A couple of especially interesting highlights:
Soviet officials believed right away that it was an “ultraright” coup
As of 1965, KGB claimed to have data that implicated LBJ in the plot
A couple of especially interesting highlights:
Soviet officials believed right away that it was an “ultraright” coup
As of 1965, KGB claimed to have data that implicated LBJ in the plot
Nixon was way softer on Cuba as well as on the USSR than JFK was. JFK was pretty far out.
American intelligence had to get involved during JFK's presidential campaign because JFK was accidentally revealing the planned invasion of Cuba by telling people at his rallies that if he were president he would support a policy of arming, training and supporting cuban refugees to invade Cuba.
this idea of JFK being a moderate president in terms of the cold war is insane. both Truman and Eisenhower were far more reasonable.
Actions are more important than speeches. When the time for the invasion of Cuba came, Kennedy was horrified with what the CIA was planning, and he denied them the air support that was needed to secure a victory over Cuba. He then dismantled the policy of arming, training, and supporting the Cuban refugees for another invasion (Operation Mongoose). That made him a lot of enemies.
Kennedy promised the Soviets he wouldn't invade Cuba and Nixon did that as well, so I'm not seeing a difference in policy there. Nixon also escalated Vietnam to its peak intensity, the war that Kennedy was going to end. Kennedy ran to the right and governed to the left (relatively). Johnson did the reverse.
How were Truman and Eisenhower reasonable? The Truman Doctrine was an incredibly successful anti-communist program, and Eisenhower basically gave the CIA free reign.
This isn't true. Most of JFK's most generous biographers say that at best he went with the plans with a bit of hesitation. He certainly wasn't horrified(id be interested in a source if you have one).
Of course the plan for Bay of Pigs originated with Eisenhower's administration when Nixon was VP. But it should be telling that you're trying to defend a man who tried to out maneuver Nixon in his campaign by going even farther right in order to call Nixon soft on communism.
The Bay of Pigs invasion was entirely designed to provide the US with plausible deniability against accusations of outright invasion in the event of a failed invasion of Cuba. It wasn't some deep dark conspiracy shit, it was a logical work around for a potential diplomatic crisis with the USSR. JFK only refused to send in direct air support because he wanted to maintain that plausible deniability. Not because he had any moral stance on the matter or on cuba/communism.
The original plan was to provide gusanos with weapons and training, including fighter jets and bombers for the initial landing. He kept to that. If you wanna worship the dude for trying to limit the possibility of nuclear Armageddon, go ahead. I'm not joining you though.
I'm being provocative here. I've simply noticed this insane tendency on the left as of late where people seem to increasingly think JFK's assassination was some pivotal moment in the cold war. This is a historically illiterate and anti-materialist position to me. It's effectively Bonapartism.
Our lives would be just as shitty had JFK not been shot dead.
At least Eisenhower went out with that one speech to warn us against the military industrial complex. Plus Eisenhower gifted Zhukov a fine ass fishing rod. JFK would have just given us some bullshit about freedom and liberty. He was the first president who was stupid enough to believe his bullshit. All of his successors (except for Nixon) have been stupid enough to believe it as well.
I wish he hadn't been shot so you could hate him as much as everyone else like I do.
I already do hate Kennedy about as much as every other American president. The problem is that you're mistaking a dispassionate recognition of the significance of his assassination for hagiography or "worship", because you're letting your contrarianism and hatred of JFK blind you. It's similar to how Ben Shapiro decries leftists for being motivated by feelings rather than facts, when it's actually the other way around: Ben is motivated by his contrarianism and hatred of leftists and marginalized groups, which blinds him to the rational arguments for scientific socialism (please understand, I don't think you're anywhere near as bad as Ben Shapiro, comrade, it's just an analogy).
You may be right about the Cuba stuff. I may have perhaps given Kennedy too much credit by projecting a moral stance for his decisions during the Bay of Pigs invasion, so I'll do a self-crit there. However, I do know that for whatever reason, the invasion resulted in JFK and the CIA hating each other. I also know for a fact that Kennedy was going to withdraw from Vietnam---which by itself is enough to make his assassination a huge deal (regardless of whatever motivation he had for doing so).
I completely agree that our lives would be just as shitty today had JFK not been killed. But I also believe that his assassination was a pivotal moment in the Cold War---and this is actually a completely materialist position, not great man theorizing. How can that be? I'll explain with another analogy.
The First World War happened entirely due to material, not personal, reasons: capitalist imperialism. Nevertheless, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a pivotal moment in world history, because it marked a significant turning point. It was when the material forces of capitalism finally came to a head and burst into bloody imperial conquest. It's not that we're worshiping Franz Ferdidand as some great man who was holding together peace in Europe.
In a similar fashion, the escalations of the Cold War and the Vietnam War were entirely inevitable due to the material necessities of the military industrial complex. JFK was high on his own supply, as you suggested. He was stupid enough to believe that he could say some pretty things about freedom and liberty and successfully lead the world to peace despite the material need for war, and it cost him his life. No, the world would not be a better place today if he hadn't been shot dead, because the Deep State would have eventually gotten its wishes by another means in due time---just like World War I would have eventually happened if Ferdinand had survived that day. JFK was not holding the peace of the world in his hands, he was just some asshole who got merc'd because he stood in the path of the rampaging elephant of imperialism, and highlighting that fact is useful and illustrative to liberals that we don't live in a democracy, but rather a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, because capitalism doesn't care about who you vote for.