HONORING JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS (Part One)

In this 50^th year following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, it is incumbent on those of us who actually lived during the ‘Camelot” era to remind people living now – most of whom weren’t born until much later- of his mammoth accomplishments despite serving only 3 years. This is also needed to fend off the ever present Kennedy haters,  political detractors, mud slingers -including latter-day “journalist” opportunists,  and racist filth and sewer scum who even today attempt to blight his presidency – as they have Obama’s- by their disgusting misrepresentations and trash. Even among the more sane and rational (or “liberal”) authors, it is easy to give short shrift to Kennedy if one isn’t paying attention, or one if deficient in the historical substance of his presidency - or one is viewing it through the prism of a preconceived bias.

 

Among the latter (I refuse to  dignify the racist vermin’s trash) is “historian” Robert Dallek who in a piece several years ago dismissed nearly all JFK’s accomplishments as overblown and exaggerated.  One of the provocative questions he threw out was:

 'Why do we admire a president who did so little?’

 

Why indeed? But what of the definition of “did so little”? Does Dallek regard the federalization of a Southern state’s National Guard  to preserve civil rights as doing “so little”? (As I described two blogs ago). Is he not cognizant of the political risk Kennedy took at the time- including for the Democratic Party which lost the South as a result? Does he not care? Does he seriously believe any president in this modern era would do the same today- say if a Governor of Georgia again prevented African-American students from attending schools?  If so, he's into stuff that's not even legalized yet here in Colorado!

Dallek begins his article by writing:

"True, his brilliant handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved the greatest Soviet-American confrontation threatening a nuclear disaster in the 45-year history of the Cold War".

Yet despite acknowledging JFK's brilliant handling,  Dallek can't or won't admit its import to us all! And that in so choosing a non-aggressive path (naval blockade as opposed to invasion, bombing) JFK ALREADY had effectively done more than any ten presidents combined by the singular choice of NON-aggression! Because, had Kennedy not used his brain and willpower,  resisting the Joint Chiefs (particularly Gen. Curtis LeMay) , none of those other presidents would have been around to even be elected! We’d all have ended up in piles of radioactive dust and debris.

One wonders if Dallek or his equally historically deficient (and dismissive) contemporary media cohort even knows any of the background and how close we came to actual obliteration. Do they know that 90-odd IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles) were actually ARMED and ready to be fired at U.S. east coast cities had Kennedy tried to invade or bomb Cuba ? (This according to a 1993 NBC Today interview with Robert McNamara that I still have on tape.) 

 

As per the article, 'Bomb Cuba! Le May Urged JFK', The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 26, 1996, p. 2A) Kennedy's Joint Chiefs, especially Air Force General Curtis LeMay and Lyman Lemnitzer, insisted Kennedy invade Cuba and take out the Soviet nuclear missile batteries and installations with bombs.

Kennedy was suspicious, and at some deep level, understood a serious and monumental danger if he acted precipitously. He chose instead to initiate a naval blockade, even as LeMay then compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain, and referred to his actions as “appeasement”.  Any other president might not have been so merciful, and might have had LeMay taken out and shot for treason.

But had JFK carried out the Joint Chief plans, all our then civilization would have been reduced to ashes. The U.S. bombing would have triggered the firing of 90-odd intermediate nuclear missiles on U.S. east coast cities, whereupon the U.S. would have rendered a nuclear retaliation on the Soviets, and vice versa. Given some 27,000 nuclear delivery systems- it is plausible that everything on Earth would have been reduced to cinders within a few hours.  So how the living hell is this not the most momentous accomplishment in all of human history, if human history would have essentially ended had he not chosen to act as he did?

 

Indeed, in the tape transcripts:  The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis’, by Ernest R. May and Philip K. Zelikow (1997, President and Fellows of Harvard College), the authors document how the country reached DEFCON 2 status (p. 347) on ’10:00 A.M. Oct. 24”. This is the stage directly before all out nuclear war! How could anyone – other than an imbecile – minimize the import of avoiding DEFCON 1?  Well, perhaps the passage of time has addled too many brains, but it hasn’t addled mine. The memories of those parlous days are as fresh and clear as ever!

 

As the referenced tapes note (I also have the actual tapes – as well as the book)ibid. :

 

”In addition to ICBMs and submarine-based ballistic missiles, every available bomber – more than 1,400 aircraft- went on alert. Scores of bombers, each loaded with several nuclear weapons and carrying folders for pre-assigned targets in the Soviet Union, were kept continuously in the air around the clock with shifts- refueled by aerial tankers, taking turns hovering over Northern Canada and the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviet government was presumed to be aware of these developments.”

At the time, I was a junior at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in North Miami, and in the middle of a Math class.  The principal (Brother Leo), entered to notify us of suspension of all classes:

 
“Boys, we are dismissing school. Please go home and make whatever preparations you need to with your families. Let us hope and pray we have a world to come back to when this is all over.”

At that I had to leave with books in tow, hoping I’d get to read them again, and trudge back home  (10 blocks away)where I found  my youngest brother – then age  9-  in near hysterics, crying and nearly wetting his pants, screaming about “The Russians gonna bomb us!” I had to calm the little idiot down, saying: “Mike, cool it! Kennedy is in charge and won’t allow that to happen! Now, go get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stop your yelping”.

 

Make no freakin’ mistake that it took uncommon courage for Kennedy to stand up to his military whacko Joint Chiefs who were all charged and ready to bomb Cuba  “into the Stone Age”.  The worst piece of vermin demanding aggressive action was Air Force General Curtis LeMay , who actually compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain, and referred to his actions as “appeasement”.  Interestingly, we learned about a year and a half ago, that Lemay's whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery. In a released  public audio,


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

we learned that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss, to no avail.  Something rotten in Denmark? How about something rotten in Dallas and with the military jagoffs that wanted Kennedy dead after he punked them (6 months after the Missile crisis, removing all Jupiter missile from Turkey in a secret deal)

So, it is reasonable to conclude Kennedy actually paid with his life, for preserving our own - by opposing the military nuts.

 
For this alone, it is idiocy to claim "JFK did little".  Quite the contrary, it is self-evident except to morons that he literally saved our entire freaking civilization which – had tools like LeMay and Lemnitzer had their way, would have been reduced to nuclear ash.  

 

These things need to be known! Today, 50 years later, our news and journalism machinery is much worse, putrefied and weakened (by corporate ownership) and not up to the task of exposing truth, or even historical facts. Instead they distort history as they pervert its significance. Their noxious profit  mandate has created a faux objectivity which seeks to give two sides equal credence and space - never mind there is really only one side to the story.

 

Next: Kennedy’s other achievements