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Tag: Cuban Missile Crisis

4) Official Pentagon history: Top generals resisted JFK’s peace policies in 1963

Jefferson Morley July 21, 2019

Michael Swanson, an investment adviser turned JFK researcher, called my attention to “Council of War,” a fascinating official history of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The study documents the Pentagon’s resistance to, and resentment of, President Kennedy’s foreign policy, especially on Cuba and Vietnam.

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4) Official Pentagon history: Top generals resisted JFK’s peace policies in 1963Read More »

E.J Dionne gets JFK right: the forever-young president 100 years on

Jefferson Morley May 29, 2017

He was a fervent Cold Warrior whose most important triumphs came in the name of peace. He avoided nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missile crisis and negotiated a partial nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union. He took office with a muscular promise that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden” in the battle for freedom. But five months before his death, he became a prophet of what would be called detente, describing peace as “the necessary, rational end of rational men.”

Source: JFK, the forever-young president, 100 years on – The Washington Post

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E.J Dionne gets JFK right: the forever-young president 100 years onRead More »

Historian Tim Naftali depicts a cunning and cagey JFK

Jefferson Morley October 25, 2015

Tim Naftali is the former head of the Nixon library, a historian of U.S. intelligence and a chronicler of the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I follow him closely.

Kennedy was “far more interesting intellectually and far less appealing personally” than his family and friends wanted the world to know, Naftali told the Guardian. “And that’s fine.”

Source: JFK: declassified documents reveal a cunning and cagey president | US news | The Guardian

From Cuba to Iran: Obama claims JFK’s legacy

Jefferson Morley August 6, 2015

Obama at AU
President Obama speaks at American University, August 5, 2015

In a “blunt” speech at American University, President Obama “aggressively” defended the international agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program by invoking the daring diplomacy of President John F. Kennedy.

The polemical fire in Obama’s address targeted the many critics of the deal who supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003. The setting invoked JFK’s “strategy of peace” speech, delivered on the same campus in June 1963. The analogy of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal to JFK’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty took up much of the speech.

But the historical strength of Obama’s argument came from another source: …

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JFK’s speech on the Cuban missile crisis

Jefferson Morley April 2, 2015


The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 marked a turning point for President John F. Kennedy. His bold but deft diplomacy spared the world a war that might have gone nuclear. Peace proved popular and JFK’s approval ratings soared. Here’s how it started.

Annals of secrecy: At height of missile crisis, Pentagon proposed assassination of Cuban officials

Jefferson Morley February 21, 2014

A newly declassified Pentagon study, published today by the non-profit National Security Archive, sheds new light on the thinking of U.S. military leaders at the height of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962.

As President Kennedy searched for a solution that did not involve a war that might have gone nuclear, the Pentagon was itching to escalate.

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Nov. 25 1963: After the funeral, Washington’s response firms up

rexbradford November 25, 2013

LBJ on the phone

On the Monday following the tragic and astonishing events in Dallas, President Kennedy’s body was laid to rest in Arlington cemetery. A host of foreign dignitaries took part, including British Prime Minister Home, French President Charles de Gaulle, and many others.

Meanwhile the federal government’s response to the assassination was taking shape. …

Nov. 25 1963: After the funeral, Washington’s response firms upRead More »

In Syria, lessons of the Cuban missile crisis

Jefferson Morley September 11, 2013

In a smart piece for the Washington Post, Michael Dobbs notes the similarities between President Obama’s predicament in Syria and President Kennedy’s dilemma during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

While there are many differences, one basic dynamic is the same: how does the president of the United States resist pressures for a war of choice (not necessity) created by the articulation of red lines.

Dobbs, author of “One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War,” writes;

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