[CaptainCrunch]

These foreign policy manouvers by Kennedy were pale in comparison to what the right wing advocated. At the time Kennedy was considered a Dove as opposed to the Hawks who would have had no hesitation to overrun Cuba and bomb the hell out of Russia. They were even claiming that in an all out nuclear war the USA could survive even if most of the population was wiped out. In the 64 election [Republican and John Bircher] Goldwater's slogan was "In your heart you know he's right" was countered by Johnson's "in your guts, you know he's nuts". Guess which one was believed. I was no fan of Johnson but you have to understand the strident right wing that wanted to get power at the time.

In the early 60's the American's thought that Nuclear war was winnable to to a lack of credible counter-force by either side. It wasn't until advanced GPS technology came out that war heads became accurate enough to hit missile fields in a way to do damage. Its interesting if you look at the philosophies that the two nations had. the Americans used hardened silos hoping that the Russian missiles weren't accurate enough to damage them. The Russians used mobile rail lanchers which meant that American's wouldn't know where all the missiles were. The American's retailiated by putting missiles on submarines, the Russians tried to do this, but they didn't have the crews to leave the subs on patrol for more then a couple of weeks at a time.

Anyways back to the original point. the Russians had the bigger warheads, the American's were slightly more accurate. The American's at the time thought that they could win a nuclear exchange due to thier accuracy and the possibility of both a counter force and decapitation strike using thier submarines.

I realize that Kruschev wasn't an all out bogyman and Kennedy wasn't really a knight in shining armour but they were often reacting to forces beyond their control and I still believe Kennedy was a reasonable man who could change with the times. Some of the newer leaders, not so much.

My gut feeling is that Kennedy wasn't totally reasonable when it came to stopping communism, it was all or nothing, with no real negotiation. Kennedy effected the way that the Supreme Council of the Soviets saw relations with Americans, where the only way that they were going to get respect from the American's was to over power them or appear stronger then they seemed. This caused over reporting of results as the Soviets tried to lie to the world about thier economy and thier military. This created a perfect environment for Reagan to exploit in the mid to late 80's as the Soviets vastly over estimated thier national wealth and its ability to feed itself.

Kennedy just wasn't good at foreign relations.

The shooting of Kennedy was traumatic because he brought hope at a time when imminate destruction seemed only a moment away. He had a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. Even my grandfather, who was as far left as you can get without being a communist hated him because he was a Cathlick. He stepped on a lot of toes but he was no phoney, as I believe Reagan and Bush are or were with their hidden agendas of furthering the military, industrial complex.

Kennedy was responsible for a build up of the U.S. military beyond reasonable size and spending when he was President, his biggest mistake was not putting the right people behind the guns. Most presidents bend to the Military Industry, Kennedy was no exception. He was responsible for one of the biggest spending increases for the Military in terms of hardware aquisition up until Bush Sr Showed up. You have to remember that Kennedy pumped a huge amount of money into the Navy, the Airforce and missile technology as well as a 10 fold increase in warhead production. For you to say that Reagan was a bigger conduit of money to the military industry then Kennedy isn't really accurate.

John F Kennedy - "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

I'm not saying that Kennedy didn't do good things domestically, but he also spent like a madman on the military, and his foreign policy bungles were huge.

As far as Reagon's Star Wars goes they are still not able to shoot down Scud missiles. Talk about an empty threat. Just a few rambling thoughts for you Captain.

Unfortunatly the Soviets were working on thier own SDI project at the time, and the American's knew that they had to compete in it in case the Russians made it work. The Soviet SDI project combined with Reagan's strategy of forcing the Sovs to spend thier hard currency to build up thier military to keep pace spelled the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact. While Reagan's military spending actually to some extent helped the American high tech sector and helped the Americans recover from the recession of the 70's, the Soviets were destroyed by it.

Right now looking back, I would take Reagan over Kennedy in an election every time.

Have a great night.