Richard Goodwin

Cuban Missile Crisis, Forty Year Reunion, Compared to Ukraine War
Current Events and History

Cuban Missile Crisis, Forty Year Reunion, Compared to War in Ukraine

Bruce Strom 0

Goodwin recalls, “That President Kennedy had handled the Cuban Missile Crisis with assurance, wisdom, and skill remained the prevailing opinion of the conferees four decades later. By choosing a quarantine of Soviet ships instead of air strikes to be followed by an invasion, Kennedy had bought time to cut a deal with Premier Nikita Khrushchev, averting a potential nuclear war. The Soviets would remove the missiles which had been installed in the Cuban countryside within striking distance of Florida; the United States would pledge that there would be no invasion of Cuba. If all these conditions were met, Kennedy gave his word that the US would remove nuclear missiles from Turkey, which stood within striking distance of Russia.”
The danger of a nuclear war was very real. In 2022, we learned that a Soviet submarine was compelled to surface during the crisis. She had been unable to communicate with Moscow while underwater, and two out of the three officers on board agreed to fire their nuclear weapons in response to practice depth charges being detonated, which they thought were real. But the third refused to unlock the button, and the submarine surfaced, and peacefully withdrew from Cuba. […]

Trump-Biden Debate Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 Debates: the First Televised Debates
Current Events and History

Trump-Biden Debate, Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV Debates, With David Frum Editorial

Bruce Strom 0

Often when you catch Trump with his hand in the cookie jar, he first denies the existence of the cookie jar, then denies the existence of the cookies, and then says it was perfectly fine to steal the cookies!
When reminded how he said that US servicemen who are captured in war, like John McCain, or who die in war, are suckers and losers, Trump simply denies he said such things!
TRUMP: “First of all, that was a made-up quote, suckers and losers. They made it up. It was in a third-rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines. He made that up.” “We had nineteen people that said I didn’t say it.” Maybe Trump is referring to nineteen right wingnut anchors on Fox News and Newsmax. […]

Lyndon Johnson, Enacting the Great Society and Vietnam, Review of an Unfinished Love Story
Current Events and History

Lyndon Johnson, Enacting the Great Society and Vietnam, Review of an Unfinished Love Story

Bruce Strom 1

Five days after JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress and the nation, speaking of Kennedy’s domestic dreams, “the dream of education for all our children, the dream of jobs for all who seek them and need them, the dream of care for elderly, the dream of an all-out attack on mental illness, and above all the dream of equal rights for all Americans, whatever their race or color.”
Johnson emphasized, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory that the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.”
Dick reminisced, “Impressive, a huge risk at the time. LBJ knew the path he was taking would cut him off from the southern bloc that was his heritage, isolate him from his oldest friends, and might well not succeed. But he was willing to take the path.” […]

John F Kennedy, Cuba, Russia, and Civil Rights, Review of an Unfinished Love Story
Current Events and History

John F Kennedy, Cuba, Russia, and Civil Rights, Book Review of An Unfinished Love Story

Bruce Strom 1

JFK had gone over the cruel math over and over again, the math was clear, he could only win the Presidency with the electoral votes of Texas, Johnson’s home state, but without them, he would lose. Besides, he respected LBJ’s effectiveness as Senate majority leader, and his work ethic, as his office lights shone like a lonely beacon deep into the nights. Many historians rank LBJ as one of the most effective legislative leaders of the century.
But there was hesitancy within the liberal Kennedy circle of Massachusetts, there was exploratory probing by Robert Kennedy, JFK’s younger brother, who was serving as Attorney General. Would the Deep South LBJ consider instead becoming the chairman of the Democratic Party? LBJ was firm, he had been offered the Vice-Presidency, and he would not quietly back down. As our authors recall: “Mistrust, suspicion, and a scarcely concealed hatred continued between these two men from that day forward.” […]