{"id":73140,"date":"2017-07-01T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=73140"},"modified":"2017-07-01T08:34:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T12:34:47","slug":"the-delayed-answer-to-another-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=73140","title":{"rendered":"A Delayed Answer to Another Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over 2 months ago, in the comments to this article<\/a><\/em> there was a discussion concerning diplomacy and idiocy.\u00a0 During that discussion, one of our frequent commenters took the position that “Trump supports Erdogan” because the POTUS recently sent Ergodan a congratulatory telegram.\u00a0 He also stated this opinion about the current President’s actions:\u00a0 “At best it was idiotic. At best. But I find it far more troubling than that.”<\/p>\n

After reading that, I posed some follow-up questions to the individual:<\/p>\n

So, do you consider JFK \u201cchoosing\u201d to meet with an avowed enemy of the West and dictator (Khrushchev) in 1961 \u201cdiplomatic support\u201d for the dictator and enemy? Does that make JFK an enemy of the US?<\/p>\n

Or was JFK merely doing what US Presidents do \u2013 meet with foreign leaders, even those who are hostile, if the circumstances require?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later during the same discussion, I rephrased the questions more simply:<\/p>\n

Do you consider JFK an \u201cidiot\u201d for meeting with an avowed enemy of the West and dictator (Khrushchev) in Vienna in 1961? Was that \u201cdiplomatic support\u201d? If the answer in either case is, \u201cNo\u201d \u2013 why?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For some reason, I\u2019ve never gotten an answer to those questions \u2013 even though I\u2019ve reminded the individual concerned of them, repeatedly, over the past 2 months.\u00a0 Possible reasons why I\u2019m not getting an answer are obvious enough to suggest themselves.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not the point of my article here, so I\u2019m not going to dwell on those possible reasons for sidestepping the questions.<\/p>\n

Back on point:\u00a0 the fact that I\u2019ve gotten no answer in 2+ months leads me to believe I never will get an answer from the individual.\u00a0 So I\u2019m going to answer those questions myself.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/strong><\/p>\n

BLUF:\u00a0 No, JFK was obviously not an “enemy of the US”.\u00a0 And no – in general, JFK was not an “idiot”.\u00a0 But IMO JFK was<\/span> a fool to meet with Khrushchev at Vienna in June 1961.\u00a0 However, he was not<\/span> a fool to send Khrushchev a congratulatory telegram in April 1961 following Yuri Gagarin\u2019s manned spaceflight.\u00a0 And no, I’m not contradicting myself here; explanation follows.<\/p>\n

Neither<\/u> of those actions by JFK \u201cshowed support\u201d for Khrushchev and his policies<\/em>.\u00a0 They were both simply examples of Presidential diplomacy \u2013 just like Trump\u2019s congratulatory telegram to Ergodan.\u00a0 They were simply diplomatic “business as usual”.<\/p>\n

The claim that a POTUS sending a congratulatory telegram or meeting with an adversarial foreign leader “shows support” for that foreign leader and their actions is very obviously unadulterated male bovine organic fertilizer, AKA pure bullsh!t.\u00a0 Past US Presidents have routinely sent congratulatory telegrams to – and met with – leaders of adversary nations during the past 70+ years when circumstances warranted.<\/p>\n

Want some examples?\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 In addition to Kennedy’s April 1961 congratulatory telegram to Khrushchev, we also have Eisenhower\u2019s meeting with Khrushchev at Camp David in 1959; Nixon\u2019s visit to China in 1972; FDRs meetings with Stalin at Tehran and Yalta during World War II; Truman’s meeting with Stalin at Potsdam; and any number of other meetings and telegrams attended or sent by various US Presidents over the years with\/to foreign political leaders who\u00a0 happened to be US adversaries and\/or rivals.\u00a0 All<\/em> of those are merely examples of the POTUS doing what the POTUS is Constitutionally empowered to do:\u00a0 diplomatically engage foreign heads of state as a part of setting and directing US foreign policy.\u00a0 It\u2019s an essential part of his job.<\/p>\n

Very obviously, those other Presidential telegrams and meetings were not designed to be \u201cexpressions of support\u201d for US adversaries or rivals either, or for their policies. They were merely routine Presidential diplomacy \u2013 in other words, the POTUS acting like the POTUS.<\/p>\n

So, if sending Khrushchev a congratulatory telegram after Gagarin’s flight was merely diplomacy in action, why then was JFK a fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961?\u00a0 Wasn’t that simply Presidential diplomacy as well?<\/p>\n

Yes it was.\u00a0 And JFK certainly was not<\/em> “showing support” for Khrushchev or his policies by doing either.\u00a0 But he was nonetheless a fool to go to Vienna in June 1961 – for very different reasons.<\/p>\n

In meeting with Khrushchev at Vienna in June, 1961, JFK was a fool because he was explicitly warned by leading US Soviet experts that meeting with Khrushchev at that point was a bad idea<\/em>.\u00a0 Yet he went ahead and did so anyway.<\/p>\n

When he was elected President, JFK was a young and still-somewhat-inexperienced politician with little experience in foreign relations or high-level diplomacy.\u00a0 As a legislator he’d become quite proficient at the US \u201cwheel and deal\u201d political process; he was charming, photogenic, a terrific public speaker, and charismatic.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t really know much about foreign policy, or how to deal with foreign leaders who were motivated very differently from US politicians – like Khrushchev.<\/p>\n

He assumed he could “wheel and deal” (and charm) foreign leaders like he could US politicians.\u00a0 At Vienna, he found out the hard way he could not.<\/p>\n

In meeting Khrushchev in Vienna in June, 1961, JFK went against the opinions of two different senior officials at the Department of State.\u00a0 Noted Soviet expert and US diplomat Charles Bohlen warned JFK that meeting with Khrushchev early in his first term was premature<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Then-US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellen Thompson concurred, believing that JFK had \u201cunderrated Khrushchev\u2019s determination to expand world communism.\u201d\u00a0 Yet JFK felt he was smarter than his Soviet experts \u2013 and disregarded their advice.<\/p>\n

The result was predictable.\u00a0 In one-on-one meetings at the Vienna Summit, Khrushchev diplomatically manhandled JFK.\u00a0 JFK was completely out of his depth, and was unable to hold his own.\u00a0 JFK himself later referred to the experience by saying, \u201cHe (Khrushchev) beat the hell out of me\u201d – and further described meeting with Khrushchev at Vienna as \u201c. . . the worst thing in my life.\u00a0 He (Khrushchev) savaged me.\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Moreover, that meeting in Vienna also damn near had disastrous consequences.\u00a0 It\u2019s widely believed that Khrushchev came to the conclusion after Vienna that JFK was shallow, weak, and irresolute \u2013 and that this perception emboldened Khrushchev to place nuclear missiles in Cuba the following year.\u00a0 That in turn led to the Cuban Missile Crisis – the closest the world has ever come to global thermonuclear war.<\/p>\n

That<\/u> is why JFK was a damn fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961.\u00a0 The reason isn\u2019t<\/span> because doing so \u201cshowed support\u201d for Khrushchev and his policies; it did no such thing.\u00a0 That meeting was merely an example of\u00a0 routine Presidential diplomacy – just like the current POTUS sending Ergodan a congratulatory telegram was merely another example of routine Presidential diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Rather, JFK was a fool to meet with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961 because he intentionally disregarded warnings from his experts not to go<\/span> – and in ignoring those warnings, walked directly into an ambush. The fallout from his choosing to ignore expert advice could easily have led to World War III.\u00a0 In fact, history shows that it damn near did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 2 months ago, in the comments to this article there was a discussion concerning diplomacy … A Delayed Answer to Another Question<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}