General Discussion

politician of either party had to be bellicose toward the Russians if they wanted to be elected.

In June of 1961 Kennedy botched the Vienna Summit. Khrushchev viewed Kennedy as inexperienced and weak. This emboldened the Russians to built the Berlin Wall. To his credit Kennedy did not try to retrieve his mistake with military force.

The Bay of Pigs was a CIA plan which Kennedy inherited from the Eisenhower administration. He was dubious about it but, he felt that if he called it off, he would again be labeled weak. He had the foresight not to send in the U.S. Air Force to support the invasion knowing it would draw us into an extended conflict.

When it was discovered that the U.S.S.R. was about to introduce nuclear weapons into Cuba, he had no choice but to prevent that. Curtis LeMay, U.S.A.F. Chief of Staff, was foaming at the mouth to blast Cuba into the stone age, with nukes if necessary. Kennedy was wise enough to tell LeMay no. Through courage and adroit negotiations, he persuaded the Kremlin to remove the missiles using a sea blockade (which is generally considered an act of war) without blowing up the world. Even after the Missile Crisis was resolved, LeMay continued to advocate for an invasion. Kennedy again had to tell him no. As an aside, in 1962 I was 13 and lived in Miami. I remember anti-aircraft missile batteries all around the city. I knew from the adults around me that something was going on that stressed them out.

The Vietnam fiasco was something else he inherited from the Eisenhower administration. Early on Kennedy saw the situation as "a brush fire war" of little consequence, but he felt, after the Berlin Wall mistake, he couldn't give the communists a free hand. He was opposed to committing combat forces, as was the Pentagon. He went with a half measure of sending advisors to train the incompetent Army of South Vietnam. He increased the number of advisors, but refused to sent combat troops. He was appalled by the assassination of Diem. We know he thought Vietnam was a lost cause. He was told by advisors that if we became embroiled in a hot war, the effort would fail for the same reasons the French had failed. Various memoirs and biographies indicate that he was planning to pull the plug on the whole misadventure. However, the CIA, it being their nature, wanted war. His desire to end our involvement may very well have been at least a contributing factor to his assassination.

All in all, in three years Kennedy had the opportunity to involve up in several major conflagrations. To his credit he avoided wars of choice.