Saw the PBS documentary, "Cuban Missile
Crisis: Three Men Go To War", about Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro and
the aforementioned crisis.
Many times in history things go 100 percent wrong,
expressing the worst possible outcome ("No worst, there is none", to quote
Gerard Manley Hopkins), e.g., World War I, and the invasion of Iraq, which
keeps on finding ways to be wrong.
The Cuban Missile crisis went right or we wouldn't be here.
God bless Kennedy for resisting his generals — at times he
was "the only man in the room", according to this film, who wanted to
negotiate rather than resort to bombing — and Khrushchev, too, who, having
lived through WW II, wanted to avoid blundering into its sequel.
As for Fidel, he was eager to let Cuba be incinerated to
make a point — that point being Yanqui go home — and was outraged that Khrushchev
chose, without so much as consulting him, to avoid that unspeakable outcome.
we will survive -- I am sure of that
ReplyDeletei wonder where that confidence comes from. were it not for an excellent accident of history — kennedy & khrushchev sane, fidel not — venceremos fidel, & did it even occur to you to give the cuban people a choice about whether to be annihilated? — we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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