I believe that the presidency of John F. Kennedy was a pivotal point in U.S. history. Our country was at a fork in the road – one prong leading to continuance of the Cold War, expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex, and repression of democracy in our country and the world; the other prong leading to the opposite of those things. In the latter part of his presidency, Kennedy tried hard to lead us towards the second prong, but his efforts were cut short by his untimely death on November 22, 1963.
Kennedy’s relationship with Castro is emblematic of his efforts for peace. It also teaches us just how difficult it is for a U.S. President to lead his country towards peace today.
BACKGROUND – THE INTENSE AND CONTINUING PRESSURE TO GO TO WAR AGAINST CUBA Never in the history of our country has an American president been subjected to such intense pressure to go to war against another country as Kennedy was continuously pressured to go to war against Cuba. Kennedy resisted this at every turn:
Invasion at the Bay of Pigs – April 15-19, 1961When Kennedy came to the presidency in January 1961 he inherited a CIA plan for an invasion of Cuba by about 1,500 Cuban exile troops, who were then being trained by the CIA. The plan predicted that the landing of the Cuban troops in Cuba would inspire a nation-wide uprising against Fidel Castro, which would quickly overthrow him. Kennedy was never enthusiastic about the plan, but he approved it anyhow, while making clear that under no circumstances would he introduce U.S. troops or air support, even if the refusal to do so meant the defeat of the Cuban exile troops.
The invasion began at dawn on April 15th, 1961, with air strikes by the Cuban Expeditionary Force, which were followed on April 17th by the landing of the Cuban exile troops at the Bay of Pigs. But there was no Cuban uprising, as the CIA had promised Kennedy. The Cuban exile troops were soon surrounded by Castro’s troops, they surrendered on April 19th, and 114 men were lost and more than a thousand were taken prisoner.
Prior to the surrender, Kennedy’s military advisors put tremendous pressure on him to intervene militarily. From Thomas Reeves’ book, “
A Question of Character – A Life of John F. Kennedy”:
As the situation at the Bay of Pigs grew worse, pressure mounted on the president to come to the rescue. Members of the exile government were furious with… the administration for refusing to use its full military might… American military men on the scene and in Washington were enraged over the orders prohibiting them from saving the lives of brave men on the beaches…
But Kennedy held firm. He had good reason to fear that further escalation at that point could lead to a nuclear exchange with the USSR. And that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
Operation Northwoods – March 16, 1962 Less than a year later, Kennedy’s Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a plan called“
Operation Northwoods” to Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The plan involved a false flag operation that would draw the United States into a war against Cuba. James Bamford describes it in “
Body of Secrets – Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency”:
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
The idea was shot down. Kennedy told Lemnitzer that “there was virtually no possibility that the U.S. would ever use overt military force in Cuba.”
The Cuban Missile Crisis – October 18-29, 1962 We now know that the
Cuban Missile Crisis was incited by fear of a U.S. invasion of Cuba. As a result of that fear, Cuba and the Soviet Union conspired to plant Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuban soil. U.S. intelligence discovered the plan, and so began the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was the closest the world ever came to a nuclear war.
In his handling of the crisis, Kennedy repeatedly resisted advice from his military advisors to escalate the situation by invading Cuba. On October 19th, Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis LeMay contemptuously said of the President “This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich.... I just don't see any other solution except direct military intervention right now.”
But Kennedy instead decided upon a naval blockade, paired with intense back-channel diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. On October 22, despite the urging of Senate leaders for air strikes, he addressed the American public to announce his resolve to implement the naval blockade only.
There are many historians who say that Kennedy’s peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the greatest achievement of his presidency.
The Alpha 66 attacks on Cuba – March 19, 1963James Douglass, in his book “
JFK and the Unspeakable – Why he Died and Why it Matters”, describes Kennedy’s intense efforts to stave off yet another attempt to force him into a war against Cuba:
On March 19, the CIA-sponsored Cuban exile group
Alpha 66 announced at a Washington press conference that it had raided a Soviet “fortress” and ship in Cuba, causing a dozen casualties… Alpha 66 exile leader Antonio Veciana would admit years later to a federal investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the purpose of the CIA-initiated attack on the Soviet vessel in Cuban waters was “to publicly embarrass Kennedy and force him to move against Castro…”
It didn’t stop there. Kennedy eventually had to undertake vigorous action in order to stop the attacks. An
April 6, 1963 article in the
New York Times describes some of those actions:
The United States is throwing more planes, ships, and men into its effort to police the straits of Florida against anti-Castro raiders operating from this country… Coast Guard headquarters announced today that it had ordered six more planes and 12 more boats… to reinforce the patrols already assigned to the area… The action followed the Government’s announcement last weekend that it intended to ‘take every step necessary’ to halt commando raids from United States territory against Cuba and Soviet ships bound for Cuba.
THE EFFORTS TO INITIATE A DIALOGUE AND ACCOMMODATION BETWEEN CASTRO AND KENNEDY The biggest motive for JFK’s steadfast resistance to going to war against Cuba was to prevent a scenario that could have led to a nuclear war (which is not to say that he had any desire to invade Cuba in the first place). In accordance with that motive he decided in 1963 (or earlier) that it would be good to establish a dialogue with Castro – as he had established with Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, due to the intense hostility with which American elites regarded Castro, he had to be very careful about doing that. So his efforts had to be made in secret.
Douglass describes a complex series of negotiations involving Castro aid Rene Vallejo, U.S. ambassador William Atwood, Cuban ambassador Carlos Lechuga, and reporter Lisa Howard to arrange a meeting between Castro and Kennedy. I won’t bore you with the details, but here is how Douglass describes the status of the negotiations by November 18, 1963, four days before Kennedy’s death:
Thus the stage was being set, four days before Dallas, for the beginning of a Kennedy-Castro dialogue on U.S.-Cuban relations… As carefully as porcupines making love, they were preparing to engage in a dialogue on the strange proposition that the United States and Cuba might actually be able to live together in peace.
But more interesting than those quasi-official negotiations was the informal role played by the French journalist, Jean Daniel:
Interview of JFK by Jean Daniel – October 24, 1963JFK’s
interview with Daniel on October 24 is important because in that interview JFK expressed not only sympathy with Cuba’s plight, but also the responsibility of the United States for that plight, especially with respect to its former
support for the corrupt repressive Batista government, which
Castro overthrew in 1959. JFK’s sentiments were later relayed to Castro by Daniel. Here are excerpts from the interview:
I believe that there is no country in the world… including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime… I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.
Daniel-Castro interview of November 19-20, 1963On the evening of November 19th Daniel began an interview with Castro that ended early the next morning. Early in
the interview (See “Night Session” section) Castro expressed his grievances against Kennedy:
I haven’t forgotten that Kennedy centered his electoral campaign against Nixon on the theme of firmness towards Cuba. I have not forgotten the Machiavellian tactics and the attempts at invasion, the pressures, the blackmail, the organization of a counter-revolution, the blockade and, above everything, all the retaliatory measures which were imposed before, long before there was the pretext and alibi of Communism.
But then he expressed not only his empathy for the situation that Kennedy faced, but substantial admiration as well. His comments also confirm what many of us suspect about the difficulty that U.S. Presidents have if and when they choose to go against the wishes of their nation’s elites. Castro continued:
But I feel that he inherited a difficult situation; I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free, and I believe Kennedy is at present feeling the impact of this lack of freedom. I also believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled, especially, for example, on Cuban reaction at the time of the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion…
Suddenly a President arrives on the scene who tries to support the interests of another class (which has no access to any of the levers of power) to give the various Latin American countries the impression that the United States no longer stands behind the dictators… What happens then? The trusts see that their interests are being a little compromised; the Pentagon thinks their strategic bases are in danger; the powerful oligarchies in all the Latin American countries alert their American friends; they sabotage the new policy; and in short, Kennedy has everyone against him…
I cannot help hoping that a leader will come to the fore in North America, who will be willing to brave unpopularity, fight the trusts, tell the truth and, most important, let the various nations act as they see fit. Kennedy could still be this man. He still has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas. He would then be an even greater President than Lincoln.
Wow!
More Castro-Daniel conversation – November 22, 1963Douglass describes the last meeting that Daniel and Castro had prior to JFK’s death:
On the afternoon of November 22, Jean Daniel was having lunch with Fidel Castro… It was 1:30 p.m. … The phone rang… an urgent message for the prime minister. Castro took the phone. Daniel heard him say, “What’s that? An attempted assassination?” … When Castro hung up the phone, he repeated three times, “Es una mala noticia (“This is bad news”). As he began to speculate on who might have targeted Kennedy, a second call came in: The hope was that the president was still alive and could be saved. Castro said with evident satisfaction, “If they can, he is already re-elected.” Finally the words came through: President Kennedy was dead. Castro stood up, looked at Daniel, and said, “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change.”
THE CONTINUING FIGHT FOR PEACEAccommodation with Cuba was not the only reason for the hatred of Kennedy by our nation’s elites. It was probably not even the most important. Most important, it is clear that Kennedy intended to end the Cold War. A few months prior to his death, he announced to the American people the
first nuclear test ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, and soon thereafter prevailed upon the Senate to ratify the treaty. He also began talking with his close associates about
pulling out of Vietnam. But perhaps the best evidence of Kennedy’s intentions to end the Cold War can be found in his
peace speech at American University on June 10th 1963. I discuss and excerpt from that speech in much detail in
this post. Here I’ll just recount one passage, in which Kennedy emphasizes the need for us to look inward with respect to the responsibility for peace:
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament – and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitude -- as individuals and as a Nation – for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward -- by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.
First let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many of us think it is unreal. But that is dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable – that mankind is doomed – that we are gripped by forces we cannot control…
Few of our current politicians would dare to say anything like that. If and when they do they get relentlessly lambasted, ridiculed, and marginalized by our nation’s elites.
I have often wondered (
and written about) just how much leeway our Presidents and other elected officials have to move against the powers that be. Adlai Stevenson, former two-time Democratic nominee for President, and Ambassador to the United Nations in the Kennedy administration, touched on that issue when
he said privately that Kennedy would never be allowed to establish diplomatic dialogue with Castro because “Unfortunately, the CIA is still in charge of Cuba”. And James Carroll, in his book, “
House of War – The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power”, makes a similar point with respect to the power of the Military-Industrial Complex:
The Pentagon defines America’s reach across the world, and for countless millions that reach is choking… The Pentagon is now the dead center of an open-ended martial enterprise that no longer pretends to be defense. The world itself must be reshaped… The Pentagon has, more than ever, become a place to fear.
That is what now faces our nation – even more so than when Carroll said it. It is up to the American people to recognize what we face and stand up against it.
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