Heroic Kennedy Deescalated Nuclear Arms in Deal with Khrushchev

New tapes have emerged indicating that President Kennedy secretly deescalated US nuclear capabilities via an agreement with then Russian president Nikita Khrushchev.  The warmongers view this move by Kennedy as a defeat by for the U.S.

But it, in fact, pulled back some of the aggressive nuclear expansion of the Empire and in turn got Khrushchev to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba.

Deescalation is always a good thing and thus a heroic move by Kennedy. NyPo reports the facts on the newly discovered tapes, but also views Kennedy's move from a warmongers perspective and reports on General Curtis Lemay's view:

Kennedy’s biggest concern was Gen. Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff, a harsh opponent of Kennedy’s on many fronts, and good friends with Sen. Barry Goldwater, the president’s likely GOP opponent in the ’64 presidential race.

LeMay was a leading proponent of a “preemptive first strike — launched without warning — that would destroy most of the Soviet missiles and bombers,” and openly called Kennedy’s deal “the greatest defeat in our history.”

The tapes also reveal that Kennedy was unsympathetic to elements of the civil rights movement, but not on principled grounds, but from the perspective of what it would me for his reelection chances.

According to the tapes, Kennedy also turned a blind eye toward the  assassination of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, which ultimately resulted in America's expanded role in Vietnam. . NyPo explains:

By 1963, top level Kennedy staffers were losing faith in Diem... 

Some, including Assistant Secretary of State William Averell Harriman, began calling for America to withdraw this support. Harriman told Kennedy, of Diem, “I think we have just got to get him out. If we can get the vice president [Nguyen Van Thieu] to take the front job, we could get a few of the better generals to get together and have a junta.” The possibility that such a junta could leave Diem dead was also mentioned. 

Kennedy deliberated for several months about what the result of jettisoning Diem would be. Some advisors believed it would ease their way toward defeating the Viet Cong. Montana Sen. Mike Mansfield, a top Kennedy advisor who advocated for removing US forces from the country, was, at that point, alone in fearing it would lead to “an all-out war in the jungles of Vietnam.”

Increasing doubts over Diem’s control of his government led to calls for his removal. In a decision his newly discovered recordings show he came to regret, Kennedy approved plans for a coup, despite there being no solid strategy, and no clear replacement for Diem.

After months of confused chaos, disagreement and vacillating amongst Kennedy and his brain trust, along with one failed coup attempt, it was determined that rather than actively supporting a coup, the administration would now merely agree “not to thwart one.”

“Refusing US help for Diem once the coup started became one of Kennedy’s last orders,” writes Sloyan, noting that if they had rushed in to save him, this could have revealed US involvement.

The coup was launched on Nov. 1, 1963. When Diem asked Lodge for help, the ambassador offered the protection of the US embassy but, possibly based on Kennedy’s order, would not send help to collect him, saying, “We can’t get involved.” With no way out, Diem was stuck, and he was assassinated later that day.

Lodge’s right-hand man, John Michael Dunn, later described Diem’s killing as, Sloyan writes, a “gangland murder,” a “hit” orchestrated by Lodge.

But if Lodge engineered it, Kennedy’s order gave him the tools to carry it out. When Kennedy, while meeting with his advisors, learned that Diem had been killed, “the color left his face” and he “stood and rushed from the Cabinet Room.” Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, later remembered thinking, “What did he expect?”

Two days after Diem’s death, Lodge sent Kennedy a message.

“We should not overlook what this coup can mean,” he wrote, “in the way of shortening the war and enabling Americans to come home.”

Instead, the opposite happened. The Viet Cong’s war effort gained momentum in the wake of Saigon’s leadership vacuum, with a Viet Cong representative calling the coup and the assassination “gifts from heaven.”

“Kennedy’s order to get rid of Diem,” writes Sloyan, “was the real beginning of the American war in Vietnam.”

 -RW