09-06-2013, 06:35 PM
I don't disagree. The word "may" does not necessary exclude "did". However you miss the point that the Missile Crisis served as a catalyst that pushed Kennedy to the Merton level and marked him for assassination. When Kennedy faced nuclear annihilation he lost his fear of pressing the Gullion imperative to its full extent. His bridges to Khrushchev and post-Crisis detente gave him the opportunity to do so and probably also got him assassinated. If JFK's Gullion influences were that powerfully determinative and defining he never would have been elected. I'm not saying you're wrong. Kennedy was elected by a narrow margin and the powers that be managed to put Johnson into his administration as a ringer designed to subvert his power if it ever came to that point - and it did.