What military in their right mind would go from the USSR across the Atlantic and attempt to put nuclear silos in Cuba? This was an attempted flank - not an attempt to be diplomatic with aggression. The USSR and Khrushchev highly underrated the our capabilities.
There was nothing diplomatic about the Cuban Missile Crisis considering nothing was talked out and it was nothing but a cat and muse game..
Bay of Pigs??? Jeez... That epic failure.
Probably the biggest military blunder in the 20th century.
Please tell me about the Bay of Pigs.
This thread isn't about the mistakes or blunders and the legacy of JFK, it's about an incompetent President who occupies the White House today.
But there were no missile silos in Cuba. The Soviet missiles were not ICBM but intermediate range missiles.
It was RFK who negotiated with the Soviets and JFK agreed to remove NATO's missiles from Turkey when the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba.
The myth of the Bay of Pigs was that Eisenhower signed off on the CIA mission. Eisenhower never signed off on the Bay of Pigs. On the day of JFK inauguration Eisenhower informed JFK of the CIA Bay of Pigs mission. Eisenhower warned JFK not to sign off on the mission until there's a popular Cuban government that was in exile. And if he does sign off on the mission make sure the the invasion forces control the air space over the Bay of Pigs and that the U.S. military must provide close air support for the invading forces. JFK refused to do none of that but still signed off on the mission.
You are aware that JFK use to call Eisenhower for advice on numerous occasions. But JFK never acted on Eisenhower's advice and warnings and would ignore Eisenhower and instead listen to his Harvard buddies he surrounded himself with known as the "Young and Brightest."
One of those warning was when Eisenhower warned JFK not to get involved with the Diem regime in the RVN. That Diem was to corrupt. He also warned JFK if he's going to make a stand against Communist expansion in South East Asia not to make the stand at the 17th parallel. That Laos is where you have to make your stand, not in Vietnam.
JFK as usual ignored Eisenhower's advice and warnings and signed of on a CIA backed military coups of removing Diem from power. The coup backed fire, Diem was murdered and America from that day on owned South Vietnam, it became America's problem and JFK knew it. Three weeks later JFK was assassinated.
The Kennedy klan has a well organizes machine in place to protect the Kennedy legacy. It involves myths, lies and revisionist history. But with every CIA dump of former classified information, the release of Eisenhower's papers and the death of Teddy Kennedy, the truth is finally being reviewed.
But I digress.
What we are seeing today is an incompetent President Obama who has surrounded himself with second rate people and a Commander and Chief who was derelict with his duties on 9-11-12 and initiated a cover up for his own political gain to get reelected.
Only the Cn'C could authorise the military to go in to Benghazi. Unless Obama authorised someone else to do it, that would be dereliction of duty. Someone ordered U.S. Special Operation Forced to stand down twice ! Who issued those orders ?
Barack Obama already has an established track record olf not being able to make quick decisions that are required to be Cn'C. The first time we saw ikt was in 2009 when the commanders in Afghanistan requested a troop surge. It took Obama three months before he authorised the surge while American troops are being killed on the battlefield.
U.S. intelligence services knew of Osama bin Ladens compound for eight months before Navy SEAL's went in and took out Bin Laden. That we already have three of those Navy SEAL's say they were ready to go in and get Bin Laden for three months. And three times they were ordered to go it they were soon ordered to stand down.
That we soon find out that Obama never issued the order to send the SEAL's in, he only authorised the mission. That Obama laid the responsibility of issuing the order to Panetta and Panetta laid that responsibility on the lap of Admiral McRaven so if the mission failed the Obama White House could blame the Navy SEAL's and Admiral McRaven for the failure.
America has an incompetent Cn'C sitting in the White House who isn't capable of making quick decisions when they are needed to be made.