I'm not here to deride Kennedy. Ike absolutely got the ball rolling. But Kennedy altered the plan somewhat for political purposes (along with other parties - there was plenty of blame to go around, although much of it was revealed after the fact), so the plan, as it was when initially approved by Eisenhower, was not the operation the occurred in April '61.
And the whole cold war was ongoing long before Kennedy came to office. Missiles in Turkey was just the next step in the escalation. I don't think it matters who was President, the cold war was going to continue to escalate in one way or another.
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"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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