The Left and the Death of Kennedy: Five Professors

[LR Trotter]

Why would Chomsky turn on Kennedy when Kennedy is the pure embodiment of leftward ideals?

Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but in my actual memory, that is not how I recall John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And, I do have memory of the fall of 1960, and the campaign, as well as his election as US President, which made him a world leader. That leadership was much tested in October, '62, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that I also remember. I recall a leader that wanted to maintain what was right, remove what was wrong, and correct some past and present mistakes. And, with knowledge of his leadership, his following was becoming quite substantial. And that, to me, is not "the pure embodiment of leftward ideals".

[Magda Hassan]

Albert, in no way is JFK the embodiment of leftist ideals.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Very interesting Joe.

I wonder what provoked Alexander to say that about Izzy Stone, since like you, I have never seen any evidence that Oswald communicated with the man.

But the rest of what you wrote is spot on about Izzy and the Warren Commission.

Fascinating how much of the Left rolled over in the fear of pogroms.

And I really have to admire Mark Lane for defending himself so eloquently and recognizing what was really happening.

A coup had taken place. And Oswald's cover was built in for the Left to fall for it.

[LR Trotter]

If in fact Oswald's cover was built in for the Left to fall for it, as well as how much of the Left rolled over in the fear of pogroms, I do wonder, as I wander, about the thought as to what reaction occurred among the Right (opposite of Left)?

[Jim DiEugenio]

The reaction on the right was pretty much, the king is dead, long live the new king.

It was the interim step to their takeover of the country.

Which they accomplished in 1968.

[Jim DiEugenio]

BTW, let me add something about the Missile Crisis.

That crisis was not provoked by Kennedy. It was caused by Nikita K.

Kennedy had made it clear that he would allow Russian defensive weapons in Cuba. But not offensive ones, since because of the proximity, an attack on the USA was quite possible by air or sea.

If one analyzes the arsenal of atomic weapons that the Russians moved into Cuba, no rational person could say that it was defensive.

Combined, there were over 100 long range and medium range rockets, each of which carried an explosive about seven times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. In addition, there were 20 nuclear bombers, and seven atomic submarines. In addition to that there were mobile atomic bombs, the kind that are small enough to be portable.

This not only was not defensive, it constituted a veritable first strike capability. You could literally hit almost every major city in America, causing tens of millions of deaths. Kennedy literally had no choice except to do what he did. Especially after the Soviet ambassador lied to his face about them being there.

Kennedy thought that the Russians were going to use this as a bargaining chip to get the USA out of Berlin, and then take the city and fold it into East Germany. This is right after JFK made his famous speech there. That was something he saw as unraveling the balance of power in Europe and also NATO.

But in reading the transcripts, its clear that it was Kennedy who was the most level headed guy in the room. By about the 12th day, its essentially him and his brother who are still holding out for a negotiated settlement.

In my view, you have to give JFK a lot of credit for what he did here. Nikita K really forced the issue stupidly. And Kennedy gave him the time and the leverage to back away from it. After Kennedy was killed, the opponents of Nikita, led by Brezhnev, got rid of him, and it was partly over this stupid move.

If that would have been Nixon, or LBJ in JFK's chair the results would have been different I think. Just as I think that, if it had not been Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs, Cuba would be an American colony today.

[LR Trotter]

If I recall correctly, the JFK address to the nation regarding the missiles occurred on Oct 22, 1962, and I watched it live on TV as it was given, being age 15, approaching age 16 I do have recall, as my Dad was in the hospital after suffering another of several heart attacks, and we lost him 3 weeks later. So, my memory seems to match the general description of the event, however I don't see any success in invading Cuba other than a full US Military operation, and that would likely have had serious ramifications. And, I have always believed JFK avoided much devastation there and here, and Fascism did not return to the island. As for serious ramifications for JFK due to Cuba, I will leave that for the researchers thoughts and comments.

[Phil Dagosto]

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.

[Tracy Riddle]

The right-wingers back in the day saw JFK as a commie sympathizer or worse, while the Left tended to see him as a lukewarm Cold War liberal, too cautious, and barely a liberal sometimes. The left hasn't really changed its view toward him much, but the right-wingers now try to co-opt him as one of their own (tax cuts! hawkish speeches!). Politics is a strange business.

[Jim DiEugenio]

When you have a left as marginalized and as self indulgent and lemming like as what we have in America, it paves the way for the right to do what they have been doing for decades: trying to depict Kennedy as essentially a Cold Warrior who was something like Austrian School on the economy.

When, in fact, nothing could be more distorted about what JFK was doing on both fronts.

For instance, the man Kennedy most respected on economics, his advisor Walter Heller, used to make fun of Milton Friedman and the Austrian School, to him they were a joke. The circumstances of JFK's tax cut, plus the details of who the benefits went to were not at all the same as what the GOP did under Reagan and Bush 2. We didn't have massive deficits back then; the top tax rate was 90 per cent; and we still had a sizable corporate income tax and capital gains tax and estate tax.

As per his foreign policy, I mean, it was so complex and so overarching that until this day, scholars are still excavating how radical it was. As with Poulgrain. I mean isn't it startling how JFK stood by Sukarno until the end, and then how fast Johnson discarded him? And the slaughter that occurred after Johnson isolated him? And how the NY Times, and the rest of the MSM, actually celebrated it? As upside down as a funhouse mirror.

Its pretty clear that the rightwing coalition of publishers, periodicals and broadcast MSM have cooperated to stop this from getting to the public. Their last errand boy was that slut Dallek. Who, over two books and about 1300 pages of mostly pablum, somehow could not find the space to mention the name of Edmund Gullion. Which would be like an historian writing a biography of FDR during the New Deal and leaving out the name of John Maynard Keynes.

I have become convinced that this cover up--about who JFK was and what he was trying to do--has been more pervasive, and successful, than the one about his murder.