American History

...well.

His elocution in reading this and other Sorensen speeches was impeccable.

The question is whether he actually believed what Sorensen wrote.

We all bore the psychological burden of nearly stumbling into nuclear war because he was unprepared to present himself as something other than a lightweight at the Vienna summit with Krushchev. This was the opportunity for each man to take the measure of the other. Rather than recognize the seriousness of this, Kennedy chose, as I understand it, to indulge in his proclivity for partying with women. Excuse the anachronisms, but I do not believe that Khrushchev would have played so fast and loose in Cuba if at Vienna he met a Truman, or Obama, or Biden or for that matter a Carter or a Clinton. Instead he would have met a firm and serious leader, who even were they the type of Cold Warrior that Kennedy was, having campaigned on a nonexistent "missle gap," a cold warrior with whom only Reagan can compare, our President would have not come across as a unserious easily distracted fool.

In terms of having actually avoided a nuclear war in the crisis, an analogy I would make would be to ask if we offer praise to a drunk driver who causes a collision but then wants or gets praise for rescuing his victims from their burning car. The question is not whether the Cuban missile crisis was resolved without war, but rather whether it should have happened in the first place.