Leslie (Oct. 24),
Your Dallek quote had only one statement from JFK himself: “How could I have been so stupid as to let them proceed?” Not “Dulles betrayed me” — that’s an interpretation, just as it’s an interpretation (opinion) that it was JFK’s “decorum” that led him to praise Dulles highly and refer to him as a friend. IOW, JFK didn’t mean what he said about Dulles, in your view.
Personally I like direct quotes, not interpretations. Arthur Schlesinger’s book on RFK says this:
“Allen Dulles handled himself awfully well, with a great deal of dignity,” Robert Kennedy said of the period after the Bay of Pigs, “and never tried to shift the blame. The President was very fond of him, as I was.”
— Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 459
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