Did you side with JFK or Castro during the missile crisis?

[KyuzoGator]

Can some of the more strident pro-Castro DUers please defend his willingness to allow the USSR to place nuclear missiles in his country?

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. I was too busy being scared shitless at the time....

to take sides. I was 13 at the time. Now that I am an adult, I don't know how much control Castro had over what the USSR wanted to do in Cuba, given that it was largely a puppet state at the time and Castro had held power for about three years.

How did you feel at the time?

[KyuzoGator]

2. I'm only 29, but I'm also half-Cuban and have strong feelings on Castro.

nt

[greatauntoftriplets]

31. The nuns in my Catholic grade school....

fanned the flames by damn near preparing us for the Rapture...or hellfire and eternal damnation if we didn't stop being 8th-grade smartasses.

Then I went home and my mother decided that she and my father had to drink all the booze in the house before we all got vaporized.

:scared:

[benddem]

6. me too

I'd just had a hideous permanent and wanted to hide forever...but was in the line in the Cafeteria of the hospital where I worked and saw Kennedy on the TV. My first thought though was I'm going to die with this hideous hairdo. This was a terribly frightening time. We'd all come through "duck and cover" exercises in school, people building bomb shelters, the scare was terrible. But I don't remember the ogre being Castro...it was Kruschev.

[charlyvi]

9. Me three.

I was eleven years old and thought I'd never get to high school. And you're right--it was a Kruschev moment, not Castro. He was jus

Edited for spelling because my typing is shitty.

[Judi Lynn]

10. True enough! Absolutely. People were surely thinking about Kruschev.

I can't believe any half-wit would dream of trying to fight DU'ers about the Missile Crisis.

[jimshoes]

8. Also 13 and scared shitless.

I am still convinced the world dodged a bullet back then. I also think the quality of leadership back then compared with the dick swinging cowboys of today was what kept the nuclear genie in the bottle. Today' mis-leaders seem only too willing to use the most heinous weapon ever created.

[Fridays Child]

13. Me, too. I was only...

...five or six years old, at the time. I have razor sharp memories of a recurring nightmare, in which bombs would drop on our town and I would endlessly fall, all tangled up with thousands and thousands of strangers.

[niallmac]

25. My very same thought before I saw your post.

Once I changed my shorts and understood the problem
I realized that we had no choice but to refuse the presence
of nuclear missiles off our shore.
It would have been like us putting nuclear
weapons in Turkey aimed at Russia! Oops.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. I was locked in a barracks during the missile crisis.

Because the base I was on was considered a target and they didn't want any of us getting silly ideas about running for our lives.

Did you side with Turkey when they allowed Amerca to place nuclear missiles in their country? That's what JFK agreed to pull out when he and Kruschev made the deal that ended the crisis?

[Make7]

21. Shhhh! No one was supposed to find out. ( n/t )

[Purveyor]

4. My biggest decision then was 'is it Romper Room or Land of Play'

[misternormal]

5. I was too busy learning how...

... a metal and wooden school-desk was gonna save my ass if a nuke was dropped...

But after growing up, I sincerely thank JFK for what he did to get the missles out of Cuba.

[patdem]

7. So are you STILL a scardy cat? GEE I was afraid of the DARK back then

but I got over it...try looking in the closet and under the bed before you go to sleep..and hey..a night light might help?

[KyuzoGator]

12. ???

Not sure who this was directed toward.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

24. Paid For By The Partnership For A Drug Free America.

Damned if I have a clue what in the hell you were spewing this to the OP for.

[bowens43]

11. Could it be that he did it because

the US was actively trying to assassinate him? The assassination attempts started under Eisenhower and increased in frequency under Kennedy. Those attempts were acts of war. And how about the Bay of Pigs? We attacked Cuba.

What better ally for Castro then the Soviet Union?

[lumpy]

38. The US/USSR cold war was still

in progress at the time. And it's true Castro had a target on his back big time. Kennedy handled the situation with a finese any chess player would envy, a mix of diplomacy/resolve and the correct response. The Russians were happily willing to back down ultimately. Bush wouldn't be able to even grasp the concept. The US should be taking a neutral stance regarding the hot war going on in the Mideast and by all means try, at least try, to broker a peace. It certainly would be an easier task if the Bush administration had not resorted to gunboat diplomacy in dealing with Afghanistan and the lie of invading Iraq. Unless the Congress comes to it's senses and blocks Bush and his backers from continuing on the warpath, things will only get worse. All the US evils lurking in the background are already beginning to show, Jews are being attacked, Muslim communities are in danger, it is already not safe to walk the streets, anarchy and anger is in the air. We need strong, honest, decent leadership now and there is very little of it in the Congress.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Why not spend a little time learning something about the event?

Take some time out from feverish posting and start reading on the conditions which lead up to the missile crisis. It didn't just happen.

The half-wit's view of history has some enormous blank spots in it. You need to fill them in.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KyuzoGator]

28. I know plenty about the event.

The Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey were obsolete and in the process of being decommissioned and removed (by JFK's 1961 direct order). Kruschev used them as leverage, but they provided no strategic advantage.

The overwhelming U.S. nuclear advantage at that time came from Polaris submarine missiles.

[JackNewtown]

15. Does Cuba have a right to defend itself? nt

[T Town Jake]

16. JFK's, of course, but I'm glad you asked that! We see so much adoration...

...of JFK and what his legacy might have been on DU, and rightly so. Many DU'ers frequently express what a utopia they think this country would be right now had he not been assassinated. Yet some of these same DU'ers fawn over Castro - a man JFK correctly despised and conspired with his brother to assassinate.

"But that's different" they say when this historical fact is pointed out, or simply slink away to another thread where they can praise Fidel's glorious worker's paradise unimpeded by pesky facts.

[bowens43]

19. correctly conspired to assassinate???

Unbelievable. You think that the assassination of leader of another country is appropriate?

I am just amazed that anyone who thinks that way would post on DU.

[T Town Jake]

26. He correctly despised Castro, as I stated, AND conspired...

...with his brother to assassinate him via operation Mongoose. There is a difference between what I said and what you "quoted," something you damn well know. But, yep, the world would've been a better place had the brother's succeeded in their plans. Deal with it.

[barb162]

29. good points

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

30. Yeah, those were some good plans they came up with.

I liked the one where they planned to put thallium in Castro's cigar. The idea that it would cause him to lose all of his hair, and the subsequent public humiliation would force him to resign his dictatorship.

That's good old American can-do ingenuity. It didn't work though. Maybe they should have asked Zack and Screech for some advice.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. The Kennedys Thought It Was Appropriate.

I don't want to get into the merits of it now but to say the Kennedys aren't part of the Democratic tradition is kind of silly.

[jaysunb]

41. Yes Jake, but there are other "facts"

as well.
As a young idealistic teenager, I and many others cheered the overthrow of Batista. Fidel & Che were hero's.
On the other hand, our handsome young president heralded in a New Frontier that would be my generations challenge to set the world on the path of progress and peace. He was not only an American hero, he was beloved through out the world.

How could we have known that Castro's "peoples revolution" would so inflame it's capitalist neighbors sensibilities to the point they would team up with the Mafia to eliminate him.
How could we have known Castro would invite Khrushchev to place nukes at our doorstep.
How could we have known that as we cheered JFK and his heroics that he was also setting a course for 60,000 Americans and 2,000,000 Vietnamese to die. ( I thought about this after I served)

There are many more examples of our naivety, but now nearly 50 years later we can see how both men and their actions have shaped the world and our lives today. We can't ever know where Kennedy may have led us and we also don't know what Fidel's vision may have become if he had been permitted to pursue it.
Kennedy didn't live to see the end of the Cold War that he was so passionate about. Castro won't live to see a prosperous socialist nation, but they both will have left their footprint on history . Their ideals and actions give different people different perspectives.

I for one, am no longer naive about either man.

[Codeine]

42. That's a fantastic post, jaysunb.

There seems to be a rash of naivete about any number op foreign (and domestic, for that matter) leaders here at DU that I cannot begin to understand. It's as though some posters lose the ability to become critical thinkers about any leader that makes the right anti-Bush or pro-socialist noises, conveniently overlooking the abuses those leaders may commit, abuses they'd never allow their own leaders to commit.

"Heroes will always betray, and those that seek heroes betray themselves." - Michael Moorcock

[jaysunb]

44. Thank you

I've learned--the hard way, sometimes--people are more inclined to ascribe to popular thought rather than see and analyze the bigger picture.

BTW, I love your sig line. Think I'll steal it....:rofl:
:hi:

[WinkyDink]

18. I was 12, but what I think I know now is that Castro embraced

Communism as the ideal economic and social model, and that would then be under the aegis of the USSR.

More to the point, October 1962 was post-Bay of Pigs. Wouldn't the knowledge that the U.S. had attempted to overthrow you give you reason to ally yourself with and be armed by a MAJOR POWER?

[bemildred]

20. I bent over, put my head between my legs, and kissed my ass goodbye. nt

[BushOut06]

22. Cuba had every right to place Soviet nukes on its territory

As long as we had nukes in West Germany, why was it wrong for the Soviets to want nukes close to the US? The United States has had a very long history of playing by its own rules, and then saying "sorry you can't do that" to other countries.

[graywarrior]

23. I was 11 and having my first phone DU with my classmates.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. What's to defend?

The U.S. wanted to kill him, nuclear missles are a good defensive weapon.

And I'm not pro-Castro.

[Lost-in-FL]

32. I didn't think Castro had much to say...

I thought it was JFK vs. Khrushchev.

[William769]

33. I wasn't born yet.

:shrug:

[karlrschneider]

34. Castro wasn't really the issue. He had only been in power for

about 3 years ago and few Norteamericanos knew much if anything about him. I thought at the time our
own government badly blew an opportunity to establish an amicable relationship after Batista was
tossed out on his ear. Rather, the chance to -continue- what had been mostly amicable...in the 1940s and 50s Cuba was a highly desirable tourist and vacation (and living) place. It seemed to me the Soviets saw a wide open opportunity and leaped on it...after all, Cuba was highly vulnerable during those early Castro years. I don't know who dropped the ball on that situation but it wasn't exploited (that doesn't HAVE to be a bad thing) well and so we got what we got.

There're a lot of "what ifs" in that now old history, but I guess JFK did what had to be done,
but of course we have no way to know what would have transpired if he hadn't gone to the mat with Nikita.

[jwirr]

36. To be honest I did not see it that way. For me it was between

the US & USSR.

[UTUSN]

37. What kind of question is this?

I side with the o.p. over detestation of CASTRO. However, I have seen the o.p. post that her forbearers lost LAND/plantations/whatever because of CASTRO.

BATISTA sucked REALLY BAD. And I'm GLAD CASTRO booted him out. I want CASTRO out. I do not want the A-hole/BATISTA people BACK. However, I would love for all of them to be OUT of the U.S.-------starting with the ROS-LECITHIN creeep and the BLARTART-BARF-A-GO-GO-BOOFFFF-a-hole.

[KyuzoGator]

40. I think I've made my personal biases on Castro abundantly clear. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

39. I'm not really sure.

I was in my mommy's tummy at the time. :)

Isn't this a little bit...in the past? Are there maybe some more immediate issues we could deal with?

(Technically speaking, a country does have the right to defend itself, even from us. And it's not like we weren't putting missiles in countries near the Soviet Union. And it was the Cold War, sort of a crazy time all round.)

[peacetalksforall]

43. You're question doesn't hold water. Here's why ....

Of course everyone was for Kennedy - but you can't ask the question without asking what happened to US-Cuba relations when Castro and others decided to end the corrupt rule of Batista on this island which was filled with the U.S. Mafia and the CIA.

The U.S. shunned Castro. Castro and friends were faced with a survival crisis. The USSR recognized an opportunity. It is said that Castro and friends never considered communism, but they did want rights and opportunities for all Cubans, not just the Batista class. Many state that Cuba went communist by default.

The stories we got at the time were filled with propaganda which we didn't recognize then. We were feverish with the fear of communism. We bought it all.

All relations should have been restored with the fall of the Berlin Wall if not before that, but we've been held hostage on all policies relating to Cuba by Cuban-Americans and the politicians who stuff their pockets with donations from Cuban-American organizations (which is really your tax dollars) - learn about the circling of money that's been going on for decades. Learn about the exceptional immigrant benefits that no other immigrant group has been blessed with.

It took decades to learn all the truth. When we started learning more of the history, we started started questioning all the 'exaggerations' ... including what was done to Kennedy and the dirty tricks the CIA and Cubans played on his administration and the country. The CIA was despicable. And still is on the Cuban issues. Many Cuban-Americans panted for the death of Castro and Republicans catered to it for the vote. Somewhere on the web you will find a 'lengthy' list of all the attempts at death and all the misses. It is important to learn why Cuban-Americans hated Kennedy.

Context is important. Pre and post. Check it out. You may then want to rephrase your question.

A starting point is realizing that you don't have to believe the lies that have been spread.

Factor in the hypocrisy of our policies when you learn what the policies are. Many in the world laugh at us for our 40 year old embargo - many in the rest of the world ignored our requests to hold to our ludicrous embargo and have been doing business with Cuba for a couple of decades.

The U.S. - Cuba relationship is the oddest and most ridiculous in the world. It is also shameful. Studying Cuba is a good way to learn how to royally screw up your countries diplomatic and business relationships and standing in the world.

Anyway, you're question is way too isolated. But it presents many learning possibilites.