Word: cuba
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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King, finally, has refused to shut up about his love affair with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. The then-state representative had been linked with the pro-Soviet leader ever since King missed a crucial tie vote in the House because he was vacationing in Cuba as a guest of Castro. A week before the preliminary, he said on a radio talk show that he "preferred" Castro to President Reagan because Castro had done more to help the poor. He has, himself, brought up the Castro several times since then...
...tapes establish that J.F.K. and his advisers did exactly that. The heavily censored records cover a morning and an evening meeting in the White House on Oct. 16,1962, the day after U.S. photo reconnaissance proved that the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Initially, the planners more or less assumed that the U.S. would have to take direct military action. President Kennedy at one point described an air strike, at least on the missiles, as something "we're certainly going to do." His prime question then was whether the action could be kept limited or would have...
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were dubious about the prospects for a "surgical" strike limited to the missiles. If the U.S. wanted to "knock out" all Soviet weapons capable of hitting American soil from Cuba, said McNamara, it would have to bomb "airfields, plus the aircraft... plus all potential nuclear [warhead] storage sites." The President's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, fretted that such extensive bombing would "kill an awful lot of people," in which case it would be "almost incumbent on the Russians" to threaten a strong counterblow, perhaps...
Toward the close of the evening meeting, McNamara eloquently pleaded that the planners consider "what kind of world we live in after we've struck Cuba ... how do we stop at that point?" Instead of an air strike, McNamara began talking of a blockade, accompanied by "an ultimatum" to the Soviets, which he conceded would have dangers also. Said he: "This alternative doesn't seem to be a very acceptable one, but wait until you work on the others." That provoked grim laughter, but after many more meetings a blockade was decided on. It ultimately drew overwhelming support...
...surprise that the violence in Grenada angered Desi Bouterse, the paranoid dictator of Suriname (pop. 350,000), about 600 miles away on the coast of South America. What raised eyebrows was that Bouterse, a self-styled Marxist, directed his wrath not against the U.S. but against his ally Cuba. Last week he abruptly expelled Havana's Ambassador, giving him six days to get out of the country, and suspended all Cuban cultural and education agreements. Bouterse's explanation: "The leadership of the Suriname revolution is convinced that a repetition of developments in Grenada should be prevented here...