28-12-2013, 09:58 PM
Jim here is the thread I posted a while back. As usual, the point might have been expressed 507% more clearly.
However, if you read the books by this U Penn historian Trachtenberg, his stuff is great, and, IMO goes right to heart of JFK's uniqueness in foreign policy.
His most famous book is A Constructed Peace. He goes through the vulnerability of Western Europe, after the creation of the H bomb and how that opened up a division within NATO bc Western European countries were worried US might fall back and let WE get hit or invaded if US thought they could avoid a hit to US.
Then he traces the conflict through various mini-alliances and footsie playing between DeGual and everyone else. But he clearly states that by at least 58 it was a given that Germany would get a semi-autonomous degree of control over Nukes placed in Germany and under NATO command.
This is culminating in 1963 with everyone playing NATO footsie with everyone else and even some Eastern Germany getting into the mix, by trying to gain some leverage vis a vis USSR with the threat of German unification and also France and Germany doing the same with each other and with USSR in order to get more flexibility re US.
But then he makes it absolutely clear that JFK simply 180 degree reversed this German nuke policy within NATO, by saying "Um Conrad, Nein. Sie can't have em" Trachtenberg makes it very clear that this was a 180 degree turn.
Without that THERE IS NO DETENTE MOVES WITH USSR IN summer and Fall of 63, because, as you know, the rebuilding of Germany [how and armed with what] was issue #1 for the USSR from even before the Cold War began.
Ironically, the fake left, points to JFK s Berlin Speech of 63 as proof of his being a committed Cold Warrior. But after the 180 nuke turn he HAD to provide reassurance re conventional forces just in order to keep NATO together .
The change in German nuke policy was gigantic; without it, no detente and the peace scare that we see in the US business press in 1963.
Also Trachtenbergs books with their focus on US NATO tensions REALLY provide a lot of context for the huge rif JFK had with NITZE over the question of whether or not NATO could respond immediately to Soviet provocation without checking with the White House first, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[ See Stern, Averting the Final Failure for this showdown btw, JFK and Nitze, which I m pretty sure he writes was the most tense of the entire Excom meetings]
Also great is the Trachtenberg's book History and Strategy. He emphasized the extend to which nuclear policy effected ALL the other foreing policies including Vietnam and Laos. He makes a very interesting comment about "Nuclear Amnesia" in which he says the left and right have BOTH agreed not to talk about how nuclear policy effected the other foreign policies , each for their own reasons. Will post soon.
Noam chomsky, john foster dulles and conrad adenauer vs jfk and khrushchev: Whose side are us """""l""""LEFT"""""""""""""" PUBLICATIONS REALLY ON?
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...r89WWRDtU0
However, if you read the books by this U Penn historian Trachtenberg, his stuff is great, and, IMO goes right to heart of JFK's uniqueness in foreign policy.
His most famous book is A Constructed Peace. He goes through the vulnerability of Western Europe, after the creation of the H bomb and how that opened up a division within NATO bc Western European countries were worried US might fall back and let WE get hit or invaded if US thought they could avoid a hit to US.
Then he traces the conflict through various mini-alliances and footsie playing between DeGual and everyone else. But he clearly states that by at least 58 it was a given that Germany would get a semi-autonomous degree of control over Nukes placed in Germany and under NATO command.
This is culminating in 1963 with everyone playing NATO footsie with everyone else and even some Eastern Germany getting into the mix, by trying to gain some leverage vis a vis USSR with the threat of German unification and also France and Germany doing the same with each other and with USSR in order to get more flexibility re US.
But then he makes it absolutely clear that JFK simply 180 degree reversed this German nuke policy within NATO, by saying "Um Conrad, Nein. Sie can't have em" Trachtenberg makes it very clear that this was a 180 degree turn.
Without that THERE IS NO DETENTE MOVES WITH USSR IN summer and Fall of 63, because, as you know, the rebuilding of Germany [how and armed with what] was issue #1 for the USSR from even before the Cold War began.
Ironically, the fake left, points to JFK s Berlin Speech of 63 as proof of his being a committed Cold Warrior. But after the 180 nuke turn he HAD to provide reassurance re conventional forces just in order to keep NATO together .
The change in German nuke policy was gigantic; without it, no detente and the peace scare that we see in the US business press in 1963.
Also Trachtenbergs books with their focus on US NATO tensions REALLY provide a lot of context for the huge rif JFK had with NITZE over the question of whether or not NATO could respond immediately to Soviet provocation without checking with the White House first, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[ See Stern, Averting the Final Failure for this showdown btw, JFK and Nitze, which I m pretty sure he writes was the most tense of the entire Excom meetings]
Also great is the Trachtenberg's book History and Strategy. He emphasized the extend to which nuclear policy effected ALL the other foreing policies including Vietnam and Laos. He makes a very interesting comment about "Nuclear Amnesia" in which he says the left and right have BOTH agreed not to talk about how nuclear policy effected the other foreign policies , each for their own reasons. Will post soon.
Noam chomsky, john foster dulles and conrad adenauer vs jfk and khrushchev: Whose side are us """""l""""LEFT"""""""""""""" PUBLICATIONS REALLY ON?
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...r89WWRDtU0