Harry Truman was right when he said that JFK was too young


Harry Truman was right when he said that JFK was too young.

Reasons to agree:

  1. What Ted (and the media) ignored is that Harry Truman had a point. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's impression, as a result of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and a personal meeting with JFK in Vienna, that JFK would not be strong enough to keep the Soviet Union from installing long-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. Yes, JFK got those missiles out, after taking the world to the brink of nuclear war, and only gave up some American missiles in Turkey in the bargain. But the truth is that JFK was NOT ready to be President on Day One, as the Bay of Pigs fiasco itself conclusively demonstrated. Instead of a successful operation, or no operation, JFK bungled the long-planned liberation of Cuba from the dictatorship of Fidel Castro as badly as possible: by allowing the attack to begin and then denying air cover to the would-be Cuban liberators.

 

Michael Gaynor Michael Gaynor

January 29, 2008

 

 

When Ted Kennedy enthusiastically endorsed Barack Hussein Obama for President of the United States, Ted (1) chided Harry Truman for saying that JFK was too young in 1960 and (2) proclaimed that Barack is a bit older than Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, when they became President.

 

What Ted (and the media) ignored is that Harry Truman had a point. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's impression, as a result of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and a personal meeting with JFK in Vienna, that JFK would not be strong enough to keep the Soviet Union from installing long-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. Yes, JFK got those missiles out, after taking the world to the brink of nuclear war, and only gave up some American missiles in Turkey in the bargain. But the truth is that JFK was NOT ready to be President on Day One, as the Bay of Pigs fiasco itself conclusively demonstrated. Instead of a successful operation, or no operation, JFK bungled the long-planned liberation of Cuba from the dictatorship of Fidel Castro as badly as possible: by allowing the attack to begin and then denying air cover to the would-be Cuban liberators.