JFK / RFK were having back-channel conversations with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis — JFK spoke personally to Kruschev to begin a negotiated settlement.
What I found interesting was how during the Cold War, US overthrows of governments or invasions mirrored what the Soviets did in both of our respective “empires.” They had Hungary, we had Guatemala in the 1950s; they had Czechoslovakia, we had the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. Subsequently, they had Poland, we had Chile. Then just for shits and giggles, we had Grenada
JFK felt betrayed by the CIA and Pentagon in the Bay of Pigs, and didn't trust them again. He exchanged letters with Khrushchev, and they discussed how both of them had hawkish elements they might not be able to control.
On the CIA side there are also S Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil, Congo, and more.
It didn't 'mirror'. The Soviets had a ring of 'border countries' based on their history of being invaded. The US overthrew democracies around the world. And the US list a heck of a lot longer than that.
So what and so what. Castro was already petitioning Khrushchev to use those nukes. Hence he was a player. He simply did not have direct control over them. Are you really suggesting that Castro petitioning to Khrushchev to use the nukes even at that early date was a good thing? What led Castro to believe he could even petition Khrushchev in that vein. Do you think that would have been the only time Castro would have petitioned Khrushchev or just the first time? Clearly world Communism was more important to Castro than his own life or the lives of his citizens.
First off, the Soviets weren’t giving him nukes, so Cuba still wasn’t a nuclear player.
Nope I suspect the issues directly related to Cuba are not significant, not compared to nukes in Turkey aimed at Moscow.Gee, you mean once the US started engaging in blatantly imperialistic acts of aggression towards Cuba the Soviets realized they had a foot into the Western Hemisphere? You don’t say
Didn't say that either. You should really stop trying to put words in people's mouths. Its unbecoming. I post what I mean and I mean what I post. Not less and not more.Gee, what a surprise, an American handwaves away American imperialism as no big deal. Must be a day that ends in y
True. In addition, if I for some reason were to want to defend the Soviet actions as a Russian, I would point to the millions dead from the German invasion in WWII and the perceived need for buffer states to protect their western flank.
This country was overly concerned with Communism in the 1950's and 1960's. France threatened to pull entirely out of Southeast Asia and leave the whole area to the Communists, something Eisenhower and his last NSA Gordon Grey and Truman's Sec of State Dean Acheson believed. That by the way was an entirely racist opinion since it suggested that all of the peoples of the countries of Southeast Asia were the same and would simply capitulate if the French left. Another example of "they all look alike to me" only about Southeast Asians. Walt Rostov still believed it by the time he got to be National Security Advisor years later.
And before that, they were invaded by Napoleon. We hear they have a political issue around defense from invasion. Now they have China making noises that some of their land really belongs to China. It doesn't defend their occupation of those border countries, but it makes it a different issue than the US, not a 'mirror', as you agree. But the US claimed the USSR wanted to conquer the world to defend OUR actions, much like traitor trump and the stolen election.
Iran and Mohammad Mossadegh were the first that I remembered. There was the leader of South Vietnam (General Dương Văn Minh) and then various leaders in central America (Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz) that were the work of the CIA.I should think, under no circumstances, we should do it. It would be hypocritical of our values, would it not?
But that's just what the USA did --- the CIA led a coup in '53 to allow the Shah to take over, and thus the oil fields there would benefit the US. It's precisely the resentment by Iranians of British/American exploitation of oil that led to the revolution in 1979. There was a bigger middle class under the Shah and there were more modern freedoms, but we could have done better to prevent that revolution. The Iranians considered the American led coup as hypocrisy in the face of 'American Democracy', beacon of freedom, and all that, and they were right on that point. Before the Shah, Mossadegh, an elected religious leader, whom American CIA led the coup to replace him with the Shah, at least he was democratic. So, if you think about it, America led a coup to replace an elected leader with a Monarch. That would be unthinkable today, the antithesis of American values, but we did it, and we did it for oil. The current crop of religious leaders are not democratic, of course and when Khomeini took over, he radicalized the country. Now there are far more poor people than there ever were under the Shah.
But, I think we could have done better not to have led the coup, work with Mossadegh to avoid his being influenced by the USSR ( one of the reasons we led the coup, we feared their influence and their exploitation of the oil fields, which the British developed. ). Though he was a religious leader, at least he was democratic, democratically elected. These are difficult subjects, and Eisenhower made a difficult decision. But, there it is, our history.
What say you?
And did we not do some similar things in South and Central America?
Yes, we did, a lot.
The problem is with the words “we think.”’ How was it in our best interest to impose a vicious dictatorship on Guatemala, replacing a government that resembled liberal Democrats in the US? This, at the behest of the United Fruit Company.
www.history.com
There are so many there someone created an entire entry on Wikipedia.
And it's not as expensive as the DoD would have you believe...
Agree with everything you say here, except I didn't know Mossadegh was a "religious leader".
In fact, the only thing I see when I researched this briefly is how the CIA exploited the religious community to undermine him:
"According to Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in the plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, Iranian CIA operatives pretending to be socialists and nationalists threatened Muslim leaders with "savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh", thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent earlier than planned, and stirring anti-Mossadegh sentiments within the religious community."
Mohammad Mosaddegh - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
But regardless, that CIA interference was one of the main reasons for the hostage crisis at the American embassy. When protestors took the American embassy, they scrawled "den of spies" all over its walls, in reference to this CIA interference. They saw it as some kind of payback. To this day, most Iranians are super-paranoid and conspiracy-theory minded that everything that happens to them is somehow orchestrated by the CIA or the UK, including the installation of the Islamic Republic itself.
Part of our problem internationally at times has been that we don’t point our fingers at mistakes. Some of the resentment comes from our apparent lack of interest in foreign affairs and how so often the confidence in our goodness that our domestic freedoms give us makes us blind to how much tyranny we have supported elsewhere. How could a charming, easy going patriot like Reagan possibly be supporting mass murderers and torturers in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin America?
www.history.com
