welcome to books of our times
brought to you by the Massachusetts
School of Law and see nationwide
today we shall discuss brilliant
disaster
JFK castro and america's doomed
invasion the book discusses the Bay of
Pigs crisis
1961 which set the stage for the cuban
missile crisis:
one year later in October 1962
joining me today is the books author Jim Rasenberger
and I am Lawrence R. Velvel the Dean of the Massachusetts School of
law jim thank you for coming up and
I couldn't help but notice and we've
been briefly talking
about the fact that your father played a
role however small it may have been
in a lot of these episodes or in 
some of these episodes
and he he was a lawyer in in washington
and I even
interviewed at his law firm once a
but a I would like to tell I'd like you
to tell the audience before we get into
the book and the Bay of Pigs
crisis itself tell us a little bit about
your father and his roles and how
if at all it has affected you castro took a
thousand men prisoner the Kennedy
administration wanted to get these guys
out of cuba and they brought in
a handful of young washington attorneys to
help out and that's what my father did
not a huge a footnote in history but a
big deal in his life and
what it did to me was just introduce
me
to the Bay of Pigs at a young age
curious about it
always wondered you know what'd
happened it was such a  strange name the
Bay of Pigs
kind of  horrific and later  I
became a writer I I went back to it and
I thought that this would be really
interesting to
go back and look at this again it
had been written about but I always
thought it had been written about with
with an axe to grind and finger
pointing
because there was so much passion
afterwards I thought it would be interesting to  go
back and look at it one more time
and you know clear-eyed no no
point of view and just try to find out
how did this happen
how did this group of very intelligent
man the best and the brightest in the
kennedy administration
get themselves involved in this so
 you know my father's role as a writer
was to
get me  interested in this subject
which I have to thank him for
actually it  occurred did it  not just
perhaps five or six months before you
were born
yes it occurred shortly before I was
born
and and I and then the cuban missile
crisis occurred right after I was born so 
I I can't say I remember much of this but
I was there
yeah and you've certainly read a lot about it
but I do ask every publisher every editor
and every news man in the nation to
reexamine his own standards
and to recognize the nature of our country's peril
in time of war the government and the
press
have customarily joined in an effort
based largely on self-discipline
to prevent unauthorized disclosures to
the enemy
in times of clear and present danger the
courts have held that even the privilege
rights of the first amendment
must yield to the public's need for
national security
today no war has been declared  and however fierce
the struggle maybe it may never be
declared 
in the traditional fashion our way of
life is under attack
those who make themselves our enemy
are advancing around the globe the
survival of our friends is in danger
and yet no war has been declared no
borders have been crossed by marching
troops
no missiles have been fired if the press
is awaiting a declaration of war before
it imposes the self-discipline of combat
conditions
then I can only say that no war never
posed
a greater threat to our security I mean one
of the problems it
it seems to me and I think that
if I remember correctly you say it to is
that the
these people were almost too smart
yeah always been enormously successful
couldn't fathom how they could be such
failures
well thats that's the title of the book
the brilliant disaster and its
its ironic of course and its oxymoronic
but that the brilliant part is the men
who did it
yeah they were the best and the
brightest and 
you know a number Rhodes Scholars
dean rusk the secretary state had been a
Rhodes Scholar there were many rhodes
scholars
there was mcgeorge bundy who'd been the
dean of Arts and Sciences at Harvard at the age of 34 he was just I think forty-two at the
time
robert mcnamara secretary defence had
been
the president a Ford Motor Company at the age of forty all these guys
were really smart and really successful
and had never really failed at anything and I do think you have to
attribute part  of what happened to the
fact that when they got in  the room
together and they looked around each
other
they saw a lot of brilliant people
with theyrespected and that they in
themselves they saw people who did not
fail
and they forgot about murphy's law
you know things go wrong
yes so  I jokingly say it might have helped to have a few
less brilliant people regular people 
you know in presidential administrations
people like me for instance I'm
available people  to point out that
things don't always go the way you
planned and
that would have been a good thing for people to think about and people who ask
what are thought to be dumb questions
absolutely
yeah that's the thing and nobody nobody
wanted to embarrass themselves
by asking those dumb questions right and
that
I take it is part  of why you say that group
think
took over yes group think did there are
a number of factors I think that
that led to this bad decision
we have to forgive them a little
bit because this did occur
only three months into the beginning the
administration and
they were still finding their way to the
mens room I mean had gotten their sea legs
yet
and then they also were they didn't want
to embarrass themselves
in front of   the president  or in front
of each other 
but group think it's the famous book by
Irving Janice written in 1972 that was
inspired by the Bay of Pigs
he was asking himself how could it be
that all these
smart people had may such a bad
decision and he came up with the theory
that when you get people  of similar
backgrounds
into a room yeah there is a
an impetus to
agree with each other a nobody wants to
stand out particularly when I mean
these guys really did come from they had
similar resumes a lot of them had gone through
East Coast boarding schools Ivy League
colleges
they knew each other socially they had
reason to agree with each other to
assume the other guy was right
and  the one person I mean there's the
Irving Janis's  book really refers to one
meeting particularly that happened
just over 10 days before the invasion
April fourth 1961 when you had all
these guys
in a conference room  in the State
Department 
and they and Kennedy goes around and
asks them what they think and they all
vote for it now later they all say they
had major reservations about it
but they didn't voice them at  time you know
the one guy who did Voice reservations
was
an outsider it was a senator who really
shouldn't have been at that meeting
senator william fulbright can you can
invite him in knowing that he had
problems with the plan
and he got up and gave this rousing
speech about how this is a terrible idea
un-american impractical wrong in
in every respect and he became the
the foil that everybody sort of ganged up on yeah and as
Janis wrote it really only confirmed
what people believe you know when you
have one person that you can say oh he's
the
he's the outsider those who already are
prone to agree with each other
it it it sort of  solidifies
their belief in their own opinion yup
you know you see that
everywhere in life I'm in meetings all the
time where that is
obviously in operation and its as you say
a mean I was at a a fraternity
reunion a week ago and we
sat around the circle and we call it
good
and welfare and I listen to people talk
and everybody was agreeing about certain
things and
nobody wants to challenge that right
nobody wants as you say to
be seen as the odd man out because
they dogang up on you I'm saying 
that it  would have happened there
yeah but in general they do gang up on
you
it is thought
by by some people that debate that the
Bay of Pigs
lead almost in a direct line to the
cuban missile crisis:
and I gather you  were up here talking about the interim
18 months or so however many months it
was between twelve months whatever
between the two events and also that
the Bay of Pigs how did lyndon johnson
put it the road to Dallas led to the Bay
of Pigs
yet  it's amazing I mean the bay of pigs
itself was a five-day event
cost just forty three million dollars
we couldn't even u make a movie about the Bay of
Pigs for that now
I I mean it was as was this was in in 
a very small event in some ways but what
the
the the repercussions of it and the way
it just resounded through history
are amazing the cuban missile crisis is
is a good place to start
this government as promised has
maintained the closest
surveillance of the soviet military buildup
on the island of Cuba within the past
week unmistakable
evidence has established the fact that a
series of offensive
missile sites is now in preparation
on that imprisoned Island the purpose of these 
bases can be none other than to provide
a nuclear strike capability
against the Western Hemisphere only last thursday
 as evidence of this rapid offensive
build-up
was already in my hand soviet foreign minister gromyko
told me in my office that he was
instructed to make it clear once again
as he said his government had already
done that  soviet assistance to cuba and I quote
pursue solely the purpose of contributing to
the defense capabilities of cuba
unquote that and I quote him
training by soviet specialist of cuban
nationals
in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive
and that if were otherwise mr gromyko wen  on
the soviet government would never become involved
in rendering such assistance unquote
that statement also was false
acting therefor in the defense of our own
security
and of the entire western hemisphere
and under the authority entrusted to me
by the Constitution
 as endorsed by the resolution to the
congress
I've directed that the following initial
steps be taken
immediately to halt this offensive
build-up
a strict quarantine on all offensive
military equipment
under shipment to cuba is being
initiated
all ships of any kind bound for cuba
from whatever nation or port  were they found to contain cargo of offensive weapons
will be turned back
you know that the conventional wisdom
about Kennedy is that
he learned his lesson in the Bay of Pigs
and that lesson was
don't listen to the CIA take the
advice of the Joint Chiefs with a grain of
salt
listen to your closer advisers listen
to Bobby
he really became close to bobby kennedy
after this
or people like ted sorensen people
that'd work with before and knew and
trusted
and that this prepared him for the
cuban missile crisis so then when the
cuban missile crisis came along during
those famous 13 days
he knew to ignore the Joint Chiefs of
Staff when they said go in
invade or go and bomb but he kept his own
council and the council of those closest to him
well that's true that story is true but
what people don't
sometimes recognize  about the link
between the bay of pigs and the cuban
missile crisis is
how those 18 months intervening
lead to those 13 days 
immediately after the bay of pigs in
fact the day after the Bay of Pigs
invasion ended
this is April 20th of 1961 john kennedy
did a number of
important things one was he
put together commission led by lyndon
johnson to look into ways to put a man
on the moon
that one worked out pretty well another
one was that in part
attributable to the bay of pigs absolutely
he was looking for a victory he needed a
victory
over over the soviets so
the same day he does that then  he also
appoints a task force in the pentagon
to look into ways to hold back communism
in southeast asia
South Vietnam which had really been a
back-burner issue until
this day but that task force is
appointed and
comes back a week later it and suggests
putting in more
advisors in to vietnam and this is really
the first step in the escalation to
vietnam
and thirdly  what he does that day is he
appoints a task force in the Pentagon to
look into ways to
overthrow fidel castro rather than
back off of trying to overthrow castro his
reaction was
to double down to go back so while the
pentagon's looking into ways
overtly throw castro  bobby kennedy
becomes a point man for
a covert operation called Operation
Mongoose
to finds covert ways to overthrow
castro
a lot of  sabotage assassination plots
all sorts of mayhem now the problem is
that castro knew about operation
mongoose he knew about all these plans
to overthrow him and kill him how did he know that
he knew because because everyone
every cuban exile in Miami knew and
castro had spies
in Miami so he had no trouble knowing
all the details
he know a lot about the bay Pigs
invasion prior to it being launched as
well
khrushchev know about mongoose
khrushchev also castro has suggested
in interviews that khrushchev knew about the pentagon
planning as well that there was a
pentagon plan
to overthrow castro at least a
contingency plan
so the point is that Castro and khrushchev had every reason to believe
that john kennedy was trying was
continuing to try to overthrow fidel
castro
because he was  so it makes you even
though what
what Khrushchev did obviously was was
reckless and dangerous
 it didn't come out of nowhere he
felt provoked that he was gonna lose
Cuba to the United States
if he didn't do something about it so
that's you know it
it Kennedy I think you know you
we can complement him for his behavior
during the  13 days
but he was somewhat complicitous in the
circumstances that led to the cuban
missile crisis:
is that a point which has been
not exactly lost in the welter  of
history but
been downplayed well it has been and and
part of that is the early histories
didn't know about Operation Mongoose the
historians  didn't know about it so
that those 18 months were kind of a blank
nobody really understood
how much the kennedys had been provoking khrushchev and castro
now a lot has come out in the
intervening years about Operation
Mongoose but what's incredible to me is
how
even though it's in history books now
it's still
gets downplayed I mean still the story
about the cuban missile crisis is always
about those thirteen days and
and kennedy's
wise behavior during that
but I I'm still surprised it hasn't
gotten more attention
from from historians who really know the
facts because it's really indisputable
you
by the way it's its it's the same thing
you
set of circumstances you have to think
about when you start talking about Kennedy's 
assassination this provocation
of castro and  the Soviet Union and the
kennedy administration
didn't really want that information out
obviously because they didn't want it to look like
kennedy was provoking castro that
might have set up a circumstance
where castro would try
as lyndon johnson once said i think his
phrasing was  something like
he knew the kennedy was trying to get
him so he came and got him first yeah
yeah not to say that castro  did that
but but
 you know there's a logic to these things the
kennedys
were very provocative they were very
aggressive after the bay of pigs
they had been not only you know had 
country been hurt but
the Kennedy name had been hurt and
they fought back relentlessly and I
think you could argue
a bit recklessly yeah you say
I think that that the bay of pigs one of 
the consequences of
the Bay of Pigs was it changed Americans
view point towards their own government
its competence it truthfulness
notwithstanding we already knew that Eisenhower had lied about the U2
sure  but your point is it it
dramatically changed the country's
views of  its leadership maybe
yeah you know prior to the Bay of Pigs
just yes there had been incidents had
been the U2 a
year before but it would have been a
pretty cynical American
who doubted that he lived in the country
led by
competent decent men trying to do the
right thing and
were basically honest but after the
bay of pigs eye  that view
became impossible to hold onto I mean the
whole view of
you know the leaders who had lead
america through the first world war and then the 
second world war people like eisenhower
because the country because what
happened is
Arthur Schlesinger   kennedy aid  and then a historian
phrased it's something like we on
we not only looked incompetent
we looked incompetent and  stupid and we
looked incompetent and stupid and  weak
and that combination was was awful
and  you know it
made it difficult it wasn't simply the fact
that the 
United states had lost the bay of pigs it was  the fact that there'd been so much lying involved in it
I do think it changes the way americans
thought of their government
 and  this was  just before the  Vietnam War you know which of course
took those kernels of doubt and then
ran with them
yeah I mix metaphors II gather that
after the bay of pigs eisenhower told
Kennedy
privately as he was down at the white
house once or twice I guess
told him privately look once you make a
decision you don't change horses in
mid-stream you don't
right you know decide we'll do this
but not that or  that but tjos
you you carry out the plan that you lay
you cast the die
and you know you live or die by  that cast
of the dice
yes there was a meeting Kennedy on April
22nd of
1961 so this is three days after the innovations failed
Kennedy looking I think for a little bit
of presidential
solace a little companionship a little  pat on
the back
from eisenhower invited to camp david
and eisenhower came down and really took Kennedy to the woodshed
exactly as he said he said when
you
when you launch an operation like this
you're in it to win 
you can't go halfway  in and 
essentially said you you made a great
mistake and If i'd  done this
I would've won it I wouldn't of  only
gone in halfway
so it was I was devastating for Kennedy
to hear that from eisenhower we intend
to accept full responsibility
for our errors and we expect you to
point them out when we miss them
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deadly challenge
imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern
both to the press and to the president two
requirements that may seem almost
contradictory in tone
but which must be reconciled and fulfille if we are to meet this national
peril
I refer first to the need a far greater
public information
and second to the need for far greater
official secrecy
to the mid fifties this notion
of eisenhower's   that if you're going to do
it you do it to win
you don't do it in some half-baked
method mmm
particularly when the  half-baked method leaves the opponent
alive and kicking to fight another day
you know he's gonna kick  and you know
exactly  where he's going to kick you
right 
I wonder whether this had something to
do
with eisenhower's refusal for example
to even think about intervening in Vietnam
in 1954 1955
contrary to the advice of people like
nixon and i think Arly
Burke if I remember correctly  you know
eisenhower's is a guy who'd been
the general and
had the responsibility for D-day he had that note in 
his pocket if this fails it's all my
fault yeah
I mean you didn't find eisenhower's
saying well we won't  send the mulberries
over
yeah we'll lighten up on the air cover
no no your gonna do it you gonna
do it all the way I just
I just can't help thinking that this
knowledge about how you must do things
if you do them must have had some impact
in eisenhower's thinking in the  mid
fifties I think that's true I you know
the question
I I've been asked this many times
what would eisenhower have done
would he in fact have done as he said he would have done and gone all in
I and I'm not really sure the answer to
that
because eisenhower just like Kennedy
was very concerned about starting
something with the Soviet Union
which is why eisenhower was a big fan of
covert activity
it was really eisenhower who got the CIA
involved in these
these covert operations because
you know what what if they work what they
could do as he saw it
was  assert american power
but do it in a way that didn't raise the
stakes so high that you
a had to win or be 
that you were gonna start nuclear war
with the Soviet Union
and these seem to have been successful
under eisenhower there was
one in Iran in 1953 another in
Guatemala in 1954
I so you know would eisenhower actually
have
sent in overt military force in the Bay
of Pigs when it was clear that things
are going badly for
for the cuban brigade 
he wouldn't known like Kennedy that that
khrushchev would have responded and
indeed I'm sure Khrushchev would have
responded
probably in West Berlin a city that he'd
been threatening to basically
take and  make a part of east Germany 
and then that would have the whole
series of events would have escalated
from that so
the problem with the Bay of
Pigs even looking back on it from fifty
years there no simple answers
 certainly not any simple answer if you
are in it
you know looking at it from the point of
view John Kennedy at a time when
a fidel castro was seen as a huge menace
communism seemed to be coming in from all
sides so it was intolerable to 
have a communist dictator with ties to
the soviet union ninety miles from
American shores on the one hand
but on the other hand you  didn't want to do
anything
to start this escalation with the Soviet
Union
so covert a covert operation seems to be
the way to go
the problem was it was hard that nobody
really had any great plan for how you
covertly remove fidel castro
and many plans were thought about before
this invasion plan which is kinda like
a miniature world war two type of  invasion
you know they were plans to put small
groups in
many plans  as I think I've said to
assassinate castro
even assassinate Castro and Che Guevara
and raul castro
all in one fell swoop take out the entire
leadership of cuba
 but none of them none of them were  really
great plans that was the problem with
that
and in the end kennedy was left with
this invasion plan
and I think he went with that because
he didn't know how not to go with it
yeah you know he didn't know how to say no to a plan to get rid of castro
yeah I  wasn't there I was only four years
old but
maybe five
eisenhower was under some pressure or at
least afterwards
under criticism for not taking Berlin
and he saw no reason to take berlin
when the casualties would have been
staggering
and the russians we're going to take it
and a separate 200,000
I don't  remember was  it 200,000 casualties or 200,000 dead
and that I think
bares on you know what you're saying
he might or might not have done
in in the Bay of Pigs because that
was n't the point it  was not escalations as it was in  World War two
but its a form of  raising that stakes for
your own people
yeah and so he was cognizant about those kinds of things
well i think eisenhower was a  much less
reckless president in some ways than
Kennedy I mean eisenhower
really was concerned about starting
nuclear war
yeah John Kennedy I think was too but I
but as I as I said I think he did some
reckless things
that helped provoke the  cuban missile crisis but but 
you know it's hard for me to imagine
eisenhower doing
what so many people wanted Kennedy to do during the bay of pigs which was
unleash American navy jets to go in and
take care of
castro's planes it's hard for me to see
Eisenhower doing that because eisenhower knew what that meant
if you did that Kennedy said once you
know
this is right after the bay of pigs he said if I had
put america any american
presence it might as well have been an
overt American operation to begin with
because we own it at that point the
moment you put any americans into it
we own the operation and then we have to
win it
and then this becomes a global part of a 
global struggle with the Soviet Union
this is not about the United States and cuba
 it's certainly not about
a band of  cuban exiles and Castro
its suddenly  you know a global struggle
that involves nuclear weapons
potentially I take it Jim for
practical purposes
my recollection of the  fifties is
you know they say if you can remember it
you weren't there you know
you weren't doing what you should have been doing that's the sixties that's  about
yeah but everything
the stakes were  that way with everything
whether it was
the British French israeli Suez
actions the two islands
between Taiwan and communist China
everything that was one of the
things I really
you know that struck me writing this
book is
what it meant to be a president during
the Cold War when every
decision you made had implications
having to do with with position
with the soviet union I  mean the whole
thing was a psychological game
because they couldn't  actually go to war so it was always about
this bizarre psychological gamesmanship
yeah
but of course there always was this specter of war
yeah in the end and it was real
during the Bay of Pigs
I discovered Khurshchev
basically threatened nuclear war I mean
he wrote a letter to Kennedy
just after the invasion began saying  we
will not permit
United States to go into cuba
and if you should his term was we we
promise incomparable
conflagration and he mentions the
heartland of the united states now
what's he referring to obviously he's
referring
it's basically a veiled threat to using 
nuclear weapons
so I mean it was it was always there and
and you have to keep that in mind when
you think of
again why kennedy would not want to send
in american jets
to save the day he had just read this
letter from Khrushchev saying 
you know we'll take action now it's very
doubtful Khrushchev
would have gone to nukes but
Kenny really had to worry about Berlin
khruschev already had said he was gonna
cut West Berlin off
and if he did that kennedy would have to
have had responded
and there would necessarily been
escalation
some sort of um  hard to imagine that not
becoming a military event
once berlin got involved in it I have no
intention of establishing a new office 
of war information
to govern the flow of news I'm not
suggesting
any new forms of censorship or new types
of security classifications I have no easy
answer
to the dilemma that I have posed and would
not seek to impose it
if I had one but I am asking the members
of the newspaper profession
and the industry in this country to
reexamine their own
responsibilities to consider the degree
and the nature of the present danger and
to heed the duty of self restraint
which that danger imposes upon us all
every newspaper now asks itself with
respect to every story
is it news all I suggest is that you add
the question
is it in the interests of national
security
Jim  tell me something that your answer
to something that's always
bothered me extensively it's the old the
question of so what
 so what if
castro a communist is in cuba
from the standpoint of the  United
States so what
and the other hand from the standpoint
of Russi if we were to take over cuba
so what and you know we facing the same
problem always have Afghanistan
Iraq
all these things you look at it and you
know thirty years later or 
fifty years later say yeah so what would
have happened what's the big deal
right well that is that's that's
definitely
the case with cuba when you i mean
the incredible thing is how few people
recognize it at the time I mention
william fulbright
he had by the way johnson called him halfbright  because he was so opposed
yes he  himself had been 
Rhodes Scholar and
the fulbright scholarships
and he was a very bright guy
he said something very smart at  the time
which is castro is a 
thorn in the side he's not a dagger in the
heart yeah he's an annoyance
he's  a nuisance yeah  we should   have treated Him  like a nuisance because everything
we did
did to treat him as more than a nuisance
only made him stronger
yeah and gave them all the excuses he
needed to his own people
for why their  economy was so bad oh blame it on the Americans
yeah it's possible his own people would have overthrown him
rather quickly if we never got involved
in yeah 
and and look what happened castro
survived if you count Obama that's 
11 US Presidents that's  a quarter of all
american presidents
and we're still here and so is he you now
and
and but this is why I went back I spent
a lot of time sort of  trying to get into
the
mindset  of somebody in a position of
leadership
at that time or even American at that
time
the fear of communism was overwhelming
was a kinda paranoia but it wasn't
unreasonable in some ways if you go back
and you think
1949 China  the most populous country
on earth becomes communist that same
year the Soviet Union explodes their
first atomic weapon
I mean that's a mind-blowing year
right there
it's liable to  make anybody frightened
and then
1957 of course sputnik
it wasn't the satellite that was scary
it was
the rocket the soviets used to send that
satellite into space if they could
build rockets that could put satellites
into orbit they could build rockets
could put nuclear warheads into the
United States so there was real fear
and Khrushchev
you know never shied from from
warmongering rhetoric he had this famous
statement we will bury you
it  was terrible and and so people were
justifiably
nervous they saw this international
communist conspiracy
sweeping across the globe armed with
nuclear weapons
and here they are now at our shores
and you can see at the time how that
would be
intolerable well I lived through it so I
know how intolerable  it was considered
in 1889 the first international
American Conference was held and cuba
was not present
then as now cuba as the only state
in the hemisphere still controlled
foreign monarch then as now
cuba was excluded from the society of free nations
and than as  now brave men in florida
and New York dedicated their lives and their energies
to the  freedom of  their homeland
the brigade comes from behind prison walls
but you leave behind you more than six
million
of your fellow countrymen who are  also in a very real
sense in prison for cuba is 
today as Marti described it many years ago
as beautiful as greece and stretched out in
chains
a prison moated by water
but let me ask a question
what is it that we a question which I
don't think people stopped to 
think about in those days what is it
that we
feared did we fear that militarily
Russia would take us over or China
did we fear that economically we would
become a pygmy and our
our people's standard of living
would go down or was it what roosevelt
once called
an undifferentiated fear
which I would say is has something
to do with the idea
we're number one that's a personal
viewpoint
what is it exactly that had all these
people frightened to death a great
question
and I thought a lot about that what so
what would have happened if
you know lets say castro the worst case
scenario had happened castro's communist
and he  exports communism to South
American countries
I suppose practically it  would hurt us
economically in terms of trade
I mean you could see how it would
have some effect on our
on our on our influence around the globe
and it could hurt us financially so
you know I do think that there's a a
in some way an argument  to be made that that it would have been
bad for the United States had a huge part of  the world been under  the
domination  of the Soviet Union and China
but you know people just kept referring
to the American Way of life as  under
 is in jeopardy without really specifying
as you say well what exactly what's
gonna happen we're going to  have communists
you know camping out in our backyards
what does this mean you know I don't
really know the answer to why
you know why that fear
was so intense and  I don't
clearly now we can look back and say
that that was not justified but
certainly at the  time
there was this real belief
that communists were coming closer and
closer
and and were gonna get us
we we oppose fundamentally is the
aggressive nature
of the  communist its unceasing  effort to expand wherever it can
to grow bigger to takeover to supplant this deadly impulse
toward aggression we oppose 
as a continual threat to peace
these are the contrasting points of view
between the major antagonists
in the conflict which has become known
over the last decade
as the cold war initially
if I remember correctly initially
people's reactions Americans reactions to
castro
including even nixon's and the CIA's were
reasonably favorable
and  they change so why were they favorable and why did they change
you know batista the  dictator  of cuba
before castro took over had
been a really bad guy and everybody on
both sides of the political spectrum
knew that so when fidel castro came in
in January 1st 1959
really everybody was excited by it I
mean there  certainly were people  in the Eisenhower
administration who were concerned
about him they didn't really know what to make of him they knew he was a leftist
 but you know there was a general
excitement
and then then castro comes to the
United States three months later after
coming to power in april of  1959 this is
where I begin my book
and he's greeted with just adulation
 huge crowds greet him at the
airport
it's like the Beatles coming you know 
five years later
yeah and yeah you know and he arrives with cases of rum an 
Cuban cigars and then he goes around
and then he goes around and is interviewed by many distinguished people
including Vice President Nixon has a two and a half hour meeting with him
and the question everybody wants to ask him  is
are you communist will you be a
communist have you ever been a communist
why did they want to ask him that question
because they they were because 
they knew he was on the left now
he had no
no ties no meetings
at all with anyone in the soviet union
in fact until he happened to meet
the soviet ambassador to the  United States at a reception
during that visit in April 1959 but
they really didn't have a lot of reason
to believe he was a communist
except that he was clearly had a leftist
political point of view on and
castro answered all  of them properly no
I've never been a communist and never
would be a communist his brother Raul
had
apparently been part of the  Communist Party in cuba
and Che Guevara had been associated with the Communist Party so
they knew they were communists around
him Nixon has this meeting with him
where he
basically trying to warn him about the
fact that he's surrounded by communists
and
he must be careful not to be influenced
by them 
now it's interesting  a couple years later
nixon wrote a
in a book that he told eisenhower we
gotta watch out for him he's a
he's a communist but  really at  the time he
wrote a memo in which he said
 I suspect that he's not really a
communist
but he may be under the influence of
communist advisors
and i'm paraphrasing that not quite
correctly but it was that was really the
the point he really
went back and sort of changed 
you know in hindsight changed view point
so you know then Castro comes to new
york is greeted by 20,000 people at Penn
Station
all these adoring fans a guy in the CIA
meets him at a  hotel in this hotel room and
interviews him
they smoke cigars together it may have been the cigar smoke but this guy comes away
enamored of castro
saying not only is he not communist he's an anticommunist
So castro fooled a few people
 and then he went back the
really interesting thing to me is he
then goes back to cuba
and almost immediately starts
behaving in a way having won all this
goodwill in the United States
behaving in a way that is definitely
gonna lose
eisenhower and anybody who had any
sympathy for him he starts appropriating
American property he starts giving
speeches with all this anti-american
rhetoric
behaving exactly like the
proto-communist
that some in the eisenhower
administration feared he was
so  within less than a year of his
coming to power they were making plans
to remove him
the direct answer is he
began to conduct himself in such a way
 yes
and they got they get nervous very
quickly and eisenhower just got
you know eisenhower being eisenhower you now just got annoyed
who is this guy think he is eisenhower was already annoyed by
Castro even before he came for that
that April 1959 visit in fact eisenhower
left and to  to play
golf yeah at Augusta because he didn't want to be  
bothered with his fool in fatigues coming in
trying to meet with  him he would have
nothing to do with that
but they were not at that point ready to
write him off as a communist but that
really within months they were they got
to that point
in New york for the General Assembly session as the greatest gathering of world  leaders in modern times
all vying for the friendship and support of the african states
one of the most fateful of many informal meetings in New York
was that of Khruschev and fidel castro whose threat to western hemisphere solidarity
was backround for Ike's talks with Pan-American leaders
Castro was closely aligned with the communist block
and seized almost all United States property in cuba I've never
read anybody who said this directly
but I get this sense that eisenhower was a
fellow
who being very accomplished in having
worked hard and being quite smart
really tended to stand
on dignity he had a high sense of his own
dignity and you know you gassin
trample on that eisenhower
was a very good cold war president I
have to say and I
didn't not really think of him  this way
before right before I wrote this book
I mean that the image of Eisenhower 
was you know had one hand on the
tiller of state and  another hand on a nine
iron
he basically was often wasn't involved
in anything
really what  he was what he did is he
downplayed
things yeah would which is so different
from what Kennedy did when he came in
and everything became very heightened the  rhetoric became very high
on the day of his inauguration President Kennedy's speech 
is brief and stirring Let the word go forth 
from this time and place
to friend and foe alike
that the torch has passed to a new generation of Americans
born in this century tempered
by war
disciplined by a hard and bitter peace proud of our ancient heritage
and unwilling to witness or commit the small undoing
of those human rights to  which this nation
has always been committed and to which  
we are committed today
at home and around the world a significant portions is addressed to Latin America Republic
To our sister republics south of our border we offer a special pledge
to convert our good words into good deeds
in a new alliance for progress to assist free men and 
free government in 
casting off the chains of poverty but this peaceful revolution of hope
cannot become the prey of hostile powers
all our neighbors know
that we shall join with them
to oppose aggression or subversion
anywhere in the Americas 
that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of it's own house
eisenhower tried not to raise the
stakes
yeah he didn't  constantly he letother
people talk about
the communist I mean richard nixon was good at talking about you know
the communist invasion eisenhower didn't
get involved in that he did have a
kind of quiet dignity about him  that
some people mistook
for not being very involved you know in
recent years there have been a number of histories
of biographies about eisenhower that have come out and shown very clearly how involved he was
and he certainly was involved in covert
activity I learned that I mean he
he had a very hands-on approach tho that
yeah
as you  said he was responsible for
Guatemala he was responsible for
what happened in Iran which the Iranians
have not forgotten about to this day 
it's one of  the problems between the two
countries
to this day  and and a few other things
 it was all behind
the scenes whereas
Kennedy makes it an inaugural speech
which is let the word go forth to
friend and foe alike that we will spare
no anything did
make sure woah this is a little nuts
he gives a  lot of speeches like that 
this was this came over extraordinarily well at that time
yeah but in the light of history you say 
my god it was almost
inviting disaster well it I mean you
know particularly when you
I mean kennedy ran on the so-called
missile gap this
this this idea that United States had
fewer nuclear weapons
than the Soviet Union which was hogwash
we knew very well for our U2's  that we
had many more nuclear warheads
and weapons and missiles than the Soviets
now eisenhower couldn't
advertise that fact because he'd be giving away spy technology and
yes intelligence but the truth of the
matter is
as Kennedy knew  we had four times as
many missiles
as the Soviet Union and we had a 17 to
one advantage
in nuclear warheads  so we were kennedy knew this yes kennedy knew this 
so were way ahead
of the Soviet Union I mean kennedy 
may not have known this when he was
running for president  he knew
he certainly knew there was no no
missile gap that was
that was bogus but it was good politics
but once he became president he of
course new yeah that we were far
superior
and so these  statements that he would
make provocative statements they scared
Khruschev
he gave you know for examples after the
bay of pigs he gave an interview
to stewart alsop
 and in which he
hinted at the possibility of nuclear
first strike
now kennedy would never have done that and
it was really a
a tough statement for you know to
placate his
people on the right Hawks in the  United States
but a very dangerous thing to say
because Khruschev did read that and he
thought my god the
kennedy's  actually thinking about a 
nuclear first strike
sometimes kennedy was so
rhetorically gifted but he would
sometimes let the rhetoric
get so heated
that it caused things to happen that
shouldn't happen you know you
is a very common human phenomenon it is 
I'm not justifying it I'm simply saying 
that you know
people over speak  themselves the
problem is the opponent
we are told all the time now all the
time
for the last thirty years don't listen to what the guy
says watch what he
watch what he does right baloney
baloney absolute baloney you never know
whether he might end up doing
what he says  yes you know and of
course during the Cold War
it was all words I mean or or putting in
missiles and stuff but I mean
it wasn't actually gonna come to blows
it couldn't come to blows or the world
would end
so rhetoric mattered tremendously yes yes
and and any it mattered in the elections
and and based on what you tell me. maybe
nixon had a point
nixon always thought that the
election of 1960 was stolen from him in
various different ways
yeah including by Mayor Daley but then
the republicans still
you know I get right right but he
also thought that
you point this out in the book dulles
had told
Kennedy about the plans and  nixon
couldn't reply because
even after he was told about the plans
to do something
with cuba Kennedy kept saying we gotta
get rid castro we gotta get rid castro
knowing that nixon couldn't come back and say
 we have a plan we'll take care 
well you know you read things like
that and on the one hand nixon is
such a bad human being and president that you 
say ahh
baloney but then  you hear what you have to say  and hey maybe not such baloney
yeah it it it's a great story about what
happened is
is before the 4th debate the famous
kennedy-nixon debates
Kennedy released a statement in which he
said the 
Eisenhower administration should be
supporting
cuban exiles to go back and overthrow fidel 
castro of course that's exactly what the
Eisenhower administration
was doing covertly when nixon read this
he went ballistic he said clearly
somebody told Kennedy
that we were having this covert
operation 
and nixon had  been one of the main proponents of the  operation but he could not so
they go into the debate
this fourth debate and  nixon you know couldn't very well stand up
and say well that's exactly what we're
doing
but nixon did something
you know strange  you know
very Nixonian in a way he he made a very
strong statement
of why it  would be an awful idea to
support exiles to go in  to cuba
and overthrow fidel castro 
and give a very coherent and intelligent
argument for why
an invasion of supporting these exiles was
a bad idea
but you know exactly the opposite of
what he actually believed yeah
and he referred to that as his
unpleasant
and ironic duty yeah yeah  and that is
a
really interesting point in
understanding richard nixon because
he also  later wrote of  that that's the first
time
that he  really thought he'd been he'd been
sandbagged he thought by kennedy
and he has a great statement where he
says something like
I vowed at that point never to be beaten
by the kennedys  or anybody on the level of political tactics
and you sort of  see the beginning of
watergate in those words that he is
you know he's he's he thought that the
kennedys played dirty pool
and that's how you win you gotta play
dirty pool and
he became committed to that that line of
thought
this party Republican Party has  stood still
really for 25 years its leadership has
it opposed all of the  programs of
president roosevelt and others
for minimum wag and for  housing economic growth and
development of our natural resources
and I believe that if we can get a party
which believes that movement which believes
in going ahead
then we can reestablish our position in
the world strong defense
strong economic growth justice for our
people guarantee of constitutional rights
so the people will believe that we
practice what we preach and then
around the world particularly to try to
reestablish the atmosphere which existed
in Latin America at the time of 
franklin roosevelt he was a good
neighbor in Latin America because he was a 
good neighbor in the United States
because they saw us is a society that
was compassionate that
cared about people it was moving this
country ahead
I believe it my responsibility as the
leader of the democratic party in
nineteen sixty
to try to warn the American people that
in this crucial time we can no longer
afford to stand still
we can no longer afford to be second
best I want people all over the world
to look to the united states again to
feel that we're on the move
to feel that are high noon is in the
future I want mister Khrushchev to know
that a new generation of Americans
who fought in Europe in Italy in the pacific
for freedom in world war 2 have now taken
over in the United States
that they're going to put this country
back to work again I don't believe that
there's anything this country cannot do
I don't believe there's any burden any
responsibility any american would not
assume
to protect his country protect our
security to advance the cause of freedom
and I believe it incumbent upon us now
to do that
franklin roosevelt said  in 1936 that that
generation of Americans
had a rendezvous with destiny I believe
in 1960 and 61 and two and three
we have a rendezvous with destiny and I
believe it incumbent upon us
to be the defenders of the  United States and the defenders of freedom
and to do that you must give this
country leadership
we must get america moving again isn't there a
rather significant
significant body  of opinion these days that
hold they did play dirty pool yeah I
think there's
the plan  now eisenhower later said I
guess that in the area under his
administration there was no
plan there was a program in other words
we decided we were going to get  rid of 
castro
thats the program but we didn't have any
plans about how are you going to do it
that's the way I
interpret that yeah it's a semantic
difference I'm not really sure
it meant a lot to eisenhower it's never
really meant a lot to anyone else
yeah I think what he meant by a program
is
eisenhower had this for a year I
a lot of things were done under
eisenhower
you had training camps in Guatemala you
had an Air Force been assembled for the
cuban exiles to take out castro
you had ships I mean a huge amount of
logistical stuff happening an invasion
really being prepared in you have
Eisenhower
supporting it in fact even suggesting
shortly before you left the presidency to 
make it bigger
 but he did later
say you know it wasn't a plan I
think what he meant was there was no green light
and there also no landing site had been
chosen yet
I mean a lot of what Eisenhower would have considered to be a plan a full
plan was not yet in place 
but the whole the whole
snowball was rolling and was very large
by the time that eisenhower left office
and I think you can't
he tried to remove himself from any
blame and I think that
he was being  a bit unfair to to Kennedy
it didn't just
it didnt' just start the day kennedy came
into office it was
this this I said really more like a freight
train
and Kennedy basically didn't  know what to
do
 to stop it it would be like saying we
had no plan to invade normandy in March
1944 right exactly yeah about thank you
very much
it's been a  delightful opportunity to speak with you  thank you
and to  the audience thank you for being
with us
and I hope that you will stay the tuned
as it were
for the next installment of books of our
time
when we will bring you part 2 of this 
interview on the Bay of Pigs and all
sorts of Associated problems
with Jim Rasenburger  I'm not asking your
newspapers to support an
administration but I am asking your help
the tremendous task informing and
alerting
the American people for I have complete
confidence
and the response and dedication of our
citizens whenever they are fully
informed
I not only could not stifle controversy
among your readers
I welcome this administration intends to
be candid about a terrorist
for as a wise man once said an era
doesn't become a mistake
until you refuse to correct
