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.
