What did John F. Kennedy do during Bay of Pigs incident?

He didn't exactly throw his full support behind it. The original plan developed under Ike probably called for the few CIA stooges they could muster to invade then the US government was supposed to immediately recognize them as the "legitimate" government of Cuba and invade in force with the full power of the US military.

Kennedy left the CIA stooges mostly on their own and they failed miserably. It wasn't what he did but what he didn't do. The BOP supporters never thought he did enough.

He drank booze and banged that Monroe chick, like a MAN!

Thanks. Just seems like the western leaders are sleeping behind the wheel here.

uh...play golf?

Played Risk?

He made a secret deal to pull some missiles out of Europe if Russia backed off. That's what went down.

Went and played a bunch of golf

Cuban Missile Crisis, different event but related. The missiles were a Soviet response to perceived meddling in their sphere.

Yea,the Bay of Fat White Women was scary!

Yeah: I was only about 9 years old at the time, but I remember JFK on TV grimly telling everyone -in so many words- that he ws fully prepared to take Russia on with nukes. "Fully retaliatory action" were his exact words... and yes: my parents were scared. I was too young to be frightened, but I sure knew what was going down.

This was a time when in our local papers you found ads for companies building bomb shelters and at school we had "drop and cover" drills in case the bombs started to drop... the teacher blew a whistle and we all dived under our desks and held books over our heads. NO SHIT! So yeah: we KNEW, even as kids.


I've learned the rest of the story in the past 50 years:

We REALLY were THIS CLOSE to going up in a mushroom cloud and it was a letter that saved our asses. After negotiating via a TV-news anchor [John Chancellor, I think] through back diplomatic channels it was learned that Kruschev wanted to talk about stopping the whole mess but didn't know how. The Russian reactionary Politburo sent a seriously threatening letter [actually a diplomatic communique' by offical pouch] telling JFK that if he didn't pull the USN away from Cuba and stop the blockade it would be SHTF time. RFK suggested they just ignore the letter and send one of thei own offering appeasment. 13 tense hours later both parties agreed to pull back.

Think Obama has the balls, the saavy OR smarts of Kennedy? Think again, folks.

This time we may not be so lucky. Putin makes Kruschev look like Curly of the 3-Stooges...

Watch the movie Thirteen Days, a movie about Kennedy and his brother and how they diverted the missile crisis in Cuba. It is simply brilliant and will
Change your life!

The poster above is correct: what I recounted was the Cuban Missle Crisis and not the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs event really wasn't covered much in the media at the time... it was a clandestine operation and good ole' Waler Cronkite wasn't talking about it on the CBS evening news. It wasn't until after it was all over [several weeks later] that we started to find out how we had fucked-up the whole mess and by then... the missles were already being shipped to Cuba. Then the serious sabre-rattling began!

Sorry about the mixup in memories... I'm an old man now and just got out of bed! And yeah: 13 DAYS is a really good movie... it shows clearly that we were literally right down to the wire with only hours to go before the sky started to light up.

Within a year Kennedy was dead, the year after that Khrushchev was deposed and sent to Siberia. Powerful forces wanted that war and they punished the both of them when they didn't get it.

"Hardliners" on both sides were pulling out all the stops to convince the two Ks that they had to go at it with each other. It was only when they ignored the advice of their advisers and had their little talk. I would have loved to have been in on that one.


K - My people are telling me you've been deposed and you're no longer in power and that the generals are in charge.

K- That's the same thing my people are telling me about you.

K- I think somebody's fucking us both in the ass.

K- Fuck em' lets you and me talk this thing out.

he was attempting to curb the influence of a rapidly solidifying u.s. military take-over of the government