Michael
T. Griffith
2002
@All
Rights Reserved
Second
Edition
Was President John F. Kennedy a
bleeding-heart liberal who was soft on communism? Was he leading the free world
to ruin? Was he bankrupting our economy with socialistic economic policies? Did
he lose his nerve during the Bay of Pigs invasion and abandon hundreds of brave
freedom fighters to be captured or killed? Until 1992, I would have answered
all of these questions in the affirmative. However, after having studied the
Kennedy presidency for a decade, I no longer hold to this position. As a
centrist independent who holds conservative views on several issues, I think it
is important for conservatives in both parties to realize that JFK was not the
left-winger that many of his liberal admirers would have us believe he was.
Obviously, I cannot provide a detailed analysis of all the pros and cons of
Kennedy's policies and actions in a single article. However, I will present
evidence that JFK did not cause the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, that
he was strong on national defense, and that he was pro-business and fiscally
conservative.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
President Kennedy's handling of the Bay of
Pigs invasion has drawn sharp criticism from conservatives over the years. In
their view, JFK lost his nerve and caused the death of over 100 freedom fighters
and the capture of hundreds more. This is how I used to view the Bay of Pigs
debacle. I thought it was all Kennedy's fault, end of discussion. As I saw it,
he had chickened out and had done great harm to the cause of freedom. Of
course, those who have studied the Bay of Pigs invasion know there was much
more to it than Kennedy's supposed failure to follow through. Before going
further, let us first examine the basic history of the event.
Shortly after taking office, President
Kennedy approved a CIA plan to invade Cuba. The plan, which had been formulated
toward the end of the Eisenhower administration, called for an invasion of Cuba
by a force of Cuban refugees, Brigade 2506, covertly trained and backed by the
CIA. The idea was to make it look like the Cuban exiles had carried out the
invasion on their own with no outside assistance.
The invasion began on the morning of April
15, 1961, when eight American-supplied B-26 bombers flown by exile pilots
departed from an airfield in Nicaragua and attacked Cuban air bases.[1] Sixteen
bombers were originally to have been used, but Kennedy scaled the number down
to eight. The bombing raid was only partially unsuccessful, and it left
Castro's air force with enough planes to dominate the skies when the freedom
fighters landed. The air raid not only tipped off Castro that an invasion was
imminent, but it caused a firestorm at the United Nations, and Castro and other
leaders charged the United States was going to invade Cuba, in violation of
international law. As planned, the Kennedy administration denied any
involvement in the attack and said the fight was solely between Cuban freedom
fighters and Castro's Marxist forces. A second air strike by exile-flown
aircraft had been scheduled for the day the exiles hit the beach, during
daylight hours, but Kennedy cancelled it. A second air raid probably would have
destroyed Castro's remaining air force, and this would have given the invasion
a better chance of success.
Two days later, on April 17, Brigade 2506,
consisting of about 1,500 Cuban exiles, landed on the beach at the Bay of Pigs.
The effort went badly from the start. As the situation grew worse, CIA and
military officials urged the president to authorize direct American air support
for the invasion. Kennedy agreed to a compromise. He authorized a one-hour
flight of six unmarked American jets over the Bay of Pigs to cover an attack by
more B-26s flown by exile pilots. Sadly, the B-26s were ineffective, and by the
afternoon of April 19 the exile forces had been soundly defeated. The invaders
lost 114 men, and 1,189 were captured.
Kennedy felt terrible about the failure of
the invasion. At the White House he privately expressed his grief and regret to
leaders of the Cuban exiles. On the evening of April 19, Jackie Kennedy told a
close relative that her husband had practically been in tears all day over the
failure of the operation. Bobby Kennedy reported he had never seen his older
brother as upset as he was when it became obvious the brigade was going to be
defeated. One Kennedy aide wrote that the vision of the freedom fighters gunned
down on the beaches or hauled off to Castro's prisons "haunted him that
week and many weeks to come" (8:285).
Answering Some Common Questions
* Why did Kennedy scale back the number of
planes for the first air raid from sixteen to eight?
JFK did so in the interest of plausible
deniability. After all, this was supposed to be a covert operation. No
one was supposed to know the U.S. was behind the invasion.
* Why was the invasion handled as a covert operation?
Why didn't Kennedy just openly invade Cuba?
The principal reason JFK simply didn't
"send in the Marines" was that he had no legal basis for doing so
under international law. A U.S. invasion of Cuba, at that point anyway, would
also have been a violation of the charter of the Organization of American
States (OAS) and some hemisphere treaties, not to mention our own federal laws.
"We cannot expect the benefits of treaties," said a State Department
official to Kennedy shortly before the invasion, "if we are unwilling to
accept the limitations they impose on our freedom to act." During the 1960
presidential campaign, Richard Nixon himself conceded that assisting an
invasion of Cuba "would violate our treaty commitments" (2:140).
* Why didn't Kennedy authorize the second
air strike as planned?
According to most historians, Secretary of
State Rusk persuaded Kennedy to cancel the second air strike until it could be
made to look like the planes came from captured Cuban airfields. This was
consistent with the invasion plan itself, which called for the second air raid
to appear to be coming from Cuban defectors who were flying from the beach
airstrip. There were undoubtedly other factors that influenced Kennedy and
Rusk. As mentioned, the first air attack caused an international uproar, and
the U.S. vehemently denied any involvement in the operation. Rusk was concerned
that another air raid would reveal American participation.
Rusk undoubtedly played a major part in the
cancellation of the second air strike, but Adlai Stevenson's role in the
cancellation also warrants consideration. At the time of the invasion,
Stevenson, already a senior Democratic figure and the party's previous
presidential nominee, was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. When the invasion
began, he presented to the U.N. the administration's assurances of
non-intervention on behalf of the United States. But within a matter of hours,
well before the second air strike was scheduled to occur, news reports revealed
apparent American involvement in the invasion. Stevenson was embarrassed and
infuriated; he had been made to look like either an uninformed lackey or a
deceiver in front of the Cuban ambassador and the UN General Assembly. He
phoned Kennedy and threatened to reveal the full extent of U.S. involvement if
JFK increased the American role in the operation (12:138; 13:136-137). The
young president could not be certain how his rebellious ambassador would react
if the second air raid were carried out. By virtually all accounts, Stevenson's
threat was an important factor in the decision to cancel the second air strike.
In any case, most observers now agree that a
second air strike definitely would not have guaranteed the operation's
success, in part because the CIA's planning of the invasion was incompetent and
unrealistic. The invasion force consisted of 1,500 men, a small amount of
armor, and some artillery, whereas Castro's army had over 200,000 men, dozens
of heavy tanks, and plenty of artillery. Unless the CIA planners were counting on
American air support, which even Eisenhower had opposed, how could they
have believed the exile brigade had a realistic chance of winning? The Agency's
execution of the invasion was equally incompetent. Indeed, many of the exiles
themselves were furious at the CIA for what they viewed as its bungling of the
attack (4:271). So even if there had been a second air strike, the operation's
success still would not have been guaranteed.
It should also be noted that the initial
reports on the first air strike said it had been mostly successful, that it had
destroyed almost all of Castro's air force (5:94). Thus, perhaps with these
reports in mind, and concerned about plausible deniability and the uproar that
the first raid had caused, President Kennedy probably felt it was both safe and
prudent to cancel the second air attack. Nevertheless, when subsequent events
proved that the first raid had not destroyed enough of Castro's air power, Kennedy
reauthorized a second air strike. It was scheduled for Sunday night, April
17. Unfortunately, there was a thick cloud cover that night, which made it
impossible to carry out the raid (6:301; 5:127-128). Moreover, after it became
apparent that too many of Castro's planes had survived, JFK authorized the
B-26s to bomb at will, and on the afternoon of the invasion one bombing raid
destroyed an entire battalion of Castro's forces (5:120-128).
Before moving on, I should point out that
some researchers do not believe Kennedy was the one who cancelled the second
air strike. According to these writers, the second air raid was cancelled by
one of three people: Secretary of State Rusk, special presidential assistant McGeorge Bundy, or General Charles Cabell, the deputy
director of the CIA, with Bundy being the most likely candidate. Support for
this view comes from the report on the Bay of Pigs prepared by General Maxwell
Taylor shortly after the incident.
* Why didn't Kennedy authorize American air
support as the situation on the beach grew worse?
This would have been an act of war tantamount
to sending in U.S. combat troops. Therefore, it would have been in violation of
international law, the OAS charter, and some hemisphere treaties. It also would
have completely blown the lid off the operation's cover story. When President
Eisenhower approved the preparations for the invasion, even he stipulated there
was to be no direct American intervention. Again, this was to be a covert
operation.
Furthermore, shortly after the exile force
landed at the Bay of Pigs, Soviet Premier Khrushchev sent a strongly worded
message to Kennedy blaming the U.S. for the entire operation and threatening to
"render to the Cuban people and their government all necessary
assistance" to repel the invaders (emphasis added). If JFK had
intervened with air strikes against Cuba, would Khrushchev have introduced
Soviet air forces into the battle? Would the Soviets have used open American
intervention in Cuba as an excuse to attack Berlin? If either of these things
had occurred, what would have happened next? Would the confrontation have
escalated out of control? Such questions as these surely weighed heavily on
Kennedy's mind as he considered the option of employing U.S. military power in
the invasion. Yet, for all this, JFK did authorize six U.S. jets to provide an
air umbrella for what turned out to be an unsuccessful bombing raid by four
B-26s (more will be said about this raid in a moment).
Even if Kennedy had authorized American air
strikes, these alone would not have been enough to defeat Castro's army, unless
they were massive and prolonged in scope. Naval bombardments also might have
been needed. On the other hand, while limited American air and naval support
probably would have stopped the counterattack of Castro's forces, eventually we
would have had to land a sizable contingent of U.S. Marines or Army combat
troops to finish the job. Whether Kennedy had approved large-scale air and
naval attacks or opted for limited air and sea support followed by the landing
of U.S. ground forces, either of these actions could have triggered a Soviet
response and possibly touched off World War III.
Now that we have addressed the most commonly
asked questions concerning Kennedy's handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion, let
us discuss some important facts about the operation that are often overlooked
by his critics.
CIA Deception: A Major Factor
The CIA brazenly misled President Kennedy
about the nature of the operation and about its chances for success. For
example, the CIA told Kennedy the invasion could not really fail because there
was a contingency plan for the freedom fighters to escape into the Escambray Mountains. But these mountains were 80 miles from
the Bay of Pigs and the route leading to them was long and swampy. The CIA did
not even tell the exile soldiers about the contingency plan (5:224).
The CIA never told JFK that the Joint Chiefs
of Staff were worried about the landing sight. The Joint Chiefs did not think
the Bay of Pigs was a good location for an invasion. However, the CIA did not
see fit to inform the president of their concern, and the chiefs themselves
remained silent. Most of the ranking military officers who were brought into
the plan "thought the whole thing sounded impractical" (2:140). This
information did not manage to find its way to Kennedy, either. CIA director
Allen Dulles knew the Agency was counting on American military intervention to
make the invasion a success, but he said nothing about this to JFK. Moreover,
the CIA assured Kennedy that most of the Cuban exiles had been given guerilla
training, when in fact only a few of them had received such instruction.
President Kennedy was by no means the only
one who was misled by the CIA. The freedom fighters themselves were given all
sorts of wishful assurances and false information by their CIA handlers. The
CIA officers at the brigade's training bases in Nicaragua and Guatemala
promised the exiles that Castro's tanks would not be able to reach the
beachhead because they would be destroyed from the air. The officers also
assured the brigade members that Castro's troops would not be able to get
through to the beach because the roads leading to the area would be bombed. In
addition, the CIA told the freedom fighters that the brigade would not be the
only unit involved in the invasion. The leader of the brigade, Pepe San Roman, said he was informed by his American
"advisor" that the brigade would constitute only one-tenth of
the total invasion force (5:56). Most troubling of all, the CIA led the exile
soldiers to believe they would have American air cover and, if necessary,
reinforcements consisting of U.S. combat troops.
Planning and Execution
Because of the CIA's poor logistical
planning, the exile troops ran out of ammunition. The CIA put all the
ammunition and most of the communications equipment, gasoline, and medical
supplies on a single ship, which was destroyed by one of Castro's T-33 jet
trainers shortly after the invasion began.[2] Then, without consulting the
president, CIA officials cancelled a convoy that was to bring more ammunition
(1:313).
The CIA failed to adequately scout the
beaches at the Bay of Pigs. As a result, the landing force encountered
unexpected coral reefs. Vital boats were sunk, while others were delayed.
Incredibly, the CIA also overlooked a radio station located on the beach. Soon
after the invasion started, the station quickly alerted Cuban officials that an
invasion was underway.
As mentioned, on April 19, President Kennedy
approved a one-hour flight of American jets to cover an attack by four B-26s
from the brigade's base in Nicaragua, but the attack failed. It failed because
the CIA officers who dispatched the bombers forgot to take into account the
difference between the Nicaraguan and Cuban time zones (4:271; 6:299). Thus,
when the B-26s arrived at the Bay of Pigs, they were an hour early and the
American jets that were supposed to assist them were still on the aircraft
carrier ESSEX. Bravely but hopelessly, the bombers attacked anyway; they did
little damage, and were quickly destroyed by Castro's air force.
The CIA did not attempt to activate the
underground resistance in Cuba until the afternoon of April 17 (5:120-121).
This was over 48 hours after the first bombing raid! Needless to say, by then
it was too late for the underground to act. Shortly after the first air strike,
roads were closed, many neighborhoods were surrounded, and Castro's security
forces started rounding up thousands of "suspects," apprehending
numerous members of the underground in the process.
CIA director Allen Dulles later claimed the
CIA had never counted on a "spontaneous revolt" to assist the
invasion, and many Agency defenders subsequently adopted this view. For
example, Mario Lazo said, "The CIA never viewed
the operation as one in which the landings would at once touch off a widespread
insurrection in a police-state" (7:277). Of course, this does not explain
the CIA's failure to alert the underground in time. Moreover, exile leaders
Manuel Artime and Pepe San
Roman, along with other prominent members of the brigade, disputed the claim
that the CIA had not expected a large-scale uprising. Indeed, according to the
exiles, they were told by the American intelligence officer at the brigade's
base in Guatemala that a CIA intelligence estimate predicted that in the first
two days of fighting five thousand men would join them in a voluntary uprising
(5:84-85). Kennedy aides Ted Sorenson and Arthur Schlesinger did not agree with
Dulles's recollection either. Both men said the CIA presented the anticipated
uprising as an integral part of the invasion plan (6:303; 8:247-248). There is
no longer credible doubt that senior CIA officials were counting on an uprising
as a key part of the invasion.
New Disclosures About the CIA and the Bay
of Pigs
A few years ago, the CIA finally released
the formerly sealed CIA report on the reasons for the failure of the Bay of
Pigs invasion. The report was written by Lyman Kirkpatrick, who was the CIA's
Inspector General (IG) at the time, and it is known as the Kirkpatrick Report.
This highly revealing report is the subject of Peter Kornbluh's
recent book Bay Of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report On The Invasion
Of Cuba (New York: The New Press, 1998). It is not hard to see why the CIA
didn't want to release the report, for it is strongly critical of the CIA's
handling of the invasion and it outright accuses CIA officials of misleading
Kennedy on important aspects of the invasion plans. Here are some key points
made in the report and in Kornbluh's accompanying
research:
* Even after the CIA knew the invasion had
little chance of success, CIA officials misled the White House into believing
that success was "still likely." At "some point in this
degenerative cycle," according to the report, "they [CIA officials]
should have gone to the president and said frankly" that the invasion
should be halted. (15:12)
* JFK's cancellation of the second airstrike
was not the chief cause of the invasion's failure (15:12). Furthermore,
the proposal for a second air strike was presented to Kennedy under
"ill-prepared, inadequately briefed circumstances," which
"better CIA planning, organization, staffing and management would have
avoided" (15:12).
* The invasion operation plans were
predicated on the belief of senior CIA officials that the invasion would
"trigger an uprising" against Castro (15:12). Following the invasion
debacle, Dulles and others denied telling Kennedy the invasion would be quickly
followed by an uprising of the Cuban people; they also denied that the invasion
plans were based on the assumption that such an uprising would occur. The
Kirkpatrick Report refutes these claims.
* When Kirkpatrick completed the report, CIA
director John McCone ordered Kirkpatrick to turn over the distribution list for
all 20 copies of the report. "Most of them," notes Kornbluh, "were retrieved and burned; the copies that
remained were locked away in the director's office" (15:15).
* The two principal managers of the invasion
plans, CIA operative Jacob Esterline and Marine Col.
Jack Hawkins, believed that Richard Bissell, the CIA's Deputy Director of
Plans, had misled Kennedy as well as themselves (15:8). They "determined
that he [Bissell] had misled them--and the president" (15:8). Bissell was
the principal architect of the invasion plan.
* According to Col. Hawkins, Bissell
"ignored the emphatic advice given him by the Chief WH/4 and the
Paramilitary Chief that a landing at the Bay of Pigs would be disastrous and
should be cancelled" (15:8).
* Bissell was "responsible for agreeing
to the changes in landing sites, and the reduction of air strikes ordered by
the new president" (15:8).
* The report reveals for the first time that
a CIA-Mafia assassination plot against Castro was "an explicit component
of the Bay of Pigs operation, paid for through the WH/4 Task Force budget. . .
." (15:9). This fact was unknown to the public until the release of the
Kirkpatrick Report. Researchers had long been aware of the CIA-Mafia plot to
kill Castro, but not that this plot was a key part of the Bay of Pigs invasion
plans. So much for the claim that governments can't keep big secrets for very
long.
* During the post-invasion investigation, Bissell
revealed to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in May 1961 that the CIA's
"associated planning" for the Bay of Pigs included "the use of
the underworld against Castro" (15:10). It was Bissell who approved the
CIA-Mafia plot to kill Castro (15:8).
* When CIA officials attempted to shift some
of the blame onto the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chiefs replied that the final
invasion plan was presented to them only orally, which prevented normal
staffing; that they had considered the operation as being solely the CIA's;
that it had been their understanding that full air support would be furnished;
and that CIA officials had assured them that a great number of Cuban insurgents
would immediately join up with the invasion force as soon as the
invasion began (15:53).
* CIA officials, including Bissell and his
deputy Tracy Barnes, were furious with Kirkpatrick's findings. Gen. Cabell, the
deputy director, said that in "unfriendly hands" the report could be
used to discredit the CIA and threaten its future.
The Berlin Crisis
In June 1961 Kennedy and Soviet Premier
Khrushchev held a two-day conference in Vienna, Austria. Soon after the
conference, the whole world learned that Khrushchev had threatened Kennedy with
war over Berlin. During the Vienna meetings, he told Kennedy he would sign a
separate peace treaty with East Germany in six months. This, said Khrushchev,
would make all of Berlin East German territory. He warned that if the Allies
did not withdraw their troops from the city by that time, the Soviets would resort
to force to expel them. To make his point clear, the Russian leader told
Kennedy, "You can tell that to Macmillan, de Gaulle, and Adenauer, and
that if that means war, the Soviets will accept the challenge." Making
things worse, on June 15 Khrushchev went on Soviet television and warned that
if the West used force to maintain its access to West Berlin, "It would
mean war, and a thermonuclear war at that." Later that day the East German
leader, Walter Ulbricht, threatened to interfere with Western air traffic to
and from Berlin once his country signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.
The crisis continued to grow. In the early
part of July, Khrushchev said he was increasing the Soviet defense budget by a
whopping one third, and he repeated his threat to seal off West Berlin. In
response, Kennedy went before the American people on radio and television on
July 25. He defended the Allies' rights to their presence in West Berlin and
said the Soviet threat to the city was part of Khrushchev's effort to drive the
U.S. out of Europe and Asia. He warned the Soviets not to underestimate the
West's will to fight and to resist aggression.
President Kennedy went on to say that he
intended to match the drastic increase in the Soviet defense budget. He called
for an additional 3.2 billion dollars in defense spending and upped the Army's
strength from 875,000 to nearly a million soldiers. He also asked for a huge
increase in non-nuclear weapons and civil defense preparations. In addition,
the president announced he would double or even triple draft calls, and that he
would put some reserve and National Guard units on active duty status.
The July 25 speech was a masterpiece. In it
Kennedy showed firmness and courage, and the American people responded
favorably to it. Opinion polls indicated the public strongly backed Kennedy's
tough stance. Mail to the White House was overwhelmingly supportive (4:304).
The next phase of the crisis came at 12:30
A.M. on August 13 when East German troops set up roadblocks around East Berlin.
A few hours later, they began building the infamous Berlin Wall, exclusively on
East German soil, to halt the massive flow of refugees into the Allied sector
of the city. The wall was completed in four days, turning East Berlin into a
virtual prison.
Three days later, on August 16, Kennedy sent
Vice President Johnson and retired General Lucius
Clay to Bonn, Germany. More importantly, he ordered 1,500 fully armed U.S.
troops to drive through East Germany to West Berlin as a show of force. The
troops drove on the Autobahn in armored trucks. Though this move constituted an
open challenge to Khrushchev's threats and to East German pride, neither the
Soviets nor the East Germans attempted to stop the convoy. Crowds of cheering
West Germans met the convoy when it arrived.
In October, after the East Germans had
harassed the access route to West Berlin on several occasions, Soviet and
American tanks lined up face to face, two rows deep, across the East-West
border in Berlin. American, British, and French troops in West Berlin were
placed on alert. After sixteen hours, however, the tense confrontation ended
peacefully when the Soviet troops backed down.
Some conservative commentators have
suggested Kennedy should have authorized U.S. Army forces in West Berlin to
knock down the wall when the East Germans started building it. But the wall was
on East German soil. Crossing the border and knocking it down would have been
an open act of war. Furthermore, what would we have done if the East Germans
had begun to rebuild it after we knocked it down? What if Soviet troops had
come to assist in the rebuilding? Moreover, neither the State Department nor
the Department of Defense recommended knocking down the wall, and our NATO
allies almost certainly would have opposed such an action.
President Kennedy's handling of the Berlin
crisis showed the right blend of toughness and flexibility. In the end,
Khrushchev decided against signing a treaty with East Germany, no attempts were
made to block the access route to West Berlin, and the Allies did not
relinquish control of their sector of the city. Kennedy also displayed a ready
willingness to drastically increase defense spending when needed. In fact, he
was responsible for the biggest and most rapid defense buildup in U.S.
peacetime history, a fact which his conservative critics usually ignore. Even
Thomas Reeves, a strong JFK critic, admits that Kennedy's response to the
Berlin crisis was praiseworthy:
There were several
lessons to be learned from the Berlin crisis. The [Kennedy] administration made
the point that it would go all out to protect West Berlin. It maintained its
legal right to enter the city. Kennedy showed Khrushchev, moreover, that he,
like Harry Truman, could be daring and firm when directly challenged. Jack's
handling of the crisis won the Russian's respect, and this led to constructive
efforts by both sides to work together to ease tensions. There were times, and
the Berlin crisis was one of them, when the aggressive side of the Kennedy
character proved to be both politically advantageous and in the best interests
of the nation and world. (4:308-309)
The Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 16, 1962, President Kennedy
learned there was photographic evidence the Russians had offensive missiles in
Cuba. Six days later, on Kennedy's orders, the Navy had deployed 180 ships in
the Caribbean. America's B-52 bombers were airborne and fully loaded with
atomic weapons. Five Army divisions were placed on alert, and a sixth was
headed for embarkation points in Georgia. At 7:00 P.M. Kennedy went on national
television to tell the American people about the missiles and the threat they
posed to the nation. He explained he had just ordered a quarantine to prevent
any more Soviet ships from reaching Cuba. If the Soviets violated the
quarantine, he warned, there would be war. Kennedy said the blockade would
remain in place until the Soviet missiles were removed from Cuba.
The quarantine went into effect at 10:00
A.M., Wednesday, October 24. The whole world held its breath to see what would
happen next. Kennedy administration officials, including Robert Kennedy, felt
the world was on the verge of nuclear war. There were reports that twenty-five
Soviet ships and some submarines were en route to Cuba. However, at 10:25 the
White House received a message saying that some Soviet ships had come to a halt
on the edge of the quarantine line. Other Russian ships turned back toward the
Soviet Union. Two days later Khrushchev sent an emotional letter to Kennedy
agreeing to all American terms. On Sunday, October 28, Radio Moscow broadcast
an official declaration which said, "the Soviet government . . . has given
a new order to dismantle the arms which you described as offensive, and to
crate and return them to Soviet Russia."
Once again, Kennedy had stood eyeball to
eyeball with Khrushchev, and once again the Soviet leader had backed down.
There were compromises made behind the scenes by both sides. Publicly, however,
Khrushchev was humiliated. Yet, Kennedy was careful not to rub Khrushchev's
nose in the dirt over the matter. He ordered his advisors to exercise
restraint. He reminded them that it must have been very hard for Khrushchev to
back down, and he cautioned against any public claims of an American victory.
JFK and National Defense
No one familiar with the facts could accuse
President Kennedy of having been soft on defense. His defense proposal in 1963
actually only called for a cut in the growth of the defense budget in
1963 (10:33). Since U.S.-Soviet relations had begun to improve, Kennedy saw no
need to continue his huge military buildup at the furious pace of the preceding
two years. Furthermore, a large share of the reduction was to come from closing
down unnecessary military bases. The president's proposed slowdown in the
growth of defense spending would not have endangered national security.
The fact is that President Kennedy was
strong on national defense. I again quote JFK critic Reeves:
. . . Kennedy
presided over the largest and most rapid military expansion in America's
peacetime history. At the heart of the buildup, which cost $17 billion in
additional appropriations, was a nuclear "deterrent" that featured
the production and development of nuclear-armed bombers, Polaris submarines,
and underground Minuteman missiles. Kennedy increased America's arsenal of
nuclear weapons by 150 percent in Western Europe alone. The [Kennedy]
administration was committed to being number one in arms. (4:397)
There are many other facts that prove
President Kennedy was strong on national defense. For example, Kennedy:
* More than doubled the acquisition rate of
Polaris submarines.
* Doubled the production capacity for
Minuteman missiles.
* Increased by fifty percent the number of
manned bombers standing ready on fifteen-minute alert.
* Doubled the number of ready combat
divisions in the Army's strategic reserve.
* Expanded U.S. tactical air power by nearly
a dozen wings.
* Increased the active naval fleet by more
than seventy vessels.
* Approved a 14.4 percent pay increase for
members of the armed forces in 1963.
JFK's Economic Policy
Since most current Democrats who hold
government positions believe in higher taxes and seem to be hostile to American
business, many people assume President Kennedy was the same way. He most
assuredly was not. John F. Kennedy was arguably one of the most pro-business,
pro-growth, fiscally conservative presidents we have ever had.
None other than conservative stalwart and
Heritage Foundation president Edwin J. Feulner has
said, "John F. Kennedy pushed through Congress legislation dramatically
lowering marginal tax rates, and produced the growth spurt that would later
fuel Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty" (9:5). Feulner
adds that Kennedy understood that a "growing economy" must precede
the expansion or creation of government assistance programs (9:5).
Jack Kemp, one of the leaders of the modern
conservative movement, has said that Kennedy's economic program was a major,
successful "experiment with growth oriented tax reduction" (11:59).
JFK's tax cuts, says Kemp, "not only forestalled a widely anticipated
recession, but launched the economy on a prolonged period of prosperity. . .
." (11:59).
Donald Lambro, a
widely read conservative author and an expert on federal taxation and the
economy, has praised Kennedy's economic policies:
Kennedy believed
that cutting taxes would spur higher economic growth, business expansion and
new jobs, and thus would produce more revenue for the government, not less, as
some of his advisors had warned him and the Congress. The Kennedy tax cuts
resulted in a sharp jump in economic growth, up by 5.8 percent in 1964, and by
6.4 percent in 1965 and 1966, without fueling inflation and/or higher interest
rates. Not only did the tax cuts lead to higher real growth, but also the
increased tax revenues that flowed from a surging economy led to a balanced
budget by 1969--the last time that we have been able to balance the
government's books. (14:20)
JFK critic Reeves acknowledges Kennedy's
pro-business policies:
The Kennedy
administration's policies on taxes, trade, and antitrust were in harmony with
corporate tastes. From his conservative State of the Union message through the
steel crisis, the president largely resisted the Keynesian appeals of Walter
Heller and other liberal advisors. (4:333)
Other Accomplishments
Not only did President Kennedy cut taxes and
strengthen our national defense, he also took steps to improve Soviet-American
relations, to help the poor and disadvantaged in our society, and to improve
America's image overseas. For example, Kennedy:
* Signed Executive Orders increasing
quantity and quality of surplus food distributed to jobless Americans and
expanding Food for Peace Program to aid overseas needy.
* Started the Peace Corps to send American
doctors and social workers to developing countries.
* Signed the Area Redevelopment Bill to aid
communities with chronic unemployment.
* Proposed an American space effort greater
than all previous efforts combined, and called for putting a man on the moon by
the end of the decade.
* Signed a bill that extended Social
Security benefits to five million people and that permitted people to retire
with benefits at age 62.
* Signed the most comprehensive Housing Bill
in history, initiating aid to middle income families and mass transportation
users, and increasing urban renewal and elderly housing.
* Signed legislation to double the federal
effort to fight water pollution.
* Signed the most comprehensive wheat and
feed grain bill since 1938, which resulted in higher farm income and lower food
surpluses.
* Increased the minimum wage for the first
time since its inception.
* Signed an Executive Order to end racial
discrimination in federal housing.
* Urged final action on Constitutional
Amendment outlawing poll tax as a bar to voting--it became the 24th Amendment.
* Signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the
first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age.
All of this is not to say that I agree with
everything President Kennedy did. Nor is it to say that he was a perfect
president. His personal morals certainly left much to be desired. My point is
that though he had his faults, he was not a bleeding-heart, anti-business
liberal. He was strong on national defense and pursued a pro-growth,
pro-business economic policy. On balance, I would say his presidency was good
for America.
Endnotes
1. Some researchers say six planes were used
for the first air strike, but such authors as strongly pro-Kennedy Arthur
Schlesinger to anti-Kennedy Mario Lazo put the number
at eight.
2. Says Haynes Johnson, "Why such a
vast majority of all the supplies needed for any success whatsoever was
committed to one ship is a question still unanswered by the CIA" (5:113).
I agree wholeheartedly with Harrison Livingstone's comments on this matter:
No president is in a position to review an
entire plan for each of many operations. He is the Commander in Chief and
cannot micromanage every detail. He could not have known that the . . . CIA
would be so stupid as to put all the ammunition on one ship which was easily
blown up with a few bullets from one small trainer jet plane. (3:43)
Sources
1. Robert Groden
and Harrison Edward Livingstone, HIGH TREASON: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
KENNEDY AND THE NEW EVIDENCE OF CONSPIRACY, Berkley Edition, New York: Berkley
Books, 1990.
2. Jim Marrs,
CROSSFIRE: THE PLOT THAT KILLED KENNEDY, New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers,
1989.
3. Harrison Edward Livingstone, HIGH TREASON
2, New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1992.
4. Thomas C. Reeves, A QUESTION OF
CHARACTER: A LIFE OF JOHN F. KENNEDY, New York: The Free Press, 1991.
5. Haynes Johnson, THE BAY OF PIGS: THE
LEADERS' STORY OF BRIGADE 2506, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1964.
6. Ted C. Sorenson, KENNEDY, New York:
Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965.
7. Mario Lazo,
DAGGER IN THE HEART: AMERICAN POLICY FAILURES IN CUBA, New York: Funk and Wagnells, 1968.
8. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A THOUSAND DAYS:
JOHN F. KENNEDY IN THE WHITE HOUSE, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.
9. Edward J. Feulner,
"Reading His Lips: How to Tell if Clinton Really Is a New Democrat,"
POLICY REVIEW, Winter 1993, pp. 4-8.
10. John F. Kennedy, THE BURDEN AND THE
GLORY: THE HOPES AND PURPOSES OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S SECOND AND THIRD YEARS IN
OFFICE AS REVEALED IN HIS PUBLIC STATEMENTS AND ADDRESSES, edited by Allan
Nevins, New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1964.
11. Jack Kemp, AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE: A
STRATEGY FOR THE 1980'S, Falls Church, Virginia: Conservative Press, Inc.,
1979.
12. Barry Goldwater, WITH NO APOLOGIES, New
York: William Morrow and Company, 1979.
13. Barry Goldwater, with Jack Casserly, GOLDWATER, New York: Doubleday, 1988.
14. Donald Lambro,
"Americans Can Keep Their Money Without Busting Budget: JFK Correct That
Lower Tax Rates Would Produce Higher Revenues," HUMAN EVENTS, August 30
and September 6, 1996, p. 20.
15. Peter Kornbluh,
BAY OF PIGS DECLASSIFIED: THE SECRET CIA REPORT ON THE INVASION OF CUBA, New
York: The New Press, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: Michael T.
Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic Distance
University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History from
American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from
Excelsior College, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the
Community College of the Air Force. He also holds an Advanced Certificate
of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of Civil War Studies from
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