18-07-2016, 01:25 PM
I agree with Jim that Khrushchev made a strategic blunder in introducing the missiles and other offensive weapons into Cuba. Based on what I've read it seems that Khrushchev was trying to make up for the lack of a realistic Soviet first-strike threat against the US as compared to the US advantage in strategic bombers and missiles as well as the presence of intermediate and short-range US nuclear weapons based in Europe and Turkey. This was not really Kennedy's doing but the result of the US military establishment's aggressive posture in the Eisenhower era including provocative border skirting and actual airspace penetration flights by SAC and CIA reconnaissance aircraft all of which led the Soviets to suspect that the US was planning a pre-emptive strike. Kennedy was able to leverage the US strategic advantage to win diplomatic victories and Khrushchev was apparently trying to balance that advantage. Unfortunately for him, his gambit failed because Kennedy outplayed him in the negotiations and his only alternative would have been to force a military conflict which had the potential to escalate into a major nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the US.
For Kennedy to do that while holding off the US military and intelligence establishments who were spoiling for air strikes and an invasion of Cuba was, I think, a masterful and very under appreciated piece of diplomacy and negotiating. I only disagree with Jim on the point about what would have happened if Nixon had been in the White House. In my opinion, we would not be here to debate the issue if that had been the case.
For Kennedy to do that while holding off the US military and intelligence establishments who were spoiling for air strikes and an invasion of Cuba was, I think, a masterful and very under appreciated piece of diplomacy and negotiating. I only disagree with Jim on the point about what would have happened if Nixon had been in the White House. In my opinion, we would not be here to debate the issue if that had been the case.