Atomic Playboy
Lifer
Reagan should be on a $1,000,000.00 bill, to accurately reflect his legacy of helping the super-wealthy get richer. Trickle-down economics works, dammit!
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Norquist: Time is right to put ?Reagan on the $10 bill.'
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Arkaign
Lifer
True that we can never know, things might have changed .. but from his own words :
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/viet23.htm
Q. Following up that, sir, would you give us your appraisal of the situation in South Viet-Nam now, since the coup, and the purposes for the Honolulu conference?
THE PRESIDENT. Because we do have a new situation there, and a new government, we hope, an increased effort in the war. The purpose of the meeting in Honolulu ? Ambassador Lodge will be there, General Harkins will be there, Secretary McNamara and others, and then, as you know, later Ambassador Lodge will come here ? is to attempt to assess the situation: what American policy should be, and what out aid policy should be, how we can intensify the struggle, how we can bring Americans out of there.
Now that is our object, to bring Americans home, permit the South Vietnamese to maintain themselves as a free and independent country, and permit democratic forces within the country to operate ? which they can, of course, much more freely when the assault from the inside, and which is manipulated from the north, is ended. So the purpose of the meeting in Honolulu is how to pursue these objectives.
KGB
Diamond Member
I think we should create a whole new series of bills to honor and commemorate the new founding fathers of Washington.
The back sides of the bills would feature elaborate engravings depicting Capitol Hill, White House, Pentagon, K Street, etc.
The honorees depicted on the faces would be the likes of Jack Abramoff, Ton DeLay, Dennis Hastert as well as Mr. Norqvist himself whoring the entire 108th and 109th Congress.
That is progress. :Q
The back sides of the bills would feature elaborate engravings depicting Capitol Hill, White House, Pentagon, K Street, etc.
The honorees depicted on the faces would be the likes of Jack Abramoff, Ton DeLay, Dennis Hastert as well as Mr. Norqvist himself whoring the entire 108th and 109th Congress.
That is progress. :Q
jonks
Lifer
Yeah, but isn't that rhetoric Bush used even before the surge? The goal is, of course, to bring US troops home as soon as possible. But we have to send 30k more in before we can get all of them out.
From what I've read it's still an unknown what he would have done had he lived. It's more than one conspiracy theorists, uh, theory, that he was killed specifically because he was going to withdraw and war means $ for certain people.
GroundedSailor
Platinum Member
It was too good to be true 😀
Lemon law
Lifer
After having long and degenerating thread based on------------------------Norquist: Time is right to put ?Reagan on the $10 bill.'
I do have a better idea----maybe the time is and remains right to totally ignore Norquist. Any idiot can say anything, but why should any take what someone says seriously?
As it is, there is enough opposition to nullify the idea as something good. Meaning the time is not right.
I do have a better idea----maybe the time is and remains right to totally ignore Norquist. Any idiot can say anything, but why should any take what someone says seriously?
As it is, there is enough opposition to nullify the idea as something good. Meaning the time is not right.
Fern
Elite Member
I was too young to know what was going on then, but I can tell you that the people who went to the Bay of Pigs hated Kennedy with a passion.
I knew an older Cuban American guys years ago in Miami. He claimed Kennedy betrayed them, sent them in and the promised support/backup never came. A lot of people died.
Fern
Really? I don't think Clinton was all that great. I mean I thought he did a fine job as president, but certainly nothing worthy of being placed in the pantheon with Lincoln, Washington, Jackson, Hamilton, etc. (then again I would be fine with him replacing Grant's dumb ass is on the $50... how that incredible turd ended up on our money is beyond me.)
miketheidiot
Lifer
reagan was crap and carter was stuck with the mess of the previous 8-10 years and really couldn't do much, still bleh though.
Barring scandals, nixon and clinton were probably the two best presidents of the last 40 years
miketheidiot
Lifer
can cut and ran from terrorists in beruit, probably committed treason in regards to iran/contra, etc
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
Eh, I did a paper on this in university and neither side really ever came that close. Actually, Castro was in favour of launching nukes on the U.S. preemptively... Which freaked the Russians right out and cemented their decision to pull nukes out of Cuba. They didn't want some nutjob starting WWIII over a tiny little island they really couldn't give a rat's ass about.
The missiles in Turkey were of an older generation and needed replacement anyways. It was a pretty huge win for the U.S.
I should probably just save a copy of the summary of the answer to your question, since I answer it repeatedly.
First the answer to your question. Some highlights why Kennedy was one of our greatest presidents - I'll break it into categories.
Visionary:
- Kennedy more than most presidents understood the needs of society to balance the capitalist system with the needs of all the people being met.
As the son of one of the wealthiest men in the nation, who had remarked once that he didn't notice the Great Depression because of his insulation until he heard the stories later, while he was always raised for a live in public service, he was able to understand different levels of society, to say, as perhaps no other president has, that he finally believed his father when he said 'all businessmen are sons of bitches'. The remark shouldn't be taken too literally, of course, as much as reflecting his understandiing of 'the business agenda'.
He was strongly in favor of our basic system, while recognizing the need for the government to play a critical role in ensuring the weak were protected.
He saw poverty like he never had while campaigning in West Virginia and pledged his first act as president would be to increase the food assistance (and he did. This also seemed to foreshadow his broth Robert's later conversion to a passion for the poor to digress). One of his main campaign issues - another he kept, with his enemy then-citizen Ronald Reagan - was to greatly increased medical care for the elderly, something else he did as president.
He came to understand peace like few presidents. This speech was one of the greatest ever by a president, summarizing some of his views on war and peace at the height of the cold war. He faced the extremely tough adversary Kruschev, but Kruschev had this played without editing across the Soviet Union, the first time that had happened. Listen to the audio.
Kennedy is sometimes under-credited for much of what he did because the nation to this day has followed his lead. It's easy not to realize that he inherited a cold war filled with a mob mentality, a climate where a senior military leader could say that if nuclear war left two Americans and one Russian, we won, where the military could propose first nuclear strikes killing hundreds of millions, among many other aggressive wars.
He carefully led the nation away from its willingness towards war and towards peace instead. His book of speeches was titled 'The Strategy of Peace' - a title which represents his technique of selling peace by bundling it in the words of 'strength'.
Indeed, a good example of his approach to fight the forces of war to push peace, often using the device of making peace the enemy of the USSR, is in the speech above, where he says how alamring it is that the USSR's own propaganda falsely claimed there was a chance the US might launch a pre-emptive strike. He did not reveal there that his military had indeed pushed such a measure; in one speech, he both cemented his opposition to shut it down, and discouraged public debate of the possibility, keeping it from becoming a 'hawk-dove' debate, by positioning those who would support it as proving the Soviets right. He repeatedly linked the greatness of the United States to our unwillingness to do things the right might want to do, which cut the rug out from under them, leaving only the most radical rightists standing against his message - such as those who had placed the full page ad when he visited Dallas, accusing him of treason.
Kennedy realized the US could not win third-world support through our traditional use of right-wing strongmen, which would lead to nothing but the success of the Soviet policy of 'exporting revolution' to these countries, allowing the Soviets the high moral ground of supporting a just rebellion against tyranny, with the blood largely on the US's hands. He changed our policy to making the US support 'real' autonomy for third-world nations, supporting independant and moderate leaders who had been rejected by previous administrations, to give the US the high moral ground against the Soviets who oppressed those who accepted their help. He made the brand of the US "liberty" in the cold war - not merely for the US's interest in a world of enslavement for others, but libgerty for the world.
Kennedy recognized the dangers of the entrenched systems in the US for militarism, and had the ability to change them. I'll disducc the Bay of Pigs later, but he created the Defense Intelligence Agency as one step to regaining control over the military, and he planned a major overhaul of the US intelleigence agencies in his second term - not just any president says, as he did, that he 'wanted to cut the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the wind'.
The Peace Corps, considered a radical idea by many, was his creation of an 'army of peace' to increase support for the US in the rest of the world, to counter the handouts by the Soviet Union. The 'Alliance for Progress' was a significant step towards improving our relations with South America, treating them with respect (following policies of assassination, of the humiliating near killing of Vice-President Nixon when a mob attacked his limousine). It also helped to build a coalition of partners which could keep Castro isolated politically, instead of building support.
He came to see civil rights as a moral imperitive for our nation, at a time when a century of racism had barely begun to be chipped away.
Foreign Policy
Kennedy led the nation in arguably its most dangerous period of the 20th century.
He had to balance between a public that was quite anti-communist and ready for the use of force, with the dangers of such conflicts escalating to nuclear confrontation - as was threatened by such events as the Soviet threat to sign a peace treaty with East Germany and cut off Western access to Berlin, in conflict with the commitment by the West to such access up to the point of war.
Let's begin with one of your criticisms, the Bay of Pigs.
The background that after long political recriminations when China was 'lost' to Mao, Cuba - actually a terrible situation with a dictator Batista and the mob from the US running wild - 'fell' to the communists and was seen in 1960 as the number one foreign policy problem by the US public. Castro was hardly a well-entrenched leader, having barely taken power with a motley force, and the US was used to displacing leaders it didn't care for in the region.
The Eisenhower admnistration concocted the plan to take the thousands of Cubans who were determined to fight for overthrowing Castro, and provide them with assistance. The Eisenhower administration set up training camps and provided CIA and military assistance and training. Nixon tried desperately to have the invasion happen before the election, to gain the political credit for it, but it wasn't ready. (This caused some issue when Kennedy was able to take pot shots at Nixon for the administration 'not doing enough' against Castro, while Nixon could not reveal the secret operation).
Arrogant CIA and military leaders, faced with a young new president two months in office who said he would not authorize the use of the US military as a direct invading force in the operation, came up with a scheme to manipulate him into sending US forces.
To ensure his approval, the joint chiefs and the CIA leaders all told JFK the operation was 'foolproof'. Their plan was that once the US had committed that far, it couldn't let the operation lose and JFK would have to send in the US military. They were wrong.
Had Kennedy cancelled the operation, what would have been his justification? A new and inexperienced president overriding the unanimous opinion of the well-respected Allen Dulled and the CIA, and the JCS, would have left Kennedy with a leaked story making him look very weak - the man who lost our chance to let the Cubans recapture their country - the equivalent of Bush cancelling the operations against Osama bin Laden in late 2001.
Kennedy allowed the operation to proceed, but when the operation was losing - among other things, Castro got advance notice of it and was waiting for them - he stood firm on his policy not to send the US military, and he got rid of the CIA leadership which had tried to manipulate him, including Allen Dulles (who later served, despite the conflict, on the Warren Commission).
Kennedy viewed his approval of the mission as a mistake - though I think that had he not approved it, the right policy, his presidency would have been devastated from the start like no other presidency has, seen as 'weak' at home and around the world, a terrible problem at the height of the cold war, when a comparison to Neville Chamberlein could hardly be afforded. Kennedy himself said one more Bay of Pigs mistake could cause his impeachment.
But he learned from the mistake, and this allowed him to better fend off the military, as he drew firm lines against things like combat troops in Vietnam.
His policies went much better for the most part after that. Without recounting many of the specific issues for the sake of this not being even longer, I'll mention for example how, as part of his changing US policy to support the autonomy of other nations, he ended the long support of the US for Europes brutal colonization of other countries almost without condition. He paid a large price with Europe, but it worked as European colonies declined without US support, often following terrible wars in the colonies, with nations such as Portugal and France the big losers against the resistance.
Even his lesser policies were notable - see, for examplle, the book on his policies just in Africa.
As one site notes:
Kennedy considered his greatest achievment to be - again, at the height of the cold war with an out of control, bullying Soviet leader - the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (banning atmospheric testing). This was yet another of the ways Kennedy had led the nation towards detente with the USSR - on terms acceptable to the US interests.
You talk about JFK 'getting us in Vietnam'. You beg the question that he did - he didn't. Let's review for a moment:
Vietnam had been occupied by foreign powers for hundreds of years - the Chinese, the French, and during WWII the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh had long fought for Vietnamese nationalism - the end to foreign occupation. He'd first written to President *Wilson* asking for US help against the French (and was ignored).
After WWII, Ho Chi Minh thought it was time for them to be free of the French coming back when the Japenese left. He wrote a 'declaration of independance' modelled on that of the US; he admired our revolution and naively thought we could be an ally for the same freedom for Vietnam. The Eisenhower administration, choosing its European allies' desires over the principle of freedom for the Vietnamese, allied with France - and even paid up to 90% of the French war costs for them in Vietnam. The US was involved in the activities where Vietnam was split in two, 'temporariliy', until elections could be held, elections the US then blocked when it was clear Ho Chin Minh, rather than Diem who was our 'ally', would win. Eisenhower made a commitment to Vietnam that was difficult for Kennedy, as always under pressure from the right as 'soft on communism', to break.
When Kennedy took office, the larger crisis was Laos. JFK reversed US policy by offering to support the 'moderate' leader, instead of the Eisenhower policy of insisting on the right-wing leader - and therefore a more military conflict. Things shifted towards Vietnam during his admnistration.
Briefly, Vietnam was a difficult issue, for which JFK was looking for a solution. His rhetoric included statements of his support for the goal of victory in Vietnam, along with cautions, such as that US aid was limited to advisors and materials and the war would be won or lost by th Vietnamese, not the US (again, like the example above, publically opposing the JCS push in a public statement, couching the dovish policy in 'strong' terms.)
He asked advisors frequently how the US could get out of Vietnam. Faced with unreliable reports from the military and others, he sent the trusted Majority Leader Mike Mansfield over, who returned and told JFK he had to get out. He built up the force advisors to over 16,000, but refused combat troops constantly requested by the Pentagon, and reduced the advisors by 1,000 in a move with a poliical message. He was convinced that the war required liberal reforms, such as land reforms to give lands to the peasants (an example of his statement that 'if we cannot help the many who are poo, we cannot save the few who are rich', and 'those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable'). After long efforts to get Diem to adopt the reforms and seeing that was not happening, he allowed the removal of Diem.
Historians, Kennedy administration officials (sometimes at their own expence, like McNamara) and others conclude Kennedy very likely was going to get out of Vietnam, not send combat troops. Kennedy had kept his options open as was his usual practice, but had laid the groundwork for leaving after the US gave the South Vietnamese assistance to try to help them (recall his allowing the Bay of Pigs invasion to lose as he refused to send US troops).
I'd say in summary that JFK inherited a difficult situation, and did what was needed to try for the South Vietnamese to get a chance, and that JFK stood firm against the military and others who pressured for the US to fo to war - pressures LBJ did not stand up to - and that it's very likely JFK would have gotten out. He deserved credit, not Citrix's criticism, for his policies.
His foreign policies for recognizing others' rights to feedom as well were shown in stories of his picture being on the wall of huts around the world.
Kennedy believed in fighting the cold war from a position of strength, with a strong military, while also pursuing long-term disarmament.
On the issue of the Ba'ath party in Iraq:
He didn't exactly support the Ba'ath party in Iraq; he did support a coup, not his best momemt IMO, for the Prime Minister who had nationalized 95% of the oil industry to be overthrown - and who had been marked for 'regime change' as the US policy under Eishenhower, when the CIA tried to assassinate him. After the coup under Kennedy, the new leader expelled the Ba'ath party from Iraqi government, leading Saddam back into trying to assassinate the leader.
You are among those special few who say Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile crisis is a negative for his record (I suspect the same few say puppies and kittens are among the ugliest of animals, and that dirt tastes better than pie and cake).
Basically, the aggressive Kruschev put missiles capable of reaching the US into Cuba. The US detected them before they were operational, and JFK managed the US response. This included a secret period of deliberation and a public period of confrontation, following which the USSR withdrew the missiles and the world widely viewed the incident as a 'US victory'.
Key decisions by Kennedy included a shift from the initial nearly unanimous (including his own position) plan to invade Cuba to remove the missiles to instead begin with a naval blockade (called a quarantine for the purpose of reducing how clearly it was an act of war), and his negotiations with the confused Soviets, who sent two, partialy conflicting letters at the height of the crisis, where Kennedy responded only to the less demanding letter.
There are too many issues in the crisis to discuss here, from its roots, to the luck involved in avoiding nuclear war from the 100 tactical and operational nuclear weapons the Soviet forced had in Cuba, which the US did not detect, and which presumably would have been used for any US invasion (which is why they were put there), to the arguable hypocrisy of the US in placing missiles on the USSR's boder while denying them the same privilege.
Overall, most praised Kennedy's actions.
Domestic policy:
Kennedy led a variety of anti-poverty measures which largely worked well and are in place to this day. He saw an important role for the government in playing referee between the different interests in society - and this included protecting the interests of the weak in society. For example, his administration actively mediated a labor dispute in the steel industry (leading him to a battle, which he won, with the leaders of the steel industry).
Kennedy believed in Keynesian economics, and using the timing of government spending to prevent or reduce recessions. He also saw the top tax rate of 91% as too high for the optimal economy, and reduced it to 'only' 70% (which the right, who praise his cutting the rate at all, don't care to mention when discussing the issue).
He had a difficult time politically with a big agenda, for reasons including a close election (though he greatly increased his approval rating) to a challenging congress (the southern democrats were largely against his agenda, especially given his later support for civil rights). He had to pick his battles, but one he picked eventually was the civil rights issue.
While not moving fast enough for some on civil rights, especially earlier, 50% of the public felt he was doing too much, but he did more anyway.
I think his national speech to a nation reluctant to do more on civil rights was courageous and moving and helped make equality part of the American political identity in a way that lasts to this day, where it's basically a consensus to have 'equal rights'. (Martin Luther King, Jr., watching the speech, said immediately after that 'this white man not only stepped up to the plate, but hit the ball out of the park).
Watch the speech.
Leadership
Kennedy improved the image of the Unisted States at home and abroad.
The 'Camelot' label sticks because of his leadership with was a period of celebration of the arts and great culture at home, of leading the war on moral issues such as poverty, and on fighting for the cause of liberty around the world in a way that his successors have not matched.
Hie leadership changed the course of the nation on colonialism by our allies abroad, on racism at home, on the US as a world leader for liberty for weaker nations, on the causes of social justice, all the while effectively helping the United States win the cold war.
Specifics of his leadership range, in addition to the preceding examples, increasing the focus of the military to fight insurgencies rather than the next WWII (creating the Navy Seals and the Green Berets worn by that group) to the plan to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, to his greatly increasing the national program for physical fitness, including in schools.
He also brought a 'culture of culture'; government leaders were frequently invited to Robert Kennedy's house for talks by leaders in many areas. Even little touches had an effect; JFK was the president who, under Jackie's guidance, saw Air Force One changed from a bland aircraft to its distinctive markings of today.
For an idea of how inspirational he was to people in the US and globally, one book that might help convey an idea is here.
Under Kennedy, the nation prospered, the poor to the rich, its respect in the world increased as a symbol and leader for a world safe for diversity and filled with liberty, it moved away from racism and poverty and towards the moon and more peace in the world.
He had flaws and mistakes, and good qualities and good things done.
His presidency had enough for most to try to put some claim on it, and to find things to criticize.
But its list of what he did, what he caused not to happen, what he planned, is long. I think there are many lessons from his leadership for the nation.
He's deserving of a place as one of the few best presidents in history, and a case can be made for the best, IMO.
If that were true, you would have read the sources I've posted for you with the info, for example, the book "JFK and Vietnam by John Newman.
You haven't.
There are all kinds of sources with info to help you reach an educated opinion, if you wanted to have one. I'd be happy to help if you weren't so *dis*-interested.
It's true that some of the Cubans hated Kennedy (some loved him). It's BS that he promised them support/backup that never came. It's possible that *someone* made those promises - the same people who were conspiring to manipulate JFK to try to force him into committing US forces - their misjudgement, as he had said and stuck to it that he would not do so.
For what it's worth, the CIA was pretty out of control, and a Cuban leader later wrote a book in which he mentioned that the local CIA handlers working with the Cubans had a plan with them that had Kennedy cancelled the planned invasion, they CIA handlers would have the Cubans tie them up and proceed with the invasion, and the CIA people would say they'd tried to stop them but were overpowered.
As I explained in my previous post, JFK was in an extremely difficult position as a two-month president having to approve the invasion or override the unanimous JCS/CIA.
Citrix gets the timeline wrong, the Russians had to be humiliated in removing their missiles without any public commitment by the US to remove theirs - which they did months later.
Indeed, the whole episode was bad enough that a little later, Kruschev was removed from power - pretty remarkable considering the power of the USSR's leader (e.g. Stalin).
Yllus, you understate the level of danger IMO - for example, while the US started out with near unanimous agreement in the administration - including JFK - that invasing was the preferred response, the administration was unaware of 100 tactical nukes that Kruschev had put there for the Russian forces to use against any invasion force. Had that happened, it was WWIII.
Also, some minor corrections on the Castro issue. You're right that his position freaked out the Russians, but Castro backed off, when asked to clarify by the Soviets, that he was advocating a first strike, and the effect on policy wasn't for the Russians to remove the missiles involved in the crisis, but their response to Castro's request to leave the 100 tactical nukes in Cuba under Russian control. Those were removed by December, without any knowledge in the US.
From the minutes of the 'Ex-Comm' NSC meeting - the group Kennedy formed for the Cuban Missile Crisis - during the crisis:
Something else Citrix gets wrong is who was behind the pollcy to place the missiles in Turkey - that agreement was made under Eisenhower, in 1959/1960.
By the way, it adds a bit to see the Turkey missiles, here; read more on their history here.
ProfJohn
Lifer
Craig.. your JFK worship makes you blind to anything about him.
And one book does not make it a fact.
As a lot of people wonder, if Kennedy was so keen on getting out post election why did he stage the coup?
And there are still the post assignation pre-disaster quotes by people around Kennedy which claim he had no plan to get out of Vietnam.
I don't think we will ever know for sure.
And one book does not make it a fact.
As a lot of people wonder, if Kennedy was so keen on getting out post election why did he stage the coup?
And there are still the post assignation pre-disaster quotes by people around Kennedy which claim he had no plan to get out of Vietnam.
I don't think we will ever know for sure.
Wrong, but how can I argue against your evidence when there is none?
Reasonable people see I was answering the question, what made JFK great? Not you.
Your disengenuous posting gets tiresome. It's not one book. It's a massive body of evidence you can research, which you can read many books on.
As I said, I pointed out *one* especially good book on the topic to help you, if what you said were true that you want to get this information.
Predictably you dodge the fact that you have refused to get informed, you ignore the book I recommend showing no interest in getting informed, and you post an argument based on a complete falsehood - that there's only one book making the claim and is therefore insufficient evidence - to try for a 'debater point' instead of any honest response.
You really need to learn to discuss issues.
You don't care about the answer, you are just fishing for more debate point FUD to try to find something that will support the conclusion you want.
So I won't waste my time answering what you aren't asking. Go read the book I recommended and then post.
Huh? Nice links for evidence, BTW.
I don't think we will ever know for sure.[/quote]
I don't think you will ever know, because you are fighitng hard to remain ignorant.
Do you want me to frickin buy you a copy of the book delivered to your house and hire a local teenager to babysit you and read it to you?
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