AT THE POINT OF A GUN

Once upon a time in America there were Democrats who actually had some backbone and loved America. Harry Truman and John Kennedy come to mind. Unlike modern Democrats they didn't like being bullied. One incident in particular illustrates this point. The Cuban Missile Crisis. On October 28, 1959 the Eisenhower administration reached an agreement with Turkey to deploy 15 Jupiter missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Turkey by June 1, 1961. Premier Nikita Khrushchev was very perturbed that America had nuclear tipped missiles on their doorstep. Kennedy had created a campaign issue of the so-called missile gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Upon Kennedy entering office he quickly learned that there was a missile gap but it was to our advantage. We had at least a 16 to 1 superiority over the Russians in I.C.B.M.'s or intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Soviets only had a handful of I.C.B.M.'s but they had a larger amount of medium range missiles. These missiles could not reach the U.S. from Russia but they could cover most of the U.S. from Cuba. In order to achieve parity with the U.S. Khrushchev placed these medium range missiles in Cuba. Also, it was payback for placing our missiles in Turkey.

Kennedy was rightfully angry when he found out about the Soviet missiles in Cuba but he was also angry when he found out that our missiles were still in Turkey. He had ordered them removed before he found out about the missiles in Cuba but for some reason they had not been removed. Kennedy was willing to compromise on the issue of the missiles but he wasn't going to agree to move them with a gun pointed at his head. Kennedy drew a line in the sand and the Russian's backed down rather than risk a nuclear war. Unknown to the public we negotiated a backroom deal to remove our missiles from Turkey. Publicly Kennedy had humiliated the Soviets, however; and it would eventually lead to the overthrow of Khrushchev. It would also lead to the Soviet Union building so many I.C.B.M.'s that by the early 1970's they would achieve parity with the U.S. Because of technology we would always stay a step ahead of the Soviets but we would never again enjoy the lopsided superiority over the Russians that we enjoyed during the Cuban Missile Crisis.