The light rain that fell early in the morning of November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas had stopped, and thousands of people lined a ten mile route that would take President John F. Kennedy from the Dallas airport to the Trade Mart where he was scheduled to speak. At approximately 12:30 pm, the Presidential motorcade turned off Main Street and entered Dealey Plaza. As the limousine passed the Texas School Book Depository, shots rang out in the plaza. President Kennedy was hit in the head and neck shattering a large portion of his skull and killing him. That imagery is burned into the collective mind of the American public, and has contributed to the mythology created about the Kennedy presidency. In a Gallup poll conducted in 2011, Kennedy finished fourth on the list of greatest presidents and consistently finished in the top three of the list for the previous twelve years (Newport). The reality of John F. Kennedy is that he was not a good president. In particular, his foreign policy pushed the United States to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In 1961, when Kennedy was sworn in as President, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were extreme. As a satellite of the Soviet Union, Cuba, located just 90 miles from the coast of the United States, represented a clear and present danger. Kennedy became preoccupied with removing Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro to prove that he was winning the cold war. (Bay of Pigs) Within four months, Kennedy’s regime executed a plan that eventually pushed the world to the edge of a nuclear war. In April 1961, 1,400 American trained Cuban exiles set sail towards Cuba’s southern shore known as the Bay of Pigs.
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Their mission, approved by John F. Kennedy, was to spark an anti-Castro uprising within Cuba. The mission was covertly planned by the CIA and was meant to keep U.S involvement in the invasion a secret. On the night of the invasion, the treacherous waters of the bay sunk some of the fighter’s ships displacing them across the island. The CIA had also planned for a second group to parachute onto the island, but the paratroopers eventually landed in the wrong location. The errors made repelling the exiles easy for Castro’s troops. The invaders were pinned down, and 114 were killed while 1,100 were captured (Bay of Pigs). The United States didn’t have to worry, right? The CIA had ensured there was no way fingers could be pointed at them. Wrong. A radio station located on the beach of the bay broadcasted the entire event to listeners in Cuba and revealed the U.S. involvement (Bay of Pigs). Kennedy inherited the plan from his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he did not apply sufficient discretion in vetting the CIA’s plan and allowed this disaster of an operation. Kennedy, a naval officer in World War II, should have seen the tactical problems associated with the plan. Kennedy had also suspected that the plan might in fact be “too large to be clandestine and too small to be successful.”(Bay of Pigs) Instead, Kennedy allowed the CIA to implement the plan leading to the botched invasion. At the 50th anniversary of the invasion, University of Central Florida historian Irwin F. Gellman stated, "Right after the failure of the Bay of Pigs, John Kennedy …show more content…
Kennedy’s name (Strauss). All of these create an image in the mind of the American public that John F. Kennedy was one of the greatest presidents in United States history. The reality is that Kennedy through covert action and inaction in Germany almost caused nuclear war. His greatest success, defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, would not even have occurred had Kennedy not agreed to covertly invade Cuba. One of his greatest speeches, given to thousands in Berlin and admonishing the construction of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred had he been able to reach an understanding with Khrushchev. The United States would not have been involved in a long and contentious war in South Vietnam had Kennedy not continued Eisenhower’s policies and tacitly allowed the overthrow the government. One has to wonder if Kennedy had not been assassinated on that rainy November day in Dallas if Americans would look as kindly on him as they do
Their mission, approved by John F. Kennedy, was to spark an anti-Castro uprising within Cuba. The mission was covertly planned by the CIA and was meant to keep U.S involvement in the invasion a secret. On the night of the invasion, the treacherous waters of the bay sunk some of the fighter’s ships displacing them across the island. The CIA had also planned for a second group to parachute onto the island, but the paratroopers eventually landed in the wrong location. The errors made repelling the exiles easy for Castro’s troops. The invaders were pinned down, and 114 were killed while 1,100 were captured (Bay of Pigs). The United States didn’t have to worry, right? The CIA had ensured there was no way fingers could be pointed at them. Wrong. A radio station located on the beach of the bay broadcasted the entire event to listeners in Cuba and revealed the U.S. involvement (Bay of Pigs). Kennedy inherited the plan from his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he did not apply sufficient discretion in vetting the CIA’s plan and allowed this disaster of an operation. Kennedy, a naval officer in World War II, should have seen the tactical problems associated with the plan. Kennedy had also suspected that the plan might in fact be “too large to be clandestine and too small to be successful.”(Bay of Pigs) Instead, Kennedy allowed the CIA to implement the plan leading to the botched invasion. At the 50th anniversary of the invasion, University of Central Florida historian Irwin F. Gellman stated, "Right after the failure of the Bay of Pigs, John Kennedy …show more content…
Kennedy’s name (Strauss). All of these create an image in the mind of the American public that John F. Kennedy was one of the greatest presidents in United States history. The reality is that Kennedy through covert action and inaction in Germany almost caused nuclear war. His greatest success, defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, would not even have occurred had Kennedy not agreed to covertly invade Cuba. One of his greatest speeches, given to thousands in Berlin and admonishing the construction of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred had he been able to reach an understanding with Khrushchev. The United States would not have been involved in a long and contentious war in South Vietnam had Kennedy not continued Eisenhower’s policies and tacitly allowed the overthrow the government. One has to wonder if Kennedy had not been assassinated on that rainy November day in Dallas if Americans would look as kindly on him as they do