The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis

i must have been about 12 then. i remember the news in the papers and tv. we saw kennedy too in '59-60.the folks had a home movie of him and jacki driveing by us waving to the crowd as they drove away to the airport.they seemed happy to be leaving my hometown.everybody does.that's one thing about my town.we have a way of making people happy about something.

 

You should be thankful

 

and waveing some more the kennedys and staff wondering how long a goodbye takes in this region of the country.bye bye.....goodbye already sweet jesus please make them stop waveing.we gotta go.the airplane is alreading revving up bye bye .go....but yeah i was optimistic the whole situation would work out and if not well we'd have to see about that.

 

Clearly, Marilyn Monroe killed herself out of jealosy.

 

Fascinating stuff.

I remember riding the bus to school after seeing JFK's speech on TV the night before and being very afraid that I might die that day.

Just four days ago, I went to the JFK Library for the first time. I can't believe I waited so long, since JFK was sort of a father figure to me. I saw the half-hour presentation on the Missile Crisis, but they never mentioned the stuff about the Soviet sub commander.

 

Caliente and Zombiewolf--appreciate your knowledge about these things.Somehow I missed all that about the sub-ect.

 

Yeah, thanks Cali'! A necessary thread, I think...

It is disturbing to realize that at a time when we were little kids with nothing but the energy of pure innocence, the world was that close to nuclear annihilation.
ZW

 

She was dead before I was born, honey . But that woman had no reason to be jealous of anyone. Jeeeezus, was she hot or what?

 

How did you like it?

I could be mistaken, but I don't think that came out until the 40th anniversary conference in Havana in 2002. Even McNamara didn't know about it until then. And it wasn't just the submarine, it was the land-based field commanders in Cuba, who had nuclear-equipped SAMs and the authority to use them. To me, it seems inconceivable that nuclear launch capability would be delegated that low ... perhaps it's different in the Russian military now.

McNamara has written that he nearly had cardiac arrest when he heard all this at the conference. No one on the American side had a clue about it at the time of the Crisis. It would be interesting to read an account of the entire Crisis from the Russian side.

By the way, has anyone else seen the movie "Thirteen Days"? The Joint Chiefs looked pretty bad in the movie, and not without cause, from what I've read. I remember thinking ... "this is why you need civilian control over the military."

 

I feel a deep connection to JFK, and the visit to the library stirred up a lot of strong emotions and memories.

I grew up near Washington, DC, and during his Presidency, I was aged eight to eleven. In fact, I remember Election Night. I wanted him to win so badly, I stayed up all night to find out who won. It wasn't til nearly dawn that it was decided.

I didn't have a good relationship with my father, so I looked up to JFK as an ideal father figure. I loved how witty, smart, and charming he was, especially during his press conferences. I can totally get how Marilyn Monroe would have wanted him; and I certainly don't hold the affair against him. I also loved how much he loved his own little children. At the Library, you can watch one of his early press conferences, and I wish they let you watch all forty of them.

During his presidency, I read a book on Lincoln and I knew a lot about that assassination.

When Kennedy was assassinated, I was very shocked and saddened and also felt like it was the biggest historical event of all time. I was glued to the TV set and saved every copy of the Washington Post and Life and Look magazines. When the Zapruder film came out about six months later, I studied every frame a thousand times. I was never a conspiracy nut, but I always doubted the Warren Commission, and that was the beginning of my distrust of government.

Later, when I went to MIT, I found myself living in the district that JFK represented in Congress. Now, I live within an easy walk of his birthplace; in fact, I rode my bike by it just the other day. A few years ago, I worked as a substitute teacher and worked three days at the Devotion School in Brookline, the elementary school that Joe and Jack went to. There's a glass case just inside the entrance that has their report cards.

So, I really loved the Library. It's in a spectacular place, right on Boston Harbor and I was there on a beautiful sunny day.

There's very little there about his assassination; I guess that's because the Kennedy family had so much input.

 

And you know,everyone alive at that time remembers exactly where they were,what they were doing ,why they were doing it,ect ,November 22nd,1963.That day and how I felt is frozen in time forever for me. And all of us.When Eisenhour lied about the U-2 was when I began to question government,but the death of JFK guaranteed that I would forever be skeptical whenever any government spokesman says anything.RFK and MLK were anti-climactic given the times.

 

I can't think of another president who seemed to have so much fun at press conferences. Sorensen's book talks about them ... he prepared like crazy. The staff would grill him with test questions for hours.

Regarding his wit and charm, here's a compilation of clips from some of his press conferences ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC_B3OBmb0Y

I'd love to visit it as well. Maybe next year.

 

I can't argue with that. But at the same time, the U-2 thing was all about military capabilities. Eisenhour couldn't tell the truth without revealing the existence of the U-2, which was a secret at the time. That's different than the Kennedy/King murders, don't you think?

In contrast, the only reason to lie about the murders is to cover somebody's ass. Or in this case, an entire freakin' government agency's ass.

 

I knew that. I was just going along with your joke.

I guess so. I'm not too much into blonds, but she did have a very sexy attitude.

 

Well said.