Reply #16: I Stand Corrected [View All]

"Kennedy was not the one who introduced "advisors" into Viet Nam. It was Ike"

Thanks for the correction.

But did Kennedy withdraw any of Ike's "advisors"? Did Kennedy increase the number of advisors in Vietnam? I find it very difficult to call John F. Kennedy a "peacemaker" -- certainly a peacemaker in the same league with Martin Luther King or Gandhi. Kennedy was a cold war hawk whose 1960 campaign was based, in large measure, on a non-existent "missle gap" between the USA and the USSR.

". Secondly, you have a problem with his quarantine of Cuba? If so, you will be the first I have ever heard of that opposed that policy. I lived thru that time and it would have been totally irresponsible to have ignored the missle threat in Cuba."

Since you asked, I do indeed have "a problem" with JFK's quarantine of Cuba. (By the way, I just recently celebrated my 52nd birthday, so I too lived through this period of our nation's history).

We had missles in Turkey -- missles aimed at the USSR. What gave us the right to have missles in Turkey -- and later in W. Germany -- but forbad the USSR and Cuba from agreeing to have USSR missles stationed in Cuba? What would we have said if the USSR had put a quarantine around W. Germany until we agreed to dismantle our missles there and bring them back here? Do you think we might have said that the Soviet Premier "would have been totally irresponsible to have ignored the missle threat in W. Germany"? Or do you think it far more likely that we would have said that the Soviet Premier was acting aggressively?