# Bush as the opposite of JFK **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 19, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446 "2003-03-19T03:30:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446/21 "2003-03-19T15:56:08Z")
My memory is foggy on what he thinks should have been done, but I believe it was something along the lines of allowing Khruschev to save face by publicly admitting that the U.S. was going to remove the missiles in Turkey at the same time as the Russians were going to dismantle their missile bases in Cuba. The public humiliation of Khruschev was a factor in his downfall, not only according to Wills, but also according to his son, Sergey: > [@](#): > > While the Cuban missile crisis may have enabled Kennedy to ‘walk tall’ in the face of Soviet expansionism, it also brought a premature and somewhat paradoxical end to he career of one of the Soviet Union’s most progressive leaders, ushering in the bleak conservatism of the Breshnev era. Tonight we are privileged to be able to discuss the career of Nikita Khrushchev with his son SERGEI N. KHRUSHCHEV. from [http://wgnradio.com/shows/ex720/list200006.htm](http://wgnradio.com/shows/ex720/list200006.htm) I found this review on the Web, with the following passage: > [@](#): > > John J. McCloy, who implemented the decision to intern the Japanese-Americans after 1941, and who chaired the committee that decided on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and who ran occupied Germany as a satrapy after the war, and who was later to serve as a trusty on the Warren Commission, and who was in every other respect the hardest of imperial and Cold War hardliners, told Theodore Sorensen after the Bay of Pigs that ‘even if the Soviet Union had missile bases in Cuba - which it hasn’t - why would we have any more right to invade Cuba than Khrushchev has to invade Turkey?’ This is the point to keep one’s eye on, because it was based on the same pragmatic logic that Khrushchev himself was to employ. By applying pressure in Cuba, he secured the withdrawal of the roughly equivalent American Jupiter missiles in Turkey, but only at huge and unconscionable risk and only on the condition that no such deal or quid pro quo was ever mentioned in public. The Kennedys lied about this deal to Congress, to the American voters, and to the then hapless Vice-President Johnson. ‘Face’, you see. JFK placed a high value on face … (At some remove, however, this needless war of nerves was to assist Brezhnev and his allies in toppling Khrushchev. An uncounted cost of the Cuban adventure is that it cost the pre-Gorbachev reformists a generation, which Eastern Europeans had to live through - and which the luckless Cubans still do.) from [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n04/hitc01\_.html](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n04/hitc01_.html) Point being, at the time it was seen as a triumph, now, the view appears to be coming around to one of having destroyed a chance to get reform and a friendlier regime in the USSR a full generation ahead of Gorbachev by insisting on humiliating Khruschev. **Debaser** : Bush has high _domestic_ approval ratings. Internationally, his approval ratings would be somewhat lower. My admittedly 40 year old memory is that Kennedy’s situation was the opposite. See **lure** ’s post above, who explained the reason why rather well. So, is there anyone out there willing to go against the consensus and say that Bush has scored a diplomatic coup that we’re only going to be able to appreciate years down the line? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446/22 "2003-03-19T18:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > is there anyone out there willing to go against the consensus and say that Bush has scored a diplomatic coup that we’re only going to be able to appreciate years down the line? Yes, but only if one particular thing happens. If, after the whole thing is over, the Iraqi people manage to pull off a 1960s-Japanese-style “Economic and Westernization Miracle” and transform themselves into a bustling, booming 21st century Open Society showpiece for Western-Style Capitalism, then, in the year 2050, the various pundits will look back and say, “Yes, Bush made the right decision.” ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_of\_Sandwhich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/91b2a8/32.png) [@Earl\_of\_Sandwhich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_of_Sandwhich)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446/23 "2003-03-19T19:08:50Z")
Kennedy and Bush both earned “Gentleman’s C’s” at Harvard and Yale, respectively. They both talk with funky accents. They both beat sitting vice-presidents. They each have an enfant terrible in the family: Noelle Bush might be considered the Ted Kennedy of the the Bush family. Each chose a running mate who was older and more experienced. Now, what I’d like to know is why Bush’s old man is the opposite of Harry Truman. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446/24 "2003-03-19T22:16:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose \* > Yes, but only if one particular thing happens. If, after the whole thing is over, the Iraqi people manage to pull off a 1960s-Japanese-style “Economic and Westernization Miracle” and transform themselves into a bustling, booming 21st century Open Society showpiece for Western-Style Capitalism, then, in the year 2050, the various pundits will look back and say, “Yes, Bush made the right decision.” Or, how about just if they are no longer ruled by a ruthless dictator who murders, tortures and rapes them systematically in between starting costly wars with their neighbors. Would that be a success to? Or do they have to be the next Japan in order for Bush to be making the right decision? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-as-the-opposite-of-jfk/162446.md?page=1)