Political background
Before being president of the USA, John F. Kennedy was a democratic senator from Massachusetts. He won the 1960 presidential election and had already some "enemies"...
First, the former president Eisenhower himself : Eisenhower always considered John Kennedy too young and inexperienced to be a
serious president (He referred to him as "the boy"
and "young whippersnapper"). When Kennedy won
the election, Eisenhower considered it as his own greatest defeat. He abhorred
Kennedy's big spending as president and his passive response to the building
of the Berlin Wall. He also called the new president's challenge to race the
Russians to the moon a "stunt".
On March
1960, Eisenhower approved a program of covert action against the castro regime. The objective was presented as follows : to replace the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of
the Cuban people and more acceptable to the USA, in such a manner to avoid any
appearance of US intervention. On August of the same year, Eisenhower approved a budget of $13 million for the
operation. On November 1960, directors of the CIA briefed new president John Kennedy on
the plans and Eisenhower persuaded him of their merit.
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| USA presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Fitzgerald Kennedy |
Than, the Cuban leader Fidel Castro : President John F. Kennedy stood against him in order to keep the United States safe. Looking into the Kennedy foreign policy towards Cuba demonstrates how he believed that Castro’s regime was a very important player in the Cold War. For some American people, Kennedy was obsessed with Castro : why would he waste his time focusing on the tiny island of Cuba? How would the world perceive the United States when they feared a dictator? Was it because they were so close to US soil? Or was removing Castro a way to show the USSR that he was in control?
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| Cuban leader Fidel Castro (left) and US president John Fitzgerald Kennedy (right) |
