1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,162 WWW.MY-SUBS.CO 1 00:00:22,356 --> 00:00:24,399 Even if there were only one communist in the state department, 2 00:00:25,067 --> 00:00:27,486 that'd still be one communist too many. 3 00:00:28,362 --> 00:00:30,531 Everywhere I look around the world, the question is, 4 00:00:31,198 --> 00:00:33,951 what -maybe- we gonna lose next? 5 00:00:34,368 --> 00:00:39,164 This is the first intercontinental conference 6 00:00:39,831 --> 00:00:42,793 of so-called colored people 7 00:00:44,753 --> 00:00:47,047 We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry 8 00:00:47,714 --> 00:00:49,800 of vast proportions. 9 00:00:50,717 --> 00:00:54,555 Do you want a man for president who's seasoned through and through 10 00:00:55,222 --> 00:00:58,809 but not so doggone seasoned that he won't try something new? 11 00:00:59,268 --> 00:01:02,855 A man who's old enough to know and young enough to do 12 00:01:03,522 --> 00:01:07,317 Well, it's up to you, it's up to you it's strictly up to you. 13 00:01:09,403 --> 00:01:13,699 The 1960 presidential election was fought primarily on the issue of 14 00:01:14,241 --> 00:01:15,868 communism. 15 00:01:16,952 --> 00:01:19,913 Above everything else, the American people want leaders 16 00:01:20,706 --> 00:01:24,501 who will keep the peace without surrender for America and the world. 17 00:01:25,711 --> 00:01:28,881 Positioning himself like Barack Obama in 2008 18 00:01:29,756 --> 00:01:31,300 as the candidate of change 19 00:01:31,717 --> 00:01:35,137 young challenger John F. Kennedy was able to take the strongly 20 00:01:35,762 --> 00:01:40,601 anti-communist republican Richard Nixon to task for failing to prevent 21 00:01:41,143 --> 00:01:45,731 a missile gap and for permitting the establishment of a communist regime 22 00:01:46,273 --> 00:01:49,109 only 90 miles from the Florida coast line. 23 00:01:50,110 --> 00:01:55,032 It certainly appears that the 34th man to occupy the white house will be 24 00:01:55,908 --> 00:01:58,952 43 year old John Fitzgerald Kennedy 25 00:02:00,078 --> 00:02:04,666 to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, 26 00:02:05,417 --> 00:02:12,633 we offer not a pledge, but a request that both sides begin anew the quest 27 00:02:13,175 --> 00:02:20,098 for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science 28 00:02:21,058 --> 00:02:27,064 engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. 29 00:02:35,489 --> 00:02:40,869 Kennedy, America's first catholic president, won a narrow and, perhaps a stolen, election. 30 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:45,332 But he did take Washington and the world by storm with his wits and 31 00:02:45,791 --> 00:02:47,292 graceful elegance. 32 00:02:47,626 --> 00:02:51,380 His administration was nicknamed Camelot, after king Arthur's mythical 33 00:02:51,672 --> 00:02:53,757 round table of peace. 34 00:02:54,967 --> 00:02:59,555 His opportunistic but politically astute choice of Lyndon Johnson of Texas as 35 00:03:00,347 --> 00:03:05,894 vice-president confirmed the liberal wing of the party's distrust of him. 36 00:03:06,228 --> 00:03:10,065 Elected to the senate in '52, Kennedy had been a cold war liberal who had 37 00:03:10,399 --> 00:03:14,444 avoided criticizing Joseph McCarthy, an old family friend. 38 00:03:15,737 --> 00:03:18,824 His younger brother, Robert, had even served on McCarthy's staff. 39 00:03:19,908 --> 00:03:24,705 Alluding to the title of his Pulitzer prize winning book Profiles in Courage, 40 00:03:25,581 --> 00:03:30,085 Eleanor Roosevelt said she wished that Kennedy had had a little less profile 41 00:03:30,502 --> 00:03:32,379 and a little more courage. 42 00:03:32,921 --> 00:03:36,842 His team, a combination of insiders from foundations, corporations and 43 00:03:37,426 --> 00:03:41,889 Wall St. firms as well as progressives and intellectuals, was labeled the 44 00:03:42,431 --> 00:03:47,352 best and the brightest for their intelligence, achievements and can-do spirit 45 00:03:48,228 --> 00:03:53,150 typified by national security advisor McGeorge Bundy, the first applicant 46 00:03:53,483 --> 00:03:57,738 to get perfect scores on all 3 Yale entrance exams. 47 00:03:58,947 --> 00:04:03,744 At defense, Kennedy brought in a civilian outsider, Robert McNamara 48 00:04:04,411 --> 00:04:08,707 renowned for his computer-like mind in leading the Ford Motor Co. 49 00:04:09,124 --> 00:04:13,170 he quickly earned the immediate distrust of his generals by putting 50 00:04:13,712 --> 00:04:16,340 the Pentagon under microscopic scrutiny. 51 00:04:17,966 --> 00:04:21,929 A devastating nuclear war plan had been handed down to them 52 00:04:22,346 --> 00:04:26,600 from Eisenhower. McNamara was appalled by what he found: 53 00:04:27,184 --> 00:04:30,020 a culture of paranoid, worst case scenarios. 54 00:04:30,896 --> 00:04:34,942 When Kennedy asked the statistically minded McNamara 55 00:04:35,359 --> 00:04:38,654 to ascertain just how big the missile gap really was, it took 56 00:04:38,987 --> 00:04:42,491 3 weeks to confirm that there was no gap, and several months to 57 00:04:43,033 --> 00:04:46,078 find out that there was quite a huge difference: 58 00:04:46,537 --> 00:04:51,917 The US had approximately 25,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviets 2,500 59 00:04:53,085 --> 00:04:58,799 the US 1,500 heavy bombers 1,000 of them in Europe within Soviet range 60 00:04:59,550 --> 00:05:02,177 the Soviets, 192. 61 00:05:02,845 --> 00:05:06,890 the US 45 ICBM's the Soviets 4. 62 00:05:11,478 --> 00:05:15,607 This is Cuba, where communism has established its first rich head in the 63 00:05:15,941 --> 00:05:18,569 western hemisphere. It provides communism with a convenient 64 00:05:19,027 --> 00:05:24,032 arsenal of planes, tanks and modern weapons just 90 miles from American shore, 65 00:05:24,616 --> 00:05:26,326 only 7 minutes by jet. 66 00:05:28,412 --> 00:05:32,916 Kennedy was briefed on Eisenhower's invasion plan for Cuba by Allen Dulles 67 00:05:33,333 --> 00:05:35,961 who assured "off-led, the Cuban people would rise in support". 68 00:05:37,045 --> 00:05:40,007 Several civilian advisors took sharp issue with the plan. 69 00:05:40,340 --> 00:05:44,386 but the inexperienced president feared blocking an operation backed 70 00:05:44,845 --> 00:05:47,222 by Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs. 71 00:05:47,764 --> 00:05:55,439 3 days before the operation, in April 1961, 8 US B-26 bombers flown by Cuban exiles 72 00:05:56,315 --> 00:05:59,276 incapacitated half of Castro's air force. 73 00:05:59,693 --> 00:06:04,531 The US has committed no aggression against Cuba and no offensive has been 74 00:06:04,948 --> 00:06:09,745 launched from Florida or from any other part of the US. 75 00:06:10,078 --> 00:06:14,124 Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, in an embarrassing prequel to Colin Powell's 76 00:06:14,458 --> 00:06:19,713 performance at the UN over Iraq in 2003, showed a photograph 77 00:06:20,172 --> 00:06:24,760 of a plane supposedly flown by a Cuban defector, but quickly exposed 78 00:06:25,177 --> 00:06:28,138 as belonging to the CIA. 79 00:06:29,223 --> 00:06:31,975 The assault has begun on the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. 80 00:06:33,185 --> 00:06:38,315 Almost 1600 Cuban exiles arrived at the Bay of Pigs in 7 ships, 2 of them 81 00:06:38,857 --> 00:06:42,236 owned by United Fruit. But Cuban troops were ready. 82 00:06:42,903 --> 00:06:46,073 And no popular uprising ever occured. 83 00:06:47,074 --> 00:06:52,538 The invaders begged for direct US support, and much to the shock of the CIA, 84 00:06:53,205 --> 00:06:59,086 Kennedy refused this support, as he warned he would, fearing a Soviet counter move 85 00:06:59,545 --> 00:07:01,255 against west Berlin. 86 00:07:01,964 --> 00:07:06,635 At a midnight meeting military leaders and the CIA's chief of clandestine services 87 00:07:07,177 --> 00:07:12,099 pressed Kennedy for 3 hours to send ground and air support. They expected it. 88 00:07:12,641 --> 00:07:15,727 Eisenhower would've done it. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 89 00:07:16,144 --> 00:07:20,440 said it was reprehensible, almost criminal, to pull the rug out. 90 00:07:20,858 --> 00:07:22,276 But Kennedy stood his ground. 91 00:07:22,734 --> 00:07:27,114 The 114 rebels were killed, roughly 1200 captured. 92 00:07:27,739 --> 00:07:31,910 It was to be a chilling beginning to one of the most turbulent decades of 93 00:07:32,327 --> 00:07:35,956 whatever changed the world in 1960s. 94 00:07:36,707 --> 00:07:43,046 Heads up America Let's stand, be brave, keep our defenses high 95 00:07:43,714 --> 00:07:50,804 Heads up America A land that is prepared can never die 96 00:07:51,263 --> 00:07:55,392 There's an old saying that, a victory has a 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan 97 00:07:56,185 --> 00:08:04,610 through the statements, detailed discussions on not to conceal responsibility, 98 00:08:05,027 --> 00:08:07,112 because I'm the responsible officer of the government 99 00:08:07,779 --> 00:08:12,034 The entire sordid affair had a profound effect on the president, who told 100 00:08:12,367 --> 00:08:16,622 an influential journalist friend: The first advice I'm going to give 101 00:08:16,955 --> 00:08:21,793 my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that, just because 102 00:08:22,211 --> 00:08:26,465 they were military men, their opinions on military matters were worth a damn. 103 00:08:27,049 --> 00:08:31,386 He seemed to begin to understand what Eisenhower was warning about, but his 104 00:08:31,845 --> 00:08:37,851 learning curve would need to be a sharp one to escape the steel trap of cold war thinking. 105 00:08:39,061 --> 00:08:44,650 Publicly, Kennedy took full responsibility for the fiasco, privately he was furious at 106 00:08:45,108 --> 00:08:50,439 the Joint Chiefs sons of bitches and those CIA bastards, threatening to 107 00:08:57,329 --> 00:09:03,126 Incredibly, he fired Allen Dulles, albeit diplomatically, and two other top officials 108 00:09:03,877 --> 00:09:08,257 and all CIA overseas personnel were placed under state department control 109 00:09:10,300 --> 00:09:15,889 Kennedy's growing mistrust of his military and intelligence advisors made it easier to 110 00:09:16,557 --> 00:09:24,523 rebuff their pressure to send troops in 1961 into the tiny landlocked Asian nation of Laos 111 00:09:25,190 --> 00:09:30,195 something that Eisenhower had warned him might be necessary to defeat the communists. 112 00:09:31,738 --> 00:09:35,909 Laos, strategic buffer state between the red block and free Asia is watched 113 00:09:36,326 --> 00:09:37,953 with concern by all the world. 114 00:09:38,287 --> 00:09:43,000 The Joint Chiefs wanted Kennedy to give prior commitment to a large scale 115 00:09:43,458 --> 00:09:49,548 invading force. Arthur Schlesinger, an aide and respected historian, later said: 116 00:09:49,882 --> 00:09:54,720 After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy had contempt for the Joint Chiefs. He dismissed them as 117 00:09:55,053 --> 00:09:58,765 a bunch of old men. He thought Lemnitzer was a dope. 118 00:09:59,641 --> 00:10:06,064 And as a result, Kennedy opted for a neutralist solution which angered the Pentagon. 119 00:10:06,857 --> 00:10:09,693 It would come back to haunt him. 120 00:10:11,445 --> 00:10:15,282 The mood was dark when Kennedy travelled to Vienna to meet Khrushchev 121 00:10:15,407 --> 00:10:18,118 at their first summit conference at June of '61 122 00:10:22,497 --> 00:10:26,335 Khrushchev berated the young president for America's global imperialism: 123 00:10:27,002 --> 00:10:32,257 We in the USSR feel that the revolutionary process should have a right to exist 124 00:10:33,133 --> 00:10:36,178 The major issue for Khruschev was Germany. 125 00:10:37,179 --> 00:10:41,767 What terrified him was the prospect of west Germany finally getting control 126 00:10:42,309 --> 00:10:46,146 over US nukes deployed so close to the Soviet union. 127 00:10:46,688 --> 00:10:53,695 And also by 1961, approximately 20% of east German population, some 2.5 million people 128 00:10:54,321 --> 00:10:59,034 had fled through the open borders seeking a better life in west Germany. 129 00:11:00,035 --> 00:11:04,081 It was an open sore humiliation for the Soviets who now wanted 130 00:11:04,623 --> 00:11:09,878 a treaty recognizing 2 separate Germany's and the withdrawal of western forces 131 00:11:10,295 --> 00:11:12,381 from west Berlin. 132 00:11:13,382 --> 00:11:15,884 Khruschev explained to an american journalist: 133 00:11:16,426 --> 00:11:21,348 We have a much longer history with Germany. We have seen how quickly 134 00:11:21,807 --> 00:11:25,936 governments in Germany can change, and how easy it is for Germany to become 135 00:11:26,478 --> 00:11:30,315 an instrument of mass murder. You like to think ... 136 00:11:30,357 --> 00:11:32,901 we have no public opinion. Don't be sure about this. 137 00:11:34,611 --> 00:11:35,779 We have a saying here: 138 00:11:36,238 --> 00:11:40,367 Give a German a gun, sooner or later he will point it at Russians, 139 00:11:40,701 --> 00:11:43,453 that we could crush Germany, in a few minutes. 140 00:11:43,871 --> 00:11:49,251 But we fear the ability of Germany to commit the US to start a war, 141 00:11:49,668 --> 00:11:51,753 an atomic war. 142 00:11:52,212 --> 00:11:57,217 How many times do you have to be burned before you respect fire? 143 00:11:58,093 --> 00:12:04,349 Kennedy's parting comment to Kruschev was: I see it's going to be a very cold winter. 144 00:12:05,434 --> 00:12:07,603 We have wholly different views of right and wrong, 145 00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:11,565 of what is an internal affair and what is an aggression. 146 00:12:12,191 --> 00:12:16,236 And above all, we have wholly different concepts of where the world is 147 00:12:17,029 --> 00:12:18,322 and where it is going. 148 00:12:18,655 --> 00:12:23,243 Later that summer, Kennedy intensified the crisis with a sabre-rattling speech 149 00:12:24,453 --> 00:12:28,415 The source of world troubling tension is Moscow, not Berlin. 150 00:12:28,957 --> 00:12:33,545 And if war begins it will have begun in Moscow, and not Berlin. 151 00:12:38,258 --> 00:12:43,055 increasing the army by 300,000 men tripling the draft, and called for a 152 00:12:43,514 --> 00:12:47,434 national program to construct public and private fallout shelters, 153 00:12:47,893 --> 00:12:50,938 he reminded citizens: In the thermonuclear age, 154 00:12:51,355 --> 00:12:55,192 any misjudgements on either side about the intentions of the other 155 00:12:55,859 --> 00:13:00,447 could rain more devastation in several hours than has been wrought 156 00:13:00,989 --> 00:13:03,742 in all the wars of human history. 157 00:13:08,872 --> 00:13:11,917 The Warsaw pact nations responded in dramatic fashion. 158 00:13:12,793 --> 00:13:17,422 On August 13, east German troops began erecting barricades and road blocks 159 00:13:17,965 --> 00:13:22,427 all across Germany to shut off the stream of escaping east Germans. 160 00:13:28,350 --> 00:13:31,061 The barb wire was soon replaced with concrete. 161 00:13:32,187 --> 00:13:37,651 Kennedy, in defiance, sent 1500 US troops by road from west Germany into 162 00:13:38,193 --> 00:13:42,114 west Berlin where they were met by vice-president Johnson. 163 00:13:43,782 --> 00:13:48,120 That's a month Khrushchev resumed nuclear testing. 164 00:13:48,579 --> 00:13:50,414 When Kennedy learned of this he erupted, 165 00:13:51,623 --> 00:13:53,083 fucked again. 166 00:13:53,584 --> 00:13:57,629 Despite the US's nuclear superiority the Air Force wanted to increase 167 00:13:58,005 --> 00:13:59,923 the missile count to 3,000 168 00:14:00,382 --> 00:14:04,845 McNamara fought them down to 1000 as the compromised number. 169 00:14:06,722 --> 00:14:11,226 The Soviets by October were detonating a 30 mega ton bomb 170 00:14:11,852 --> 00:14:13,520 the biggest yet exploded. 171 00:14:14,188 --> 00:14:19,526 And the next week, a 50 mega ton bomb, over 3,000 times as powerful 172 00:14:20,194 --> 00:14:23,030 as the one dropped on Hiroshima. 173 00:14:23,780 --> 00:14:27,951 Kennedy had inherited by now the full route of Dulles' brinksmanship. 174 00:14:28,952 --> 00:14:33,874 To an outside observer, it might have seem that Americans had taken leave of their senses 175 00:14:34,166 --> 00:14:39,213 in the summer and fall of '61 as the nation conducted an extended conversation 176 00:14:39,755 --> 00:14:45,344 on buidling fallout shelters in their homes, as well as the ethics of killing neighbors 177 00:14:45,886 --> 00:14:48,305 or friends to protect their shelter. 178 00:14:51,183 --> 00:14:53,936 You got a bunch of your neighbors outside who want to stay alive 179 00:14:54,353 --> 00:14:56,980 keep on doing what you're doing and we'll bust out where you're now 180 00:15:04,321 --> 00:15:08,700 Despite media pressure, surprisingly few people actually built shelters 181 00:15:09,117 --> 00:15:13,830 either out of a sense of non-resignation or the recognition of the difficulties of a 182 00:15:14,373 --> 00:15:16,667 meaningful survival. 183 00:15:21,046 --> 00:15:26,385 In hindsight, the construction of the monstrous Berlin wall actually diffused 184 00:15:27,052 --> 00:15:32,224 the immediate threat of war, enabling Khrushchev to appease his hard liners. 185 00:15:32,641 --> 00:15:39,189 Kennedy confided: it's not a very nice solution but a wall is a hell of lot better than a war. 186 00:15:42,276 --> 00:15:46,071 In another part of the world however, Kennedy had given his commitment 187 00:15:46,655 --> 00:15:50,242 to the politically important Cuban exile community in Florida 188 00:15:50,784 --> 00:15:53,412 to overthrow the Castro goverment. 189 00:15:53,871 --> 00:15:57,457 This would spark significant tensions with the Soviet union. 190 00:16:10,804 --> 00:16:13,891 In early November he unleashed operation Mongoose, 191 00:16:14,308 --> 00:16:20,564 a terror campaign overseen by his brother Robert and run by Edward Lansdale, 192 00:16:21,315 --> 00:16:26,028 designed to wreck Cuba's economy and, among other things, secretly continue the 193 00:16:26,445 --> 00:16:29,615 up-to-now bungled assasination attempts on Castro. 194 00:16:30,407 --> 00:16:35,954 Seeking a pretext for military action, the Joint Chiefs approved operation Northwoods 195 00:16:36,830 --> 00:16:41,376 which included a Remember the Maine incident modeled on the ship sinking that triggered 196 00:16:41,960 --> 00:16:45,130 the Spanish-American war in 1898. 197 00:16:48,842 --> 00:16:52,095 Girls delightful in Cuba. stop. Could send you prose poems 198 00:16:52,554 --> 00:16:55,307 about scenery but don't feel right spending your money. stop. 199 00:16:55,724 --> 00:16:58,227 There is no war in Cuba. Signed Wheeler. Any answer? 200 00:16:58,685 --> 00:17:02,606 Yes. Dear Wheeler: You provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war. 201 00:17:06,944 --> 00:17:12,407 This plan included staging a Cuban government hijacking, shooting down of a 202 00:17:12,866 --> 00:17:17,663 civilian airliner, sinking boatloads of Cubans escaping to Florida, 203 00:17:18,121 --> 00:17:20,499 and blaming the communist government. 204 00:17:21,041 --> 00:17:25,212 Kennedy rejected the plan, but US actions throughout 1962 205 00:17:25,963 --> 00:17:30,259 convinced the Soviets that a Cuban invasion was imminent. 206 00:17:31,343 --> 00:17:35,389 In january, the US coerced Latin American countries to suspend 207 00:17:36,265 --> 00:17:38,767 Cuba's membership in the OAS. 208 00:17:39,768 --> 00:17:44,690 The US conducted a series of large scale military execises in the Caribbean in the 209 00:17:45,107 --> 00:17:47,734 spring, summer and fall of '62 210 00:17:48,277 --> 00:17:53,657 one involving 79 ships, 300 aircraft and more than 40,000 troops. 211 00:17:54,199 --> 00:18:02,833 The last one in october with 7500 marines set to participate was codenamed Ortsac 212 00:18:03,375 --> 00:18:07,212 a mock invasion of an island replete with the overthrow of its government. 213 00:18:09,631 --> 00:18:11,383 The message was clear. 214 00:18:21,727 --> 00:18:25,898 Kennedy was equally intent on standing up to the communists in Vietnam. 215 00:18:27,191 --> 00:18:29,943 But as a student of history, he must have harbored doubts about 216 00:18:30,485 --> 00:18:32,362 another land war in Asia. 217 00:18:36,617 --> 00:18:41,205 As a young congressman he'd visited Vietnam in 1951 during the debacle 218 00:18:41,663 --> 00:18:46,585 of the Korean war, and advised against aiding the French colonialists, and 219 00:18:47,002 --> 00:18:50,714 later spoke broadly of needing to win the support of the Arabs, Africans 220 00:18:51,173 --> 00:18:52,466 and Asians who 221 00:18:57,846 --> 00:19:01,225 he had already pointed out the contradiction of supporting the 222 00:19:01,642 --> 00:19:08,441 French empire in Africa and Asia while opposing Soviet moves in Hungary and Poland 223 00:19:10,108 --> 00:19:14,029 But he was now president, and was soon defending a corrupt south Vietnamese 224 00:19:14,488 --> 00:19:20,702 government that was banning public assembly, some political parties and even public dancing 225 00:19:21,370 --> 00:19:25,541 Embracing Eisenhower's dominoe theory Kennedy was now insisting that Vietnam 226 00:19:26,083 --> 00:19:30,546 represented the cornerstone of the free world in south east Asia: 227 00:19:31,088 --> 00:19:32,631 the finger in the dike. 228 00:19:33,298 --> 00:19:38,095 Lyndon Johnson went to Vietnam in May of '61 and annointed Ngo Dinh Diem 229 00:19:41,390 --> 00:19:46,103 and painting a bleak picture pressed for a much larger US involvement. 230 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:51,233 The generals and even McNamara agreed that only US combat troops could forestall a 231 00:19:51,900 --> 00:19:53,193 communist victory. 232 00:19:53,861 --> 00:20:00,075 However Kennedy, a decorated veteran of WW2, resisted sending in combat troops. 233 00:20:00,868 --> 00:20:02,494 He said to Arthur Schlesinger: 234 00:20:02,953 --> 00:20:07,958 The troops will march in, the bands will play, the crowds will cheer, and 235 00:20:08,625 --> 00:20:12,546 in 4 days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in 236 00:20:13,005 --> 00:20:16,717 more troops. Well, it's like taking a drink: the effect wears off 237 00:20:17,467 --> 00:20:18,802 and you have to take another. 238 00:20:19,553 --> 00:20:24,391 But he was an admirer of guerilla warfare in WW2, where British and Americans had 239 00:20:24,808 --> 00:20:27,978 fought behind the lines in places like the Burma jungle. 240 00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:33,442 And he did approve his generals' other recommendations expanding military involvement 241 00:20:34,651 --> 00:20:39,364 The US personnel in Vietnam jumped from 800 when Kennedy took office 242 00:20:40,115 --> 00:20:43,744 to over 16,000 advisors in 1963. 243 00:20:44,161 --> 00:20:49,416 He also allowed a growing army of CIA and numerous American civilian 244 00:20:49,958 --> 00:20:53,462 contractors to flock to this new honeypot of enterprise. 245 00:20:54,546 --> 00:21:01,553 Under Kennedy's 3 year watch CIA launched 163 major covert operations 246 00:21:02,012 --> 00:21:08,018 worldwide. Only 7 fewer than had been conducted under Eisenhower in 8 years. 247 00:21:09,311 --> 00:21:14,691 Vietnam in its early stages was sometimes referred as a CIA war. 248 00:21:15,651 --> 00:21:21,156 At West Point, Kennedy reinforced this by saying: it was another type of war 249 00:21:21,782 --> 00:21:28,997 new in its intensity, ancient in its origins war by ambush, eroding and exhausting 250 00:21:29,581 --> 00:21:31,625 the enemy, instead of engaging them. 251 00:21:32,292 --> 00:21:37,339 History knows the contrary proved to be true in Vietnam. 252 00:21:37,965 --> 00:21:42,261 Under Kennedy, and mostly unknown to the American public, the US began 253 00:21:42,678 --> 00:21:46,723 resettling villagers at gun point in barbwire-enclosed compounds 254 00:21:47,266 --> 00:21:51,311 guarded by unreliable south Vietnamese government troops, and 255 00:21:51,770 --> 00:21:56,149 using herbicides to defoliate guerilla areas 256 00:21:56,692 --> 00:22:01,405 the long term environmental and health effects would turn out disastrously 257 00:22:01,947 --> 00:22:04,908 for Vietnamese and Americans alike. 258 00:22:05,868 --> 00:22:13,000 But, it would be the Cuban missile crisis in Oct 1962 that trully impressed upon Kennedy 259 00:22:13,417 --> 00:22:19,006 the potentially disastrous repercussions of his hardlined cold war policies. 260 00:22:19,715 --> 00:22:25,596 On a sunday Oct 14th, a U2 surveillance plane brought back photographic evidence 261 00:22:26,054 --> 00:22:30,976 of Soviet medium range ballistic missiles in position in Cuba. 262 00:22:31,310 --> 00:22:32,186 It was quite a shock. 263 00:22:32,603 --> 00:22:36,982 Khrushchev had lied to him, promising no offensive weapons in Cuba. 264 00:22:37,441 --> 00:22:39,943 But he was making a blunder of epic proportions. 265 00:22:40,819 --> 00:22:47,367 The last thing Soviets wanted in 1962 was a direct military confrontation with the US 266 00:22:48,702 --> 00:22:53,749 With little more than 10 ICBMs that could reliably reach US soil and fewer than 300 267 00:22:54,166 --> 00:22:59,421 nuclear warheads, they stood no change against the US's 5000 deliverable 268 00:23:00,172 --> 00:23:04,134 nuclear bombs and nearly 2000 ICBMs and bombers. 269 00:23:04,551 --> 00:23:06,094 Why did Khrushchev do this? 270 00:23:06,637 --> 00:23:08,597 The American public never understood. 271 00:23:09,056 --> 00:23:13,727 The media presented Soviet actions in Cuba as a case of outright Soviet aggression. 272 00:23:15,395 --> 00:23:19,316 But from the Soviet point of view, it was a reasonable response to 273 00:23:20,067 --> 00:23:26,114 repeated signs at the US was preparing a first strike against the Soviet union. 274 00:23:27,616 --> 00:23:31,787 The missiles might also deter the ... invasion of Cuba, 275 00:23:32,329 --> 00:23:35,499 which in a sense had now become a pawn in the game. 276 00:23:35,832 --> 00:23:40,629 The missiles would make US think twice before attacking, as Khrushchev said 277 00:23:40,712 --> 00:23:42,130 giving the Americans 278 00:23:45,759 --> 00:23:50,013 There was also no question that Khrushchev genuinely admired Castro 279 00:23:50,764 --> 00:23:54,268 who had come to power on his own without outside help, 280 00:23:54,810 --> 00:23:58,522 and had enormous symbolic value in the third world. 281 00:24:00,399 --> 00:24:05,863 Finally, the missiles were an inexpensive way for Khrushchev to placate those who 282 00:24:06,321 --> 00:24:09,700 questioned his leadership in the communist world. 283 00:24:10,450 --> 00:24:12,786 But it was so dangerous what he did. 284 00:24:13,203 --> 00:24:14,538 So dangerous. 285 00:24:15,497 --> 00:24:20,544 In his thinking, Khrushchev had intended to announce the presence of 286 00:24:20,502 --> 00:24:25,090 the nuclear missiles on Nov 7th at the 45th anniversary of the 287 00:24:25,549 --> 00:24:27,176 Bolshevik revolution. 288 00:24:27,426 --> 00:24:29,803 But as military analyst Daniel Ellsberg 289 00:24:30,137 --> 00:24:34,516 has pointed out, by keeping secret the fact that he had delivered tactical 290 00:24:34,850 --> 00:24:38,353 cruise and ballistic missiles along with their nuclear warheads, 291 00:24:38,770 --> 00:24:44,359 Khrushchev had transformed a potentially effective means of deterring a US invasion 292 00:24:44,818 --> 00:24:48,947 into a destabilizing provocation that backfired. 293 00:24:49,948 --> 00:24:54,077 The US never understood the warheads had already arrived. 294 00:24:55,204 --> 00:24:57,915 The whole point of the doomsday machine 295 00:25:00,834 --> 00:25:01,793 is lost, if you keep it a secret 296 00:25:02,169 --> 00:25:03,879 why didn't you tell the world, eh? 297 00:25:04,922 --> 00:25:07,883 It was to be announced at the party congress on monday 298 00:25:08,884 --> 00:25:11,261 as you know, the premier loves surprises. 299 00:25:12,930 --> 00:25:17,518 Even today, few realize the gravity of the Cuban missile crisis, and 300 00:25:17,935 --> 00:25:21,021 even fewer seem to grasp its enduring lessons. 301 00:25:22,231 --> 00:25:25,400 Dulles' legacy of brinksmanship of going to the edge had 302 00:25:26,026 --> 00:25:28,779 finally spawned its Frankenstein monster. 303 00:25:29,446 --> 00:25:32,824 Two days later, Kennedy met with his key advisors in a top secret 304 00:25:33,367 --> 00:25:37,079 meeting hoping to stop the missiles before they were fully installed. 305 00:25:37,955 --> 00:25:42,125 3 days later on Oct. 19th he met with his Joint Chiefs. 306 00:25:42,876 --> 00:25:47,923 They pushed for a surgical airstrike without warning to remove the missiles 307 00:25:48,257 --> 00:25:50,759 followed by an all-out invasion of Cuba. 308 00:25:51,510 --> 00:25:55,138 Lemay assured Kennedy that the Soviets would not respond. 309 00:25:56,139 --> 00:25:59,643 Lemay welcomed nuclear war as inevitable, and a war that 310 00:25:59,977 --> 00:26:02,604 his country was currently in a position to win. 311 00:26:02,896 --> 00:26:04,982 There might not be a second opportunity. 312 00:26:05,524 --> 00:26:07,818 He fulminated against the Russian bear: 313 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:11,238 Let's take his leg off, right up to his testicles 314 00:26:11,989 --> 00:26:14,074 at second thought, let's take his testicles too. 315 00:26:15,033 --> 00:26:18,120 After the meeting, Kennedy remarked to his aide Kenneth O'Donnell: 316 00:26:18,787 --> 00:26:21,373 If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us 317 00:26:22,165 --> 00:26:24,543 will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong. 318 00:26:25,210 --> 00:26:31,008 With US missiles in Turkey, so close to the Soviet union, McNamara contended 319 00:26:31,466 --> 00:26:34,636 that the strategic balance of power was not changed. 320 00:26:35,179 --> 00:26:37,055 Kennedy agreed. But, 321 00:26:37,347 --> 00:26:41,518 understanding the political symbolism, said that allowing the missiles to stay 322 00:26:42,519 --> 00:26:45,647 would weaken the perception of the US across the world, and 323 00:26:46,023 --> 00:26:47,983 especially in Latin America. 324 00:26:48,734 --> 00:26:52,571 He confided to his brother Robert that if he didn't take strong action now 325 00:26:52,988 --> 00:26:56,283 after what he did at the Bay of Pigs, he'd be impeached. 326 00:26:56,950 --> 00:27:00,787 This moment became a crucial test of Kennedy's character. 327 00:27:01,205 --> 00:27:04,374 In the context of building that character, he'd fought bravely and 328 00:27:04,791 --> 00:27:08,337 saved men's lives as a Naval lt. in the south pacific 329 00:27:09,087 --> 00:27:13,133 and now was no longer as intimidated by uniformed generals. 330 00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,179 In the coming days, he would reject the advice of such older men 331 00:27:17,721 --> 00:27:22,851 as well as Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson and even Dwight Eisenhower 332 00:27:23,393 --> 00:27:28,315 He opted instead for a blockade, which he referred to as a quarantine 333 00:27:28,774 --> 00:27:32,069 to downplay the fact that this too was an act of war. 334 00:27:33,153 --> 00:27:38,075 on Oct. 22, 8 days after the pictures were taken, Kennedy solemnly informed 335 00:27:38,325 --> 00:27:39,701 the American people: 336 00:27:40,494 --> 00:27:42,663 All ships of any kind bound for Cuba 337 00:27:43,622 --> 00:27:44,957 from whatever nation or port 338 00:27:45,958 --> 00:27:49,878 will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. 339 00:27:50,629 --> 00:27:55,551 He portrayed the US as an innocent victim of unprovoked Soviet aggression 340 00:27:55,884 --> 00:28:01,348 not revealing that we've been fighting a terrorist war against Cuba since late 1959. 341 00:28:02,808 --> 00:28:05,227 I know that some action should be taken, but 342 00:28:05,978 --> 00:28:08,939 he's gonna have to tread very lightly, short of war. 343 00:28:09,398 --> 00:28:14,528 I think it's high time we stop Russia and have things our own way. 344 00:28:15,279 --> 00:28:17,030 The temperature of the world shut up 345 00:28:17,698 --> 00:28:21,076 People were on edge, transfixed to their TVs and radios 346 00:28:21,743 --> 00:28:24,454 children watched the news with their parents full of fear 347 00:28:25,330 --> 00:28:29,710 that same day the Strategic Air Command went to Defcon 3 348 00:28:30,460 --> 00:28:33,755 2 days later, for the first time in history, to Defcon 2 349 00:28:34,298 --> 00:28:36,842 prepared to strike targets in the Soviet union. 350 00:28:37,259 --> 00:28:40,762 The decision to go to the precipice of nuclear war was made under 351 00:28:41,221 --> 00:28:46,435 the authority given by Eisenhower, by SAC commander Gen. Thomas Power 352 00:28:46,894 --> 00:28:48,187 without consulting the president. 353 00:28:48,729 --> 00:28:54,109 Thereafter, the SAC fleet remained airborne refueled by aerial tankers. 354 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,948 It was Power who, in 1960, told a defense analyst: 355 00:29:00,574 --> 00:29:02,534 the whole idea is to kill the bastards 356 00:29:02,993 --> 00:29:06,914 look, at the end of the war if there are 2 americans and 1 russian, we win 357 00:29:07,831 --> 00:29:08,874 the analyst reponded: 358 00:29:09,333 --> 00:29:12,085 well, you better make sure there are a man and a woman. 359 00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,882 The series of heroine incidents occured, anyone of which could have triggered 360 00:29:17,216 --> 00:29:18,425 a holocaust. 361 00:29:18,759 --> 00:29:23,138 The SAC test missile was launched from US towards the Marshall islands, and officials 362 00:29:23,555 --> 00:29:27,476 mistakenly reported that Tampa and Minnesota were under attack. 363 00:29:32,397 --> 00:29:38,195 on Oct. 25 the Soviet leaders decided that they would have to remove the missiles 364 00:29:38,654 --> 00:29:43,784 but still hoped to trade them in Cuba for US Jupiters in Turkey. 365 00:29:44,117 --> 00:29:48,163 Before they could act on that decision, Khrushchev received faulty information 366 00:29:48,580 --> 00:29:51,542 that the invasion of Cuba was beginning. 367 00:29:52,209 --> 00:29:57,464 By the 26th of Oct. american planes were flying over Cuba at tree-top level 368 00:29:58,090 --> 00:30:03,136 250,000 troops were assembled off the Florida coastline ready to move 369 00:30:03,470 --> 00:30:05,764 2000 bombing sorties were planned. 370 00:30:06,098 --> 00:30:09,393 Castro predicted a US strike within 72 hours. 371 00:30:09,810 --> 00:30:14,398 The 42,000 strong Soviet force, commanded by a Stalingrad veteran, 372 00:30:15,274 --> 00:30:17,484 and backed by 100,000 Cubans 373 00:30:18,026 --> 00:30:24,783 possessed, unknown to American int. , approx. 100 battlefield nuclear weapons. 374 00:30:27,077 --> 00:30:29,830 Khrushchev was losing control of the situation. 375 00:30:30,289 --> 00:30:34,001 In amazing moment he asked his generals if they could guarantee that holding 376 00:30:34,418 --> 00:30:38,714 this course would not result in the death of 500 million people: 377 00:30:39,047 --> 00:30:42,301 What good would it have done me in the last hour of my life to know that 378 00:30:42,759 --> 00:30:48,557 though our great nation and the US were in complete ruin, the national honor of 379 00:30:48,849 --> 00:30:51,143 the Soviet union was intact? 380 00:30:51,810 --> 00:30:53,812 In what McNamara described as the 381 00:30:57,482 --> 00:31:01,445 Khrushchev sent Kennedy an urgent letter asking simply for a promise 382 00:31:01,778 --> 00:31:03,405 not to invade Cuba. 383 00:31:03,739 --> 00:31:07,367 He warned that the 2 countries were heading inextricably towards war: 384 00:31:07,784 --> 00:31:10,078 It would not be in our power to stop that 385 00:31:10,621 --> 00:31:16,210 war ends when it has ruled through cities and villages everywhere sowing death 386 00:31:16,543 --> 00:31:18,504 and destruction. 387 00:31:19,171 --> 00:31:23,425 on Oct. 27th an incident occured that Schlesinger described as: 388 00:31:23,884 --> 00:31:26,803 not only the most dangerous moment of the cold war, it was 389 00:31:30,766 --> 00:31:34,019 the Russian ships were heading toward the quarantine line 390 00:31:34,478 --> 00:31:39,191 one of four Soviet submarines sent to protect the ships was being hunted all day 391 00:31:39,608 --> 00:31:41,818 by the carrier USS Randolf 392 00:31:42,903 --> 00:31:48,033 More than 100 miles outside the blockade the Randolph began dropping depth charges 393 00:31:48,700 --> 00:31:52,079 unaware the sub was carrying nuclear weapons: 394 00:31:52,746 --> 00:31:57,459 The explosion rocked the submarine which went dark, except for emegency lines 395 00:31:58,210 --> 00:32:03,340 The temp. rose sharply, the CO2 in the air reached near lethal levels 396 00:32:03,674 --> 00:32:05,092 and people could barely breathe. 397 00:32:05,759 --> 00:32:07,719 Men began to faint and fall down. 398 00:32:08,011 --> 00:32:12,599 The suffering went on for 4 hours. Then, the americans hit us 399 00:32:13,058 --> 00:32:16,562 with something stronger. We thought that's it, the end. 400 00:32:16,979 --> 00:32:20,148 Panic ensued. Commander Valentin Savitsky tried 401 00:32:20,607 --> 00:32:25,404 without success to reach the general staff. He assumed the war had already started, 402 00:32:25,946 --> 00:32:29,116 and that we were gonna die in disgrace for having done nothing. 403 00:32:29,783 --> 00:32:32,744 He ordered the nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing. 404 00:32:33,161 --> 00:32:35,247 He turned to the other 2 officers aboard. 405 00:32:35,789 --> 00:32:42,254 Fortunately for mankind, the political officer Vasili Arkhipov was able to calm him down 406 00:32:42,796 --> 00:32:44,882 and convince him not to launch, 407 00:32:45,883 --> 00:32:49,136 probably single-handedly preventing nuclear war. 408 00:32:51,555 --> 00:32:55,934 In the midst of this heroine confrontation the break point came when the national 409 00:32:56,393 --> 00:33:01,190 security council received word that a U2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. 410 00:33:01,607 --> 00:33:03,817 Khrushchev had not authorized this. 411 00:33:04,902 --> 00:33:10,157 The Joint Chiefs wanted to act immediately and take out all the firing sites and missiles. 412 00:33:11,783 --> 00:33:13,744 Kennedy said: no. 413 00:33:14,203 --> 00:33:17,456 The shooting down of the U2 made both Kennedy and Khrushchev realize 414 00:33:18,123 --> 00:33:21,752 they were losing control of their enormous military machines. 415 00:33:22,503 --> 00:33:27,299 Americans receiving continual TV broadcasts were paralyzed in the grip 416 00:33:27,883 --> 00:33:30,385 of something they had only dreamed about. 417 00:33:31,386 --> 00:33:35,641 Robert McNamara later said, as he watched the sunset come over the 418 00:33:36,183 --> 00:33:41,188 saturday night the 27th of Oct: It was a beautiful fall evening 419 00:33:41,980 --> 00:33:43,190 height of the crisis 420 00:33:43,524 --> 00:33:46,235 and I went up into the open air to look and to smell it 421 00:33:46,902 --> 00:33:49,613 because I thought it was the last saturday I would ever see. 422 00:33:50,405 --> 00:33:53,992 Soviet diplomats were burning their files in Washington and New York 423 00:33:54,451 --> 00:33:59,706 Washington insiders had begun to quietly evacuate their families from the capital 424 00:34:00,123 --> 00:34:04,503 telling wives and children to drive as far south as quickly as possible. 425 00:34:05,379 --> 00:34:09,633 In a last desperate effort, Kennedy sent his brother to meet with the Soviet ambassador 426 00:34:10,092 --> 00:34:15,222 Anatoly Dobrynin on that saturday to tell him the US was about to attack 427 00:34:15,681 --> 00:34:20,894 unless it received an immediate Soviet commitment to remove its bases from Cuba. 428 00:34:21,687 --> 00:34:26,483 the US will pledge to never invade Cuba or aid others in that enterprise. 429 00:34:27,150 --> 00:34:30,195 If your Jupiter missiles in Turkey were removed also 430 00:34:30,737 --> 00:34:32,948 such an accommodation could be reached 431 00:34:34,032 --> 00:34:35,033 That's not possible 432 00:34:38,537 --> 00:34:41,790 The United States cannot agree to such terms under threat 433 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,836 Any belief to the contrary was in error 434 00:34:47,588 --> 00:34:49,339 You want war? 435 00:34:59,975 --> 00:35:03,478 However, while there can be no quid pro on this issue 436 00:35:04,438 --> 00:35:06,857 the United States can offer a private assurance 437 00:35:09,568 --> 00:35:11,653 Our Jupiter missiles in Turkey are obsolete 438 00:35:12,196 --> 00:35:14,948 and have been scheduled for withdrawal for some time 439 00:35:15,490 --> 00:35:18,994 This withdrawal should take place, within ,say, six months 440 00:35:20,204 --> 00:35:23,999 Of course, any public disclosure of this assurance would negate the deal 441 00:35:24,583 --> 00:35:27,836 and produce the most stringent denials from our government 442 00:35:28,629 --> 00:35:32,883 This private assurance represents the word of the highest authority? 443 00:35:33,967 --> 00:35:36,261 Dobrynin conveyed the urgency to Khrushchev 444 00:35:37,054 --> 00:35:39,765 who claimed in his memoirs that Robert Kennedy's message was 445 00:35:40,098 --> 00:35:44,478 even more desperate, that the president is not sure that the military will not 446 00:35:44,937 --> 00:35:47,105 overthrow him and seize power. 447 00:35:53,654 --> 00:35:58,784 The next morning, a sunday Oct. 28th dawned with mercy 448 00:36:00,327 --> 00:36:04,039 Soviets announced they would withdraw the missiles. 449 00:36:04,373 --> 00:36:08,627 The world breathed as if there was only one collective breath for all 450 00:36:09,837 --> 00:36:13,340 The crisis would actually continue behind the scenes for 3 more weeks 451 00:36:13,882 --> 00:36:19,471 and finally ended on Nov 22 when the Soviets were able to regain control of 452 00:36:20,222 --> 00:36:22,975 their battlefield nuclear weapons from the Cubans. 453 00:36:23,392 --> 00:36:25,727 The weapons would actually leave Cuba. 454 00:36:26,812 --> 00:36:30,941 It's interesting to note in hindsight that during the entire crisis 455 00:36:31,608 --> 00:36:35,654 Soviet missiles were never fueled, Red Army reservists were not called up 456 00:36:36,196 --> 00:36:39,283 and no threats were made against Berlin 457 00:36:41,785 --> 00:36:46,915 30 years later in 1992, McNamara was shocked when told that 458 00:36:47,583 --> 00:36:49,209 if american troops had invaded, 459 00:36:49,543 --> 00:36:53,046 not only were there 4 times as many armed Soviets in Cuba as reported, 460 00:36:53,505 --> 00:36:56,758 but 100 battlefield nuclear weapons would likely have been used. 461 00:36:58,135 --> 00:37:01,096 Realizing that 100,000 americans would probably have died, 462 00:37:01,972 --> 00:37:05,809 McNamara said the US would have responded by wiping out Cuba with the 463 00:37:06,435 --> 00:37:10,814 high risk of an all-out nuclear war between the US and the Soviet union. 464 00:37:11,356 --> 00:37:14,109 hundreds of millions of people might have perished. 465 00:37:14,526 --> 00:37:16,195 Possibly all mankind. 466 00:37:16,820 --> 00:37:19,114 It is recently been discovered that on the island of Okinawa 467 00:37:19,698 --> 00:37:23,410 a large force of missiles with megaton nuclear warheads and 468 00:37:23,952 --> 00:37:26,914 F-100 fighter bombers armed with hydrogen bombs 469 00:37:27,456 --> 00:37:29,082 were preparing for action. 470 00:37:29,416 --> 00:37:33,337 Their likely target was not the Soviet union, but China. 471 00:37:34,671 --> 00:37:39,593 Military leaders were furious when the crisis ended without an attack on Cuba 472 00:37:40,344 --> 00:37:42,012 McNamara recalled their bitterness: 473 00:37:42,763 --> 00:37:45,599 The president invited the Chiefs in to thank them for their support 474 00:37:46,058 --> 00:37:48,560 during the crisis. It was one hell of a scene. 475 00:37:49,311 --> 00:37:50,521 Curtis Lemay came out saying: 476 00:37:51,188 --> 00:37:54,900 We lost. We ought to just go in there today, and knock him off. 477 00:37:57,069 --> 00:38:00,656 It was Khrushchev, even more than Kennedy, who deserves the 478 00:38:01,114 --> 00:38:03,617 lion's share of credit for having avoided war. 479 00:38:04,159 --> 00:38:07,788 And for this, he was villified, as Mikhail Gorbachev would be 480 00:38:08,205 --> 00:38:13,001 3 decades later when he democratically presided against his will over the 481 00:38:13,544 --> 00:38:15,963 disillusion of the Soviet union. 482 00:38:16,505 --> 00:38:19,466 The Chinese charged Khrushchev with cowardess for caving in 483 00:38:20,467 --> 00:38:23,637 Russian hardliners said he had shit his pants. 484 00:38:24,304 --> 00:38:25,931 Much of the Pentagon however 485 00:38:26,473 --> 00:38:30,936 believing that its willingness to go to war had forced Soviets to back down 486 00:38:31,603 --> 00:38:35,023 determined that superior force would also work elsewhere 487 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:39,361 especially in Vietnam, where it was necessary once more to make a 488 00:38:39,695 --> 00:38:41,572 stand against communism. 489 00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,951 The Soviets drew the oppposite lesson determined never again to be 490 00:38:46,368 --> 00:38:50,080 so humiliated and forced to capitulate for weakness. 491 00:38:50,539 --> 00:38:55,878 They began a massive buildup of nuclear weapons to achieve parity with the US 492 00:38:56,753 --> 00:39:00,257 Weakened by the crisis, Khrushchcev would be forced out of power 493 00:39:00,591 --> 00:39:02,342 the following year. 494 00:39:02,885 --> 00:39:05,637 But first he wrote Kennedy a long letter: 495 00:39:06,054 --> 00:39:09,474 Evil has brought some good. People have felt more tangibly 496 00:39:09,892 --> 00:39:13,604 the breathing of the burning flames of thermonuclear war. 497 00:39:14,146 --> 00:39:17,441 In light of this, he made a series of bold proposals for eliminating 498 00:39:17,983 --> 00:39:23,780 everything in our relations capable of generating a new crisis. 499 00:39:24,114 --> 00:39:28,911 He suggested a non-aggression treaty between Nato and the Warsaw pact nations. 500 00:39:29,369 --> 00:39:32,539 Why not, he said, disband all military blocs 501 00:39:32,998 --> 00:39:37,794 seize testing all nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in the outer space 502 00:39:38,462 --> 00:39:41,507 under water, and also underground? 503 00:39:44,009 --> 00:39:47,304 He proposed solutions to conflicts over Germany and China. 504 00:39:49,806 --> 00:39:52,893 It's interesting to note that there was a remarkable revival of 505 00:39:53,435 --> 00:39:57,272 christianity at the same time, with the short lived papacy of 506 00:39:57,814 --> 00:40:01,193 Pope John 23rd, one of the most popular popes ever. 507 00:40:02,069 --> 00:40:06,782 He called to gather the 2nd Vatican council which issued a new encyclical 508 00:40:07,449 --> 00:40:11,370 that shook up the catholic world that was called Pacem in Terris 509 00:40:11,912 --> 00:40:12,913 peace on earth 510 00:40:13,330 --> 00:40:15,082 and ushered in a change in thinking 511 00:40:15,499 --> 00:40:19,461 particulary in latin america where its priests, nuns and lay persons took the 512 00:40:19,795 --> 00:40:24,842 message of the gospels to the poor and the persecuted, encouraging them 513 00:40:25,133 --> 00:40:30,055 to take their fate into their own hands to overcome the misery of their existence. 514 00:40:31,056 --> 00:40:33,684 What became known as liberation theology 515 00:40:34,351 --> 00:40:37,604 led to many ensuing problems with Kennedy's successors 516 00:40:37,938 --> 00:40:41,358 in the backyard of the US. 517 00:40:43,068 --> 00:40:47,322 Although more tepid to Khrushchev in his response, Kennedy's thinking 518 00:40:47,656 --> 00:40:50,951 was evolving, and in the year following missile crisis 519 00:40:51,368 --> 00:40:53,787 underwent a remarkable transformation. 520 00:40:54,246 --> 00:40:59,710 He bagan to see Vietnam as one place to step back from the east-west confrontation, 521 00:41:00,586 --> 00:41:02,212 but he knew it would not be easy. 522 00:41:03,297 --> 00:41:06,800 The debate over Kennedy's true intentions in Vietnam has 523 00:41:07,509 --> 00:41:11,722 at times been quite acromonious and his own contradictory statements 524 00:41:12,181 --> 00:41:14,766 and mixed signals have added to the confusion. 525 00:41:15,225 --> 00:41:17,936 Clearly, he was under enormous pressure to stay at the course 526 00:41:18,395 --> 00:41:23,317 and as late as july 1963, Kennedy told a new conference 527 00:41:24,067 --> 00:41:28,655 for us, to withdraw would mean a collapse of not only south Vietnam 528 00:41:29,531 --> 00:41:31,283 but south east Asia. 529 00:41:32,618 --> 00:41:34,661 in private however he was voicing doubts. 530 00:41:35,245 --> 00:41:38,749 in late '62 he asked influential senator Mike Mansfiield to 531 00:41:39,166 --> 00:41:41,251 go there and evaluate the situation. 532 00:41:42,002 --> 00:41:44,630 Mansfield returned with a highly pessimistic assessment 533 00:41:45,422 --> 00:41:47,591 recommending the US withdraw its forces 534 00:41:48,342 --> 00:41:51,303 aide Kenny O'Donnell described Kennedy's reaction: 535 00:41:51,845 --> 00:41:55,682 the president was too disturbed by the senator's unexpected argument 536 00:41:56,141 --> 00:41:58,769 He said to me when we later talked about it: 537 00:41:59,186 --> 00:42:02,564 I got angry with Mike for disagreeing with our policy so completely 538 00:42:03,357 --> 00:42:08,695 and I got angry with myself, because I found myself agreeing with him. 539 00:42:09,238 --> 00:42:13,075 on 11th of June '63 in an image that shocked the world 540 00:42:13,742 --> 00:42:17,871 Vietnamese Buddist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death at a 541 00:42:18,539 --> 00:42:23,794 busy Saigon intersection to protest the corrupt south Vietnamese government 542 00:42:28,048 --> 00:42:33,095 McNamara began pressing the Joint Chiefs for a plan of phased withdrawal 543 00:42:33,637 --> 00:42:38,559 Kennedy approved the plan in May '63 but could not formalize it. 544 00:42:39,643 --> 00:42:43,272 The first 1000 man were set to depart at the end of that year. 545 00:42:44,022 --> 00:42:47,860 In september he sent McNamara and his trusted new chief of staff 546 00:42:48,402 --> 00:42:53,657 general Maxwell Taylor on a 10 day fact finding expedition to Vietnam 547 00:42:54,199 --> 00:42:57,578 They gave the president their report on Oct 2, that called for 548 00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,330 withdrawing troops before the end of '63 549 00:43:00,873 --> 00:43:03,625 and completing it by the end of '65 550 00:43:05,043 --> 00:43:09,381 Kennedy now formalized his commitment in his national security action memorandum 551 00:43:10,048 --> 00:43:14,761 263, which he signed on Oct 11th then released to the press 552 00:43:15,554 --> 00:43:17,181 Kennedy no doubt was torn 553 00:43:17,931 --> 00:43:20,434 He'd explain to his close aide Kenny O'Donnell: 554 00:43:21,101 --> 00:43:25,355 in 1965 I'll become one of the most unpopular presidents 555 00:43:25,939 --> 00:43:30,402 in history. I'll be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser. But I don't care. 556 00:43:31,069 --> 00:43:34,448 If I try to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we'd have another 557 00:43:35,115 --> 00:43:39,703 Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands. But I can do i after I'm re-elected. 558 00:43:40,579 --> 00:43:43,415 So, we better make damn sure I am re-elected. 559 00:43:44,499 --> 00:43:46,043 The republicans were after his scalp. 560 00:43:46,793 --> 00:43:50,964 NY governor Nelson Rockefeller charged that he was soft on communism, 561 00:43:51,632 --> 00:43:56,220 naively believing the Soviet leaders were reasonable and desirous of 562 00:43:56,887 --> 00:43:58,931 reaching a fundamental settlement with the west 563 00:43:59,723 --> 00:44:02,017 Rockefeller, who was a moderate republican, said 564 00:44:05,521 --> 00:44:09,441 Kennedy hadn't stopped communist aggression in Laos, he had failed to provide 565 00:44:10,108 --> 00:44:12,402 air support during the Bay of Pigs and stood 566 00:44:18,408 --> 00:44:22,579 Coming up behind Rockefeller was extremist republican senator 567 00:44:23,121 --> 00:44:26,750 Barry Goldwater who would actually win the nomination in '64 568 00:44:28,377 --> 00:44:33,507 as late as Oct 1963 in the hope that the situation in south Vietnam 569 00:44:34,174 --> 00:44:37,886 could improve, Kennedy supported the overthrow, but not the assasination 570 00:44:38,887 --> 00:44:41,390 of the oppressive Dinh Diem regime 571 00:44:42,057 --> 00:44:45,102 When the Vietnamese president and his brother were killed by the 572 00:44:45,769 --> 00:44:51,024 south Vietnamese military, Kennedy was visibly and extremely upset. 573 00:44:51,984 --> 00:44:54,403 Nonetheless, his mindset did not change. 574 00:44:55,195 --> 00:44:59,992 Among those who later came forward confirmation of Kennedy's intention to 575 00:45:00,993 --> 00:45:04,037 withdraw were Robert McNamara, Arthur Schlesinger, 576 00:45:04,454 --> 00:45:09,293 senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, and asst. secretary of state Roger Hilsman 577 00:45:09,710 --> 00:45:16,383 Daniel Elsberg later in 1967 interviewed Rober Kennedy, prior to the shift in 578 00:45:16,842 --> 00:45:18,468 public opinion on the war. 579 00:45:18,802 --> 00:45:20,095 Kennedy said his bother was 580 00:45:24,266 --> 00:45:28,854 Elsberg asked him, would his brother have accepted defeat at the hands of 581 00:45:29,396 --> 00:45:33,233 the communists, and Robert Kennedy replied: we would have ... it up, 582 00:45:33,650 --> 00:45:36,195 we would have gotten the government in then asked us out 583 00:45:37,070 --> 00:45:39,156 or that would have negotiate it with the other side 584 00:45:40,032 --> 00:45:41,742 we would have handled it like Laos. 585 00:45:43,410 --> 00:45:47,456 Elsberg asked him why his brother was so clear headed when most of his 586 00:45:48,207 --> 00:45:53,045 senior advisors were still committed to prevailing, Robert responded emotionally: 587 00:45:53,587 --> 00:45:58,717 because we were there, we were there in 1951, we saw what was happening to the 588 00:45:59,259 --> 00:46:04,515 French, we saw it. My brother determined, determined never to let that happen to us. 589 00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:11,313 During the remarkable last few months of his life, Kennedy even contemplated 590 00:46:11,813 --> 00:46:14,107 a course reversal on Castro's Cuba, 591 00:46:14,525 --> 00:46:18,362 a relationship in which his policies were consistently wrong headed. 592 00:46:19,029 --> 00:46:21,865 But just as he clung to the hope of victory in Vietnam, while 593 00:46:22,533 --> 00:46:26,245 taking steps towards withdrawal he endorsed a new round of 594 00:46:26,703 --> 00:46:29,081 CIA sabotage in Cuba 595 00:46:29,540 --> 00:46:35,546 while exploring ... of discreet contact with Castro himself 596 00:46:36,213 --> 00:46:39,716 He told Jean Daniel, an influential french journalist who was about 597 00:46:40,133 --> 00:46:43,178 to meet Castro: I believe that there's no country in the world 598 00:46:43,971 --> 00:46:49,560 where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba 599 00:46:49,893 --> 00:46:54,022 in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. 600 00:46:55,899 --> 00:47:00,904 Daniel finally met with Castro 2 days before Kennedy's assasination 601 00:47:01,488 --> 00:47:07,160 Castro expressing criticism of US behaviour but admiring Kennedy's potential 602 00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,623 also held out hope for a new departure. 603 00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:21,425 Kennedy in the heart of the cold war was facing the abiding truth of 604 00:47:21,842 --> 00:47:23,051 American politics: 605 00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,848 one must be strong, and if one is perceived as soft or weak 606 00:47:28,432 --> 00:47:29,600 one does not endure 607 00:47:30,684 --> 00:47:33,562 and that is the confusing thing about power 608 00:47:34,855 --> 00:47:38,025 Kennedy himself was quite ill from Addison's disease and 609 00:47:38,358 --> 00:47:42,070 effects of spinal operations from WW2 injuries 610 00:47:42,946 --> 00:47:46,366 addicted to pain killers in his own ravenous appetites 611 00:47:46,992 --> 00:47:52,247 finding himself in a cocoon of deceits not only to himself but to his wife 612 00:47:52,789 --> 00:47:56,835 to his Cuba and Vietnam policies and to the country 613 00:48:00,881 --> 00:48:05,260 John Kennedy, yet, seemed aloof from fear 614 00:48:06,261 --> 00:48:13,227 like Roosevelt, he embodied a grace that forgave much in the new era of TV reality 615 00:48:15,437 --> 00:48:20,359 in june of 1963 in a commencement address at American University, 616 00:48:20,776 --> 00:48:24,530 without input from the Joint Chiefs, the CIA or the state department 617 00:48:24,947 --> 00:48:30,202 Kennedy gave one of the most extraordinary presidential speeches of the 20th century 618 00:48:30,953 --> 00:48:35,791 encouraged his listeners to think about the Soviet people in human terms 619 00:48:36,542 --> 00:48:38,627 and called for an end to the cold war 620 00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:43,549 What kind of a peace do I mean, and what kind of a peace do we seek? 621 00:48:44,424 --> 00:48:50,430 not a Pax Americana, enforced on the world by american weapons of war 622 00:48:53,058 --> 00:48:55,811 let us re-examine our attitude towards the Soviet union 623 00:48:56,770 --> 00:48:59,731 it is sad to realize the extend of the gulf between us 624 00:49:00,816 --> 00:49:04,653 and if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help 625 00:49:04,987 --> 00:49:08,282 make the world safe for diversity 626 00:49:08,699 --> 00:49:14,037 For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit 627 00:49:14,621 --> 00:49:21,378 this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. 628 00:49:22,045 --> 00:49:23,672 And we are all mortal. 629 00:49:27,509 --> 00:49:32,306 in september of that year, the senate passed the partial nuclear test ban treaty 630 00:49:32,639 --> 00:49:35,267 by a vote of 80 to 19. 631 00:49:35,809 --> 00:49:39,438 presidential speech writer Ted Sorenson believed that no other accomplishment 632 00:49:39,771 --> 00:49:42,858 in the white house ever gave Kennedy greater satisfaction. 633 00:49:43,984 --> 00:49:48,780 this treaty is for all of us it is particularly for our children 634 00:49:49,323 --> 00:49:53,368 and our grandchildren, and they have no lobby here in Washington 635 00:49:54,119 --> 00:50:00,375 According to the ancient Chinese proverb a journey of a 1000 miles must begin with 636 00:50:00,709 --> 00:50:05,506 a single step. My fellow americans, let us take that first step. 637 00:50:07,382 --> 00:50:11,845 and in another stunning reversal, Kennedy called for replacing the 638 00:50:12,513 --> 00:50:16,225 space race, perhaps his most signature initiative, with joint 639 00:50:16,892 --> 00:50:21,355 US-Soviet exploration of space and an expedition to the moon. 640 00:50:21,813 --> 00:50:27,611 He said: international law, and the UN charter will apply. Why should man's 641 00:50:28,153 --> 00:50:30,989 first flight to the moon be a national competition? 642 00:50:35,369 --> 00:50:39,414 By the time John Kennedy drove into downtown Dallas to begin his 643 00:50:40,165 --> 00:50:43,877 re-election campaign for '64 he'd made powerful enemies 644 00:50:44,253 --> 00:50:48,715 in the upper echelons of the intelligence, military and business commmunities 645 00:50:49,466 --> 00:50:52,094 not to mention the mafia, southern segregationists and 646 00:50:52,553 --> 00:50:55,389 both pro- and anti-Castro Cubans. 647 00:50:55,806 --> 00:50:59,768 in their minds, he was guilty of not following through on the Bay of Pigs 648 00:51:00,853 --> 00:51:04,231 disempowering the CIA, firing its leaders, 649 00:51:04,565 --> 00:51:08,610 resisting involvement in Laos, concluding the test ban treaty, 650 00:51:09,152 --> 00:51:10,904 planning to disengage from Vietnam, 651 00:51:12,573 --> 00:51:14,408 abandoning the space race, 652 00:51:15,951 --> 00:51:18,370 encouraging 3rd world nationalism, 653 00:51:18,996 --> 00:51:23,167 flirting with ending the cold war, and perhaps most damningly 654 00:51:24,168 --> 00:51:28,088 accepting a negotiated settlement in the Cuban missile crisis. 655 00:51:33,552 --> 00:51:34,970 The rage towards him was visceral. 656 00:51:38,932 --> 00:51:44,605 Kennedy had read the best selling 1962 novel Seven Days in May, which 657 00:51:45,272 --> 00:51:49,067 portrays a coup d'etat by a Joint Chiefs of Staff furious 658 00:51:49,651 --> 00:51:53,780 over a liberal president's new nuclear treaty with the Soviets. 659 00:51:54,656 --> 00:51:56,742 Your course of action in the past year has bordered on criminal negligence 660 00:51:57,284 --> 00:52:00,037 this treaty with the Russians is a violation of any concept of security 661 00:52:01,330 --> 00:52:02,539 You're not a weak sister, Mr. President. 662 00:52:03,290 --> 00:52:05,042 You're a criminally weak sister. 663 00:52:05,501 --> 00:52:09,421 He told a friend: it's possible, it could happen in this country. 664 00:52:10,088 --> 00:52:13,592 If there were a 3rd Bay of Pigs, it could happen 665 00:52:16,220 --> 00:52:17,638 This is Walter in our newsroom 666 00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,352 there has been an attempt that perhaps you know now on the life of president Kennedy 667 00:52:23,769 --> 00:52:27,940 he was wounded in an automobile driving from Dallas airport into downtown Dallas 668 00:52:30,776 --> 00:52:34,154 A dark page on the annals of America has been written to the crack of an 669 00:52:34,613 --> 00:52:38,325 assassin's bullet. A nation mourns, the world grieves. 670 00:52:38,992 --> 00:52:43,247 The man who became 35th president less than three years ago, is dead. 671 00:52:49,169 --> 00:52:53,423 The Warren commission, strongly influenced by ex-CIA director Allen Dulles, 672 00:52:54,508 --> 00:52:58,220 later concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin 673 00:52:58,762 --> 00:53:04,268 although, unlike most single assassins with a cause, he firmly denied his guilt. 674 00:53:05,018 --> 00:53:08,856 The case against him was made effectively by the national media 675 00:53:09,731 --> 00:53:13,443 but 4 of the 7 Warren commission members expressed doubts. 676 00:53:13,861 --> 00:53:17,823 Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, governor John Connely who'd been wounded 677 00:53:18,365 --> 00:53:20,534 also questioned the findings. 678 00:53:21,326 --> 00:53:23,954 The public found the report unconvincing. 679 00:53:25,247 --> 00:53:30,085 We may never know who was responsible or what their motive was, but we do know 680 00:53:30,627 --> 00:53:35,007 that Kennedy's enemies included some of the same forces who would cut down 681 00:53:35,632 --> 00:53:40,470 Henry Wallace in 1944 when he was trying to lead United States 682 00:53:40,888 --> 00:53:43,182 down a similar path of peace. 683 00:53:45,475 --> 00:53:48,896 Khrushchev would suffer an equally ignominious though less bloody 684 00:53:49,438 --> 00:53:54,568 fate, as he was ousted by Kremlin hardliners the following year. 685 00:53:55,027 --> 00:53:59,281 He became a critic of the Soviet government and smuggled his memoirs 686 00:53:59,823 --> 00:54:02,784 out of the country to be published in the west under the title 687 00:54:03,535 --> 00:54:05,287 Khrushchev Remembers 688 00:54:05,954 --> 00:54:07,456 became a best-seller. 689 00:54:08,248 --> 00:54:13,587 When he died in 1971, he was buried in a corner of a Moscow cemetery. 690 00:54:14,588 --> 00:54:16,882 No monument was erected for years. 691 00:54:18,509 --> 00:54:22,888 Future generations owe an enormous debt and possibly their very existence 692 00:54:23,764 --> 00:54:27,809 to these two brave men, who stared into the abyss, and 693 00:54:28,352 --> 00:54:30,229 recoiled from what they saw. 694 00:54:30,646 --> 00:54:35,025 And they owe a special debt to an obscure Soviet submarine commander 695 00:54:35,359 --> 00:54:40,280 who single-handedly blocked the start of a nuclear war. 696 00:54:49,790 --> 00:54:52,960 With the ascension of vice-president Lyndon Johnson, there would be 697 00:54:53,544 --> 00:54:56,463 important changes in many of Kennedy's policies 698 00:54:57,339 --> 00:55:00,968 particularly toward Soviet union and Vietnam. 699 00:55:01,510 --> 00:55:06,849 I will do my best, that is all I can do. 700 00:55:07,724 --> 00:55:13,856 In his inaugural address, in the morning of that decade in jan 1961 701 00:55:14,398 --> 00:55:21,071 let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, 702 00:55:22,072 --> 00:55:26,869 that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans 703 00:55:28,078 --> 00:55:33,125 but with his murder, the torch was passed back to an old generation, 704 00:55:33,876 --> 00:55:38,922 the generation of Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Reagan; leaders, who would 705 00:55:39,339 --> 00:55:42,843 systematically destroy the promise of Kennedy's last year, 706 00:55:43,510 --> 00:55:46,889 as they returned the country to war and repression. 707 00:55:48,056 --> 00:55:53,437 Though the vision Khrushchev and Kennedy had expressed would fall with them, 708 00:55:53,979 --> 00:55:55,272 it would not die. 709 00:55:55,355 --> 00:55:58,317 The seeds they had planted would germinate and sprout again 710 00:55:58,859 --> 00:56:00,527 long after their deaths. 711 00:56:02,487 --> 00:56:07,284 For those of us who lived through the 1960's, the Cuban missile crisis 712 00:56:07,951 --> 00:56:13,540 coming on the heels of the war scare over Berlin, was a terrifying event. 713 00:56:14,833 --> 00:56:17,127 It was one of many nightmares, call it 714 00:56:17,669 --> 00:56:21,298 punches to the stomach of a new generation of American people 715 00:56:21,632 --> 00:56:26,637 who had never seen history unfold so quickly, so dramatically and in such a 716 00:56:27,095 --> 00:56:28,722 violent fashion. 717 00:56:34,311 --> 00:56:37,898 It would soon be followed by the invasion of Vietnam, a blood bath 718 00:56:38,690 --> 00:56:43,278 a nightmare of America's own making that would eat Vietnamese and Americans 719 00:56:43,820 --> 00:56:45,572 alive for almost a decade. 720 00:56:46,573 --> 00:56:49,952 More horrifying things were to come by the end of that decade. 721 00:56:50,911 --> 00:56:56,708 But in hindsight, it was on that afternoon in Dallas when John Kennedy's head was 722 00:56:57,167 --> 00:57:03,173 blown off in broad daylight. It was as if a giant, horrific Greek medusa had 723 00:57:03,924 --> 00:57:07,219 unearthed its hideous face to the American people, 724 00:57:07,761 --> 00:57:14,560 freezing us with an oracle of things yet to come.