http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/americas/generals-1962-memo-a...

PF

In article <qhlp78lep005p881pvnv70se8kqnuvs...@4ax.com>, Peter Fokes says...

What is your point, Peter.  The policy under Ike was the "New Look" which was
the use of nuclear weapons to replace our conventional forces.  While Kennedy
was building back our conventional and special forces the nuke option was
certainly still on the table.  What might shock you in 2012 wasn't so shocking
in the early 1960s.

To add to this, the memo was written by Taylor, JFK's own man.  It was probably
a mistake for JFK to bring Taylor out of retirement.

Bill Clarke

On 16 Oct 2012 00:59:17 -0400, Bill Clarke <Bill_mem...@newsguy.com>
wrote:

Had no point. Posted for informational purposes. New article in NY
Times.

  The policy under Ike was the "New Look" which was

PF

On 10/16/2012 1:00 AM, Peter Fokes wrote:

There is always a remote chance that the dunderheads here might learn
something. First, it takes 50 years to get these documents made public
and there are still thousands more documents being kept secret which are
much scarier. Most people do not realize how close we came to WWIII
then. One tiny mistake could end all life on Earth. So do you want a
rightwing nut in the White House with his finger on the button who
actually wants to launch WWIII just for fun?
Also, the CIA was busy with plans to invade Cuba, send in sabotage
teams, and assassinate Castro. Any of those things could have triggered
WWIII. All for the benefit of the Mafia to get back their gambling
casinos and whorehouses.
Third, the CIA did not even know about the tactic, short-range nuclear
missiles, the frogs, or that they were already operational them.
Also Nota Bene the date of the memo. November 2, 1962. Officially the
Cuban Missile Crisis was supposed to be over on October 28, 1962. But
the blockade was still active and the US was monitoring the progress of
removal.

The U.S continued the blockade, and in the following days, aerial
reconnaissance proved that the Soviets were making progress in removing
the missile systems. The 42 missiles and their support equipment were
loaded onto eight Soviet ships. The ships left Cuba from November 5–9.
The US made a final visual check as each of the ships passed the
blockade line. Further diplomatic efforts were required to remove the
Soviet IL-28 bombers, and they were loaded on three Soviet ships on
December 5 and 6. Concurrent with the Soviet commitment on the IL-28's,
the US Government announced the end of the blockade effective at 6:45 pm
EDT on November 20, 1962.[40]

At the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban
Missile Crisis was resolved, nuclear tactical rockets stayed in Cuba
since they were not part of the Kennedy-Khrushchev understandings.
However, the Soviets changed their minds, fearing a possible militant
Cuban future steps, and at November 22, 1962 the Soviet Deputy Prime
Minister Anastas Mikoyan told Castro that those rockets with the nuclear
warheads, were being removed too.[75]

In his negotiations with the Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, US
Attorney General Robert Kennedy informally proposed that the Jupiter
missiles in Turkey would be removed "within a short time after this
crisis was over."[76]:222 The last US missiles were disassembled by
April 24, 1963, and were flown out of Turkey soon after.[77]

The practical effect of this Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact was that it
effectively strengthened Castro's position in Cuba, guaranteeing that
the US would not invade Cuba. It is possible that Khrushchev only placed
the missiles in Cuba to get Kennedy to remove the missiles from Italy
and Turkey and that the Soviets had no intention of resorting to nuclear
war if they were out-gunned by the Americans.[78] Because the withdrawal
of the Jupiter missiles from NATO bases in Southern Italy and Turkey was
not made public at the time, Khrushchev appeared to have lost the
conflict and become weakened. The perception was that Kennedy had won
the contest between the superpowers and Khrushchev had been humiliated.
This is not entirely the case as both Kennedy and Khrushchev took every
step to avoid full conflict despite the pressures of their governments.
Khrushchev held power for another two years.[74]:102–105

Kennedy's aides conspired to lie to the American people to reinforce
that lie that Kennedy had made the Soviets back down.
It took many years before they admitted their deception.

BTW, there is a very small and dedicated cadre inside the CIA which
claims that there are still nuclear missiles hidden in caves in Cuba and
advocating a nuclear strike to remove them.
They get bored with no more countries to invade since we keep winding
down our phony wars and may seek Cuba as the last great enemy to conquer.
These guys don't care how many of millions are killed. It's just a game
to them. The last one standing is the winner.

In article <2eqp78db7ee02n3atnj7jotk9n1mqqi...@4ax.com>, Peter Fokes says...

Thanks for the information.  Nice to know what they were thinking back then.

Bill Clarke

Thank you.  All but the most negative portrayals of President Kennedy recognize as one of his best qualities that he was very realistic about the likely consequences of a nuclear exchange, unlike too many of the generals and "tough guys" who seemed to think there could just be a little exchange that would not escalate and wouldn't be that bad.  Nuts.

In article <qhlp78lep005p881pvnv70se8kqnuvs...@4ax.com>,
 Peter Fokes <pfo...@rogers.com> wrote:

I like this statement, as it is entirely consistent with what my viewpoint
has been for many years now:

'The conventional notion of a tough President Kennedy whose unyielding
stance caused the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev to "blink" has given
way to a more nuanced portrait of a Kennedy who prevented war through
careful negotiation and secret concessions, including his agreement to
remove American nuclear missiles from Turkey.'

JFK displayed considerably more wisdom in bringing about a peaceful
resolution of this crisis than most of his advisors combined.  We might
consider ourselves lucky that someone else wasn't our President at the
time.

In article <k5imds0...@drn.newsguy.com>,
 Bill Clarke <Bill_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:

Having read Peter's articles for a decade now, my immediate impression was
that his "point" here was virtually the same as it almost always has
seemed to me to be when he starts a new thread by posting a link to an
article with no commentary by him about the article: that he is simply
bringing up a topic for discussion without otherwise taking any particular
stance on it.  Peter himself may weigh in to say whether or not my
impression is correct.

Hmm.  I can't imagine why anyone who is at least fairly-well educated on
the Cuban Missile crisis would be even slightly "shocked" by anything in
that article at this late date.  I certainly wasn't.  I've known for many
years that there had been tactical nukes ready to launch in Cuba during
the crisis that were unknown to the U.S. government until after the
collapse of the Soviet Union.  For one thing, I saw and heard Robert
McNamara himself years ago in more than one interview saying so.  I'm also
not even slightly surprised, and certainly not even slightly "shocked" by
this "revelation" of this memo from Taylor, which at least as far as its
intent is no revelation to me at all, and would not have been a revelation
or a shock to me a decade ago either.  Long ago I bought Richard Rhodes's
1996 book "Dark Sun," which is an excellent and very well-researched book
about the development of the hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb by both the
U.S. and U.S.S.R.  In it he quotes Maxwell Taylor as saying something to
the effect that JFK betrayed America by not ordering an invasion of Cuba
in 1962 prior to the end of the crisis, and much else besides, so Taylor's
attitudes about all of this have long been familiar to me.

"Own man" in a sense, yes.  But another book that I first read many years
ago and am currently re-reading is the 1993 "President Kennedy: Profile of
Power" by Richard Reeves, another excellent and well-researched book which
assesses JFK's presidency in a very balanced way, with an approximately
equal mixture of criticism and praise.  While initially Kennedy did take
Taylor seriously when the latter helped him analyze the failure of the Bay
of Pigs, by the time of the Missile Crisis Taylor had become a person
whose advice Kennedy trusted very little.

Possibly so.

In article <2eqp78db7ee02n3atnj7jotk9n1mqqi...@4ax.com>,
 Peter Fokes <pfo...@rogers.com> wrote:

Ah yes, I hadn't yet seen this by you when I posted my reply just now to
Bill, but in that article I said what my impression has always been in the
past ten years when you have started such threads, and I see now that my
impression in this case was correct. ;-)

In article <k5jr0702...@drn.newsguy.com>,
 Bill Clarke <Bill_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:

Yes, although what they were thinking back then is by now old, old news.  
Even without this Taylor memo being released it has for many years been
well-documented how Taylor felt about the Cuban Missile Crisis and
matters related to it.

On 10/17/2012 9:51 PM, John Reagor King wrote:

Correct. And there may be more to it than you know.
For example, after the Soviets removed their R-12(SS-4)s and R-14
(SS-5)s they left the 192 tactical nuclear Frogs in Cuba and they took
them out only when they heard Castro talking about the possibility that
he might use them on his own. The CIA never knew they were armed with
nuclear tips and ready to fire.