son's Presidential run, he met with Henry Luce, the publisher of the enormously influential TIME and LIFE magazines, who had to be brought on-board, if not to support JFK, at least not to savage him in print.  To Luce's concerns as to whether JFK had any pro-Communist leanings, Kennedy reportedly told him, "You know no son of mine could ever be a communist," which was apparently good enough for Luce.  (So the story goes, anyway.)

JFK IMHO was something like Obama - - appealing to the young and hip, who take for granted that he can't afford to say what he really tninks about hot-button issues like communism during an election campaign, but take their chances on him being young and fresh enough to break with the Old Guard once in office, only to realize afterwards that in order to win election, he HAD to have sold out to them before the campaign even started.

Yes, it is more than possible that JFK did not like Cuba.  My point originally was that the invasion was really bipartisn, like all  US aggression, not from one "party" or the other.

[BT]

The news out of the fourth debate was Cuba, and Kennedy's day-before statement that the U.S. government should support "non-Batista democratic anti-Castro forces in exile ... who offer eventual hope of overthrowing Castro." Nixon called Kennedy's plan "dangerously irresponsible" but actually supported the idea in private. The issue helped Kennedy look tougher on Cuba than Nixon. The remainder of the debate was a reiteration of previous themes.

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/debates/history/1960/

[Amianthus]

Yes, it is more than possible that JFK did not like Cuba.  My point originally was that the invasion was really bipartisn, like all  US aggression, not from one "party" or the other.

Funny, then, that you didn't correct XO when he claimed that wars are Republican.

[Michael Tee]

Bay of Pigs was a bit more than "eventual hope," no?  It included in its plans the use of American air power.  The "exiles" were trained and equipped by the  CIA.

<<Funny, then, that you didn't correct XO when he claimed that wars are Republican.>>

The issue that really needed to be addressed was the phony dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans, the whole phony nature of U.S. "elections" and the "two-party" system.  It went a lot deeper than which "party" starts which wars.  I was too fucking lazy. 

[Plane]

    I wonder why the CIA didn't have a plan that was more likely to actually work?

     Was it hard to know that the population would not support the invaders?

      I think that quite often the CIA has too few agents on scene.

[Michael Tee]

<<I wonder why the CIA didn't have a plan that was more likely to actually work?

    << Was it hard to know that the population would not support the invaders?>>

I think it's the old story of your biases colouring your perceptions.  To those of us who loved Castro and the Revolution, it was inconceivable that the Cuban people would rise up against him.  Those who hated Castro had no problem believing the Cuban exiles who fled his Revolution that everyone left behind on the island hated him too.

Who would a CIA agent have listened to, a raving Communist lunatic like me, or some sleazy exile former member of the Batista secret police?

      <<I think that quite often the CIA has too few agents on scene.>>

The agents they woulda picked would have been anti-Castro, with their own agenda, so they would have heard the same crap from them as they got from the exiles in Miami.

[Plane]

      <<I think that quite often the CIA has too few agents on scene.>>

The agents they woulda picked would have been anti-Castro, with their own agenda, so they would have heard the same crap from them as they got from the exiles in Miami.

When you put it that way , it not only seems likely , it seems like a general principal that could apply to the spy trade anywhere.


Good thought.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Bay of Pigs invasion was begun under Eisenhower, and was planned from the very start as an invasion of anti-Communist Cubans. Eisenhower was noted for his ending of the Korean War, and did not wish to end his term with another war where any sizable number of US troops would be involved. The only US support was air support, consisting ofa few old B-24 bombers disguised as Cuban Air Force planes. That minimized US casualties greatly.

Kennedy felt that he had to go through with the invasion, or he would seem weak.

[Michael Tee]

<<Kennedy felt that he had to go through with the invasion, or he would seem weak. >>

Ironic.  If that was why he went through with it, it proved that he WAS weak.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Ironic.  If that was why he went through with it, it proved that he WAS weak.

======================================================
And of course, that is precisely what it proved, because the Bay of Pigs/ Playa Giron  was a disaster, and was followed by the Soviets installing missiles on Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which pretty much ended in a draw, with both sides retiring missiles.


Kennedy seems rather overrated if you ask me. Had he not been assassinated, I don't think he would have been as successful as LBJ at much of anything, even in pursueing the useless war in Vietnam.