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Landslide
PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
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WE ARE OPEN - WEEK THREE - PRESIDENTIAL SERIES: LANDSLIDE - December 15th - December 21st - Chapter Three-No Spoilers, Please
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Martin
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Yes, to all the above, except for Black Jack misbehaving. He was most majesterial along the passage I witnessed; and I don't remember seeing Lyndon during the procession.
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Interesting about Lyndon and you not remembering him.
Speaking of Jackie and gifts of cattle, it should be remembered that she spent part of her youth in Middleburg, Va., a beautiful part of a beautiful state. Her family had one of the many estates (one doesn't farm in Middleburg) there and Jackie was an equestrian. A photo of her ending an unscheduled dismount made the papers soon after JFK's inauguration and she complained to the commander in chief about it.JFK is reported to have told her something along the lines of: "You're the first lady now. And, when the first lady falls on her can, it's news."
There's something of a myth that has attached itself to Jackie. But at least in her teen years, she had moments that reflected her circumstances. After a significant snow, she ordered her horse saddled for a ride in the snow. The stable master pointed out to her that it was far too dangerous for the horse to ride under the circumstances.
She insisted.
He refused.
She threw a shoe.
He walked away.
By the bye, as you can tell, it's primarily about horses down in Middleburg (still is, as the US Olympic team spends much of its season there). But there is some beef being farmed there, although it does tend to be the superior angus. So, LBJ's bovine offering, while a little on the Hee Haw side of things, wasn't as outlandish as it might have seemed.
I think Darman puts it well describing the loss the Kennedy advisers felt. it was more than just power influence:"The dead president, with his wit and his charm and his erudition and his good looks, had taken the grubby work of politics and infused it with glamour, taken the drudgery of policy work and made it into the stuff of high purpose. Working for him, his aides felt like better, brighter versions of themselves." (p. 66-67)
Martin wrote: "Speaking of Jackie and gifts of cattle, it should be remembered that she spent part of her youth in Middleburg, Va., a beautiful part of a beautiful state. Her family had one of the many estates (o..."Ahhh...thanks Martin. That clarifies the gift a little bit better then. Still a little weird imo but your post gives some perspective on it.
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Teri wrote: "I was born a year and a half after Kennedy was assassinated. I have seen plenty of pictures and videos of the assassination, days after, and the funeral. I am always amazed at how well Jackie sta..."The origin of the "Camelot" analogy surprised me too. I always thought it was the product of one of those "bright young men" who surrounded Kennedy, or a desperate magazine writer trying to find something to say that hadn't been said.
Speaking of the "bright young men," I'm pretty surprised that anyone thought they could get LBJ to say in a speech that he couldn't fill Kennedy's shoes. They may have pushed him around some in those first few days, and Johnson apparently cut them some slack out of respect for their grief - but there were limits and Sorenson found one with that speech.
I have read Johnson's speech before, but it is an amazing speech, regardless of how many times one reads it. I think LBJ and JFK both underestimated each other.
Johnson underestimated Kennedy because Kennedy, as a senator, was more or less a nonentity. Kennedy underestimated Johnson because he was a poorly schooled guy from Texas.
Of course, Bobby was the attack dog of the family; but how much of this was his assigned role and how much was his personality?
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Who would have thought that it came from Jackie and boy did it stick.
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Absolutely - they all thought that they were vastly superior to LBJ and they could push him around. Sorenson crossed the line with that sentence.
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I think LBJ and JFK both underestimated each other.
Johnson underestimated Kennedy b..."
I think it was his personality Peter and I also think that there is a great possibility that Jack would have lived to a ripe old age if he had not listened to his father and placed Bobby in the Attorney General's slot. But JFK kept some rough company some of the time and he with this risky behavior also created some exposure.
Justin wrote: "Michael wrote: "This may count as my answer (at least in part) to the question posted above by Peter, "1. Do you think that if JFK had let LBJ loose, he could have done more on civil rights?"I am..."
I agree. I had a much different image of Bobby Kennedy prior to this read. He seemed to struggle just to tolerate some people that were supposed to be on the same team.
A brief mention early in the chapter caught my attention. I mentioned JFK's weariness on the early efforts in Vietnam. And once he was gone, the policy was already in place where LBJ couldn't pull back. I can't help but wonder if he would have been in office longer if their would have been a better chance for withdrawal from there or would it have been difficult for even Kennedy to reverse course here?
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I think he was already reversing course David - we spoke about that on an earlier thread but who knows if it would have stuck.
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Yes, it seemed his brother was his universe but on the other hand I thought Bobby had problems with power and handling power.
Dave wrote: "The origin of the "Camelot" analogy surprised me too. I always thought it was the product of one of those "bright young men" who surrounded Kennedy, or a desperate magazine writer trying to find something to say that hadn't been said."The book End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson corroborates it.
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James L. Swanson
I thought one of the most interesting insights in this chapter was that Kennedy reached the greatness of Lincoln with the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. (See p. 73.) So perhaps he wouldn't have done as well as Johnson on civil rights, but he might have found a way out of Vietnam.
Martin and Bentley,Can you please explain what you meant about "inverted books" at the funeral?
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Look at the boots in the stirrups of Black Jack or even Sgt. York the horse at Reagan's state funeral - all of them have boots facing backwards - supposedly to get a last minute look at one's family and loved ones.
Ha, ha. Bentley, you're such a card.Ann - the typo might very well have been an error on my part. I do try to look my posts over before submitting, but I am a gawd awful copy editor.
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I agree Kressel and I think based upon what the documents that have been released show - you can be sure that he was thinking about Vietnam a great deal before he died. And he would have been able to control McNamara and the other's thinking so they would have adopted his point of view - they all looked up to him and his opinion and decisions would have mattered to them a great deal.
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Obama Announces U.S. and Cuba Will Resume Relations
By PETER BAKERDEC. 17, 2014
WASHINGTON — The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, President Obama announced on Wednesday.
In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.
The surprise announcement represented a dramatic turning point in more than five decades of hostility born in the depths of the Cold War and yet frozen in time long after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Once a geopolitical flash point in a global struggle of ideology and power, Cuba obsessed American leaders of a different era, who sponsored covert schemes like the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 aimed at toppling Fidel Castro, the charismatic revolutionary leader. A move by the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles in Cuba led to a 13-day showdown in 1962 and the most perilous moment of the nuclear era.
In more recent years, the Cuban-American relationship faded in significance yet remained a thorn in the side of multiple presidents who waited for Mr. Castro’s demise and experienced false hope when he passed power to his brother, Raúl. Even today, Cuba remains a powerful touchstone in American politics, and critics characterized Mr. Obama’s diplomatic thaw as appeasement of the hemisphere’s leading dictatorship.
Mr. Obama has long expressed hope of transforming relations with the island nation, an aspiration that remained untenable as long as Cuba held Alan P. Gross, the American government contractor arrested in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison. In agreeing to free him, Cuba cleared the way for Mr. Obama to take a political risk with the last national election of his presidency behind him.
Mr. Gross traveled on an American government plane back to the United States late Wednesday morning, and the United States sent back three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001. American officials said the Cuban spies were swapped for a United States intelligence agent who had been in a Cuban prison for nearly 20 years, and said Mr. Gross was not technically part of the swap, but was released separately on “humanitarian grounds.”
In addition, the United States will ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking relations, and Cuba will release 53 Cuban prisoners identified as political prisoners by the United States government. Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the president called for an “honest and serious debate about lifting” it, which would require an act of Congress.
“These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s time for a new approach.”
Addressing critics of his new approach, he said he shares their commitment to freedom. “The question is how we uphold that commitment,” he said. “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.”
Mr. Castro spoke simultaneously on Cuban television, taking to the airwaves with no introduction and announcing that he had spoken by telephone with Mr. Obama.
“We have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations,” he announced, emphasizing the release of the three Cubans. “President Obama’s decision deserves the respect and acknowledgment of our people.”
Only afterward did he mention the reopening of diplomatic relations. “This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been resolved,” he said. “The economic, commercial and financial blockade, which causes enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.” But, he added, “the progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.”
Mr. Castro acknowledged that Mr. Obama was easing the blockade through his executive authority and called on the United States government to go further to “remove the obstacles that impede or restrict the links between our peoples, the families and the citizens of both our countries.”
Mr. Gross, accompanied by his wife, Judy, and three members of Congress, landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington shortly before noon. His sister, Bonnie Rubinstein, was “beyond ecstatic” at the news, according to her husband, Harold. “We are extremely grateful that he’s on his way home,” Mr. Rubinstein said by telephone from Dallas. “It’s been a long ordeal.”
Secretary of State John Kerry landed at Andrews shortly afterward and met with Mr. Gross, his wife, other members of his family and his lawyer, Scott Gilbert. While the meeting was unplanned, a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said it gave Mr. Kerry a chance to “express his overwhelming happiness that Alan Gross is now free and reunited with his family on American soil.”
At a news conference in Washington, Mr. Gross said he supported Mr. Obama’s move toward normalizing relations with Cuba, adding that his own ordeal and the injustice with which Cuban people have been treated were “a consequence of two governments’ mutually belligerent policies.”
“Five and a half decades of history show us that such belligerence inhibits better judgment,” Mr. Gross said. “Two wrongs never make a right. This is a game-changer, which I fully support.”
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and a son of Cuban immigrants who may run for president in 2016, denounced the new policy as “another concession to a tyranny” and a sign that Mr. Obama’s administration is “willfully ignorant of the way the world truly works.”
“This whole new policy is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people,” Mr. Rubio said. “All this is going to do is give the Castro regime, which controls every aspect of Cuban life, the opportunity to manipulate these changes to stay in power.”
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was also sharply critical. “Let’s be clear, this was not a ‘humanitarian’ act by the Castro regime. It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American,” Mr. Menendez said in a written statement. “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government.”
Mr. Obama spoke with Mr. Castro by telephone on Tuesday to finalize the agreement in a call that lasted more than 45 minutes, the first direct contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 50 years, American officials said.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were severed in January 1961 after the rise of Fidel Castro and his Communist government. Mr. Obama has instructed Mr. Kerry to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba about re-establishing diplomatic relations and to begin the process of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism, which it has been on since 1982, the White House said.
Officials said they would re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the two governments within months. Mr. Obama will send an assistant secretary of state to Havana next month for talks on Cuban-American migration and will attend a Summit of the Americas meeting along with Mr. Castro. The United States will begin working with Cuba on issues like counternarcotics, environmental protection and human trafficking.
The United States will also ease travel restrictions across all 12 categories currently envisioned under limited circumstances in American law, including family visits, official visits, journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, and public performances, officials said. Ordinary tourism, however, will remain prohibited.
Mr. Obama will also allow greater banking ties, making it possible to use debit cards in Cuba, and raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. Intermediaries forwarding remittances will no longer require a specific license from the government.
American travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products.
The Vatican hailed the agreement. “The Holy Father wishes to express his warm congratulations for the historic decision taken by the governments of the United States of America and Cuba to establish diplomatic relations, with the aim of overcoming, in the interest of the citizens of both countries, the difficulties which have marked their recent history,” it said in a statement.
Mr. Gross’s health has been failing. He reportedly lost more than 100 pounds in prison and is losing vision in his right eye. He went on a nine-day hunger strike in April. After turning 65 in May, he told relatives that he might try to kill himself if not released soon.
Three members of Congress were on the plane that picked up Mr. Gross in Cuba on Wednesday and accompanied him back to the United States, officials said: Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.
Mr. Gross was in Cuba to deliver satellite telephone equipment that was capable of cloaking connections to the Internet when he was arrested in 2009. The Cuban authorities, who tightly control access to the Internet in their country, initially said he was a spy, and a court there convicted him of bringing in the devices without a permit as part of a subversive plot to “destroy the revolution.”
Mr. Gross’s case drew increasing attention as his health deteriorated. He grew despondent and talked of suicide, and his wife, Judy Gross, and other supporters made urgent pleas for his release, but off-and-on diplomatic talks seemed to go nowhere.
Cuba has often raised the case of three of its spies serving federal prison time in Florida, saying they had been prosecuted unjustly and urging that they be released on humanitarian grounds. State Department officials insisted that the cases were not comparable and that Mr. Gross was not an intelligence agent.
The three Cuban agents were part of the Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network, in Florida along with two other Cuban agents. Mr. Obama used his clemency power to commute their sentences, and they were flown to Cuba by the United States Marshals Service, according to the Justice Department.
The unnamed United States intelligence agent traded for them returned to American soil on Wednesday as well. That agent, described by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence only as “a Cuban individual,” has been imprisoned in Cuba for nearly two decades.
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Officials said he was instrumental in identifying the Cuban agents who were sent back on Wednesday. Separately, he also provided information that led to the conviction of Ana Belén Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst; Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official; and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers.
“In light of his sacrifice on behalf of the United States, securing his release from prison after 20 years — in a swap for three of the Cuban spies he helped put behind bars — is fitting closure to this Cold War chapter of U.S.-Cuban relations,” the intelligence director’s office said in a statement.
Mr. Gross worked for Development Alternatives, of Bethesda, Md., and had traveled to more than 50 countries as an international development worker. The company had a $6 million contract with the United States Agency for International Development to distribute equipment that could get around Cuba’s Internet blockade, and Mr. Gross had made four previous trips to Cuba in 2009.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the former New Mexico governor and cabinet secretary Bill Richardson and several members of Congress appealed for Mr. Gross’s release, along with Jewish advocacy groups in the United States.
After visiting Mr. Gross in November, Mr. Flake, a longtime advocate of loosening the 50-year-old American trade embargo with Cuba, said he was optimistic that the case would be resolved.
American lawmakers who have drawn attention to Mr. Gross’s case celebrated his departure from Cuba. “Today, news of Alan’s release brings great relief to his loved ones and to every American who has called for his freedom,” said Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas. “I admire Alan’s strength and that of his wife Judy, who has worked tirelessly for years to free Alan and reunite her family.”
The American government has spent $264 million over the last 18 years, much of it through the development agency, in an effort to spur democratic change in Cuba. The agency said in November that it would cease the kinds of operations that Mr. Gross was involved in when he was arrested, as well as those, disclosed by The Associated Press, that allowed a contractor to set up a Twitter-like social network that hid its ties to the United States government.
Source: Reporting was contributed by Michael R. Gordon and Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington, David Gonzalez from New York and Randal C. Archibold from Mexico City.
Videos and other photographs:
Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/wor...
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Discussion Topics:
What are your thoughts on this recent development in terms of the past which we are reading about in Landslide and today's surprising announcement?
Bentley wrote: "Discussion Topics:What are your thoughts on this recent development in terms of the past which we are reading about in Landslide and today's surprising announcement? "
It's about time!
I think we are going to see a lot of partisan arguing over the issue; however, I think we have a new generation of government with both countries, even though Fidel is still around and personally I think, any friendly communication between the countries is positive.
Agreed, Peter and Teri. As an old timer, I look at our current relations with Vietnam and potential relations with Cuba and think - what was the point?!
Back in the day, I can remember a Cuban refugee addressing our school about the evils of communism. While I had great sympathy for her story, I also had a question mark in the back of my head.
I also didn't realize that the Camelot idea came from Jackie Kennedy. Thought I add the song referred to on page 86.Camelot, 1968
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=ziTgos...
I found this chapter the best so far. I liked his description of JFK and how human he made him. Rather then some books that paint him as a God. I also learned something I did not know. That Jackie set up and interview. Also that she tried to paint John as the only ruler you could want for the country.
Though I knew LBJ thinks five steps ahead on any decision he makes. How to make himself look good using the coattails of the assassination and using John as a martyr.
Also using John's stalled legislation to propel himself forward with the people. Especially the civil rights bill which shows me he knew where the votes were going to be if he continued JFK's legacy.
It does make me wonder would he have considered the Civil Rights bill if the assassination of JFK did not take place and he was President?
Christopher wrote: "It does make me wonder would he have considered the Civil Rights bill if the assassination of JFK did not take place and he was President?"This book definitely makes it seem like LBJ was riding on JFK's coattails, and it was public love of JFK that probably propelled the bill to get passed, but my impression from Goodwin's book (speechwriter to both presidents; see citation below) was that LBJ really was a champion of civil rights. He grew up in the South, and he didn't like all the injustice that he saw. He genuinely believed in the cause.
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Richard N. Goodwin
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I also learned something I did not know. That Jacki..."
Christopher - you correctly point out how important it is to humanize the presidents in our minds because we frankly put a lot of pressure upon mortal men to do things that are superhuman.
Jackie was more influential than folks gave her credit for.
I have to say that I do not think that LBJ was doing himself any favors by being for civil rights - he was from Texas and the South and in fact that would ultimately have hurt him although its support was the right thing to do.
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Camelot, 1968
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=ziTgos..."
France your link does not really take us to where I imagine you wanted it to. You might want to change the link.
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Well I do not think it is a way of life we would want here. But communism is quite different from socialism in Europe. I think folks get confused here that these do not mean the same thing whatsoever. I am not sure if you were referring to that in your response. Communism however has had a long, tortured, and violent past in Russia and other countries.
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I think the point was and maybe some in Congress may feel similarly is that Cuba is so close that if the same situation happened as the Cuban Missile Crisis (reflects discussion about JFK in Landslide) we are in a situation where we would have to react and react strongly. Their relationship with Russia is not to be taken lightly. However, having said that it is better to have dialogue than not and if we can have embassies in dangerous parts of the world and Middle East - I think that actually Cuba would be safer and would do both countries a lot of good. And I think that it speaks to the religion of the country and people that all of the churches were ringing their bells in Cuba. For them, it means less isolation and maybe a better way of life. Tourism could help Cuba I am sure. And you make a valid point about Vietnam - if we can have a relationship with them or even Japan after everything that was done in wars between our country and theirs - then by all means what is the point of isolating little Cuba.
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I agree Teri - yawn, yawn.
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What are your thoughts on this recent development in terms of the past which we are reading about in Landslide and today's surprising announcement? "
It's about..."
Yes, Peter I agree. A step forward - one that I wondered any president would make frankly with the Castros in power. I still find it odd that so many of JFK's team are dead as well as JFK and his brother Bobby and Teddy for that matter now as well as Jackie and that Fidel and his brother live on. You have to wonder how this happens.
I think Darman illustrates an important point to LBJ's method of operation: he used JFK's rising mythical status to get the tax cuts and civil rights bills passed. It was a smart move.Jackie was great at building up JFK and the family continues it. They are very protective of all things Kennedy.
Bentley wrote: "We have been talking about the Cuban Crisis in relationship to JFK and at least one of the players - Fidel Castro is still around at 88 and poor JFK and most of his team are not - sad to say.Disc..."
Bentley wrote: "Alan Gross and his wife
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I think that its long overdue to normalize relations with Cuba. Its a much different world than it was fifty years ago. The Castros are nearing the end of their reign and they are no longer a puppet of the Soviet Union.
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Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief
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However I do think that it has been 50 years since the JFK era of the Cuban Missile Crisis and we are well aware of the havoc that Russia can wreak. So let us not put on our rose colored glasses just yet but I think that if we can normalize relations with Vietnam and with China who also have dictatorial or one party governments - then by all means - talking is better than not talking. I never could understand why we allow travel to Russia and the Olympics were held in Russia despite their stance on many things and yet little Cuba was shut off. It is Russia that is the problem in Cuba as it was 50 years ago and we haven't stopped travel to the Soviet Union.
Christopher,You wrote: "Though I knew LBJ thinks five steps ahead on any decision he makes. How to make himself look good using the coattails of the assassination and using John as a martyr.
Also using John's stalled legislation to propel himself forward with the people. Especially the civil rights bill which shows me he knew where the votes were going to be if he continued JFK's legacy.
I think you are right that LBJ used JFK's legacy to help him get what he wanted. This strategy reinforces to me what a clever politician he was. I differ in that I believe that he was honestly trying to do the right thing for the country, not just for himself. Of course, we should never forget that the Civil Right Bill would not have been possible without the support of the Republicans, but Kennedy's Civil Right bill was going nowhere until Johnson took over and figured out how to maneuver it past the the segregationist committee chairmen.
Bentley,Yes, I think it is definitely time for us to normalize relations with Cuba. The Cold War is over.
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I do agree with you Ann - LBJ knew where the bodies were buried and who needed what and why and knew how to use his "treatment" to get things done - come hell or high water.
In the end, I am in favor of the Cuba policy changes.Conservatives (and the Cuban exiles) argue we are capitulating to Castro, and already 4 million tourists come to Cuba, and billions of dollars are traded with Cuba, and the dictatorship stands. We do have a close history, not all good with the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, boat people, and even earlier with the Treaty of Relations (1903).
I think they make a point that maybe the full openness won't change the political future of Cuba. But, one thing we history lovers know, the future is so unpredictable, and I would rather have full diplomatic relations to help ease any crisis than not.
Also, the U.S. has a history of waiting things out, too.
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Yes the relationship with Cuba is tortured at best. And I agree that relations are better than no relations.
We can certainly see that in this case - we have waited 50 years and without the Pope - it may have been 50 more.
I wonder if all of the gossip or rumor mongering about Cuba's hand in what happened to JFK somehow also contributed to the 50 year old shut down. Many do not want to believe the Warren Commission - right or wrong. There will be those who will believe anything they hear one way or the other.
Bentley wrote: "I am not so sure about the latter however: http://www.sott.net/article/282015-Ru...However I do think that it has been 50 years since the JFK era of the Cuban Missile C..."
Excellent points Bentley- and I agree with what you've said. Relations are better than no relations, and there are things to consider in all of this. Is doing it quickly just for political points?
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The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
COUNSELOR: A Life at the Edge of History (other topics)A Nation of Immigrants (other topics)
Why England Slept (other topics)
The Letters of John F. Kennedy (other topics)
The Strategy Of Peace (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Theodore C. Sorensen (other topics)John Fitzgerald Kennedy (other topics)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (other topics)
Jack Bass (other topics)
Jack Bass (other topics)
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