Obama, Iran, Kennedy, Kruschev "He treated me like a little boy, like a little boy.’ "

May 23, 2008

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Fyodor M. Burlatsky, a speechwriter for Khrushchev said at a meeting held in 1987 assessing the Cuban Missile Crisis that the reasons Kruschev installed the nuclear weapons in Cuba was due to a belief that the US was going to invade and (from the NYT here),

“‘Mr. Burlatsky stressed that Khrushchev, who met Kennedy in Vienna in 1961, believed that the American President was ”very young, very intelligent, but not very strong.””

That’s a generous recollection of the meeting, a meeting which convinced Kruschev that the American President was a chump, full of his own arrogance. The President himself was much less generous about his own performance at the meeting that had no preconditions (here),…American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.
Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

The fallout?
“A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among
them.”

From The Swamp here:

Historian Robert Dallek, in his eminently informative and entertaining Kennedy biography “An Unfinished Life” says the Soviet general secretary’s “behavior irritated and frustrated Kennedy, since Krushchev did a good job of seeming somewhat unhinged, at turns, congenial then bellicose with the young president.

As Dallek writes:

“A British journalist who saw (Kennedy) as he escorted Krushchev to his car thought (Kennedy) looked ‘dazed.’ Pacing the floor of his bedroom in the embassy, (Kennedy) exclaimed, “He treated me like a little boy, like a little boy.’ “

And where is Barack Obama on the issue of Iran? Would he be treated like “a little boy, like a little boy?” (meant in the way Kennedy meant it and NOT racial slur, so save your breath hatas). Well, the American Thinker here goes through Obama’s changing, correcting, recorrecting, ever changing opinions, beliefs—who knows–on Iran:

Obama in 2004:

“…us launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in,” he said.

“On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse. So I guess my instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the possession of the ruling clerics of Iran. . . . And I hope it doesn’t get to that point. But realistically, as I watch how this thing has evolved, I’d be surprised if Iran blinked at this point.”

Obama taking back what he said in 2004 in an interview with his big fan Nicolas Kristoff:

Even when at one point he seemed to indicate an openness to looking at military options to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, he quickly eviscerated that option by stating that it did not even exist. He unilaterally has taken off the table an important bargaining chip. What a negotiator! He is quoted, ” And I think the exact quote at the time was, you know, If there was a way of disabling a nuclear facility without any collateral damage, then that would certainly be an option we’d want to take into account. You know, I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial statement. But the – but those options don’t exist.” Now you see it now you don;t. The endless shell game that is Barack Obama.

And last week in Oregon:

Iran, Cuba, Venezuela-these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet.

And the next day:

“Iran is a grave threat.”

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com