My America, My Homeland Part 3

John F. Kennedy | Biography, Siblings, Party, Assassination, & Facts | Britannica

John Kennedy (1961-1963) was elected President and approved the initial invasion. It was to be a mission led by CIA paramilitary leaders with U.S. trained Cuban exiles.  It was assumed that the President would authorize anything once the troops were on the ground to guarantee success, but without air support, this became a failed mission; Kennedy had a black eye and had to eat crow; Castro was suspicious of another attack.  Because American missiles had been deployed to Italy and Turkey by Eisenhower years earlier, the Soviet Union now openly deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba which began the Cuban Missile Crisis. After intense negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev, missiles were dismantled and agreements were made to avoid further invasions.

                                                     

With this, I entered grade school and school children were now subjected to emergency drills where we were taught to take cover under our desk. Civil defense drills across the city were implemented with loud sirens being tested every Saturday at noon.  Vernon built fallout shelters, one of which I remember being in the Wilbarger Auditorium just across the street from the school.  Though I don’t remember much discussion about communism, there was great concern in the air. Afterwards there was a great distrust that the Soviet Union would instigate a nuclear war, and I felt that the term “Soviet Union” was a dirty word.