The winner, Kennedy, was about to unleash another Cold War conflict. Nixon claimed that Kennedy was naive, too willing to compromise with the Soviets, and Kennedy responded that the Eisenhower cold war strategy was inept. His last words on the subject: "Today Cuba is lost for freedom." Nixon believed that the island was not a lost cause, and Kennedy declared that the Republican administration had failed to prevent a communist takeover. In the second nationally televise debate, Cuba was the foremost foreign policy issue discussed. The 1960 election campaign pitted Senator John Kennedy against Vice President Richard Nixon. on orders from the Eisenhower administration. An invasion force of Cuban dissidents were trained in Florida by the C.I.A. The United States was deeply concerned with a potential threat 90 miles from Florida. It would not surprise Americans in December of 1961 when Castro declared he was an adherent of Marxist-Lenin ideology. His one party government was an alarming replica of communist rule. Cuba was deemed to have crossed that line.įidel Castro who led the successful revolution against the Batista government in 1959, entered into a strong relationship with the Soviet Union. Those third world countries that were "non-aligned" were particular targets of the two camps. Each accelerated tensions, and each drove countries on the sidelines to join either the eastern or western bloc. The Cold War was part reality and part perception. The potential for a nuclear war would either be a deterrence or the end of the world as all knew it. Kennedy, to manage the Cold War conflicts that threatened a new world war. Any good will that existed between the United States and its World War 2 ally, the Soviet Union, had reached the breaking point in 1961.
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