JFK and Foreign Policy with Greg Schneider | BRI Scholar Talks: Cold War & The Presidency Series #3

0:00 Is Kennedy really rethinking the Cold War commitments or is he gung-ho still on them by 1963? So, that’s an important thing as well. But, I think ultimately Kennedy does deserve some praise for his role in handling the missile crisis. There’s no doubt that he comes across as the more conciliatory

0:20 even though he’s worried while where is the military and some of his other advisers are more more aggressive when it comes to dealing with the missiles in Cuba. This is Tony Williams, senior fellow at the RI, and we are pleased to bring you the third episode in our series on the Cold War and the presidency. And this

0:43 time we’re honored to have Greg Schneider, who is going to talk about JFK and the Cold War. In this series, our main question is really how have individual presidents shaped executive powers during the Cold War? And by way of introduction, Gregory Schneider is the Rowe Cross Distinguished Professor of History at

1:04 Emporia State University and a distinguished visiting professor at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University. He teaches courses in modern American history, the 1960s, diplomatic history, and the history of railroads, as well as the history of conservatism. He’s published five books. I have a few on my

1:25 shelves. I pulled one off. This one is Cadres for Conservatism, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Rise of the Contemporary Right. And most recently, he published Rock Island Requiem, The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line, which is about a railroad, all right, if I’m not mistaken. But, anyway, Greg, it’s great to have you on. Thanks

1:45 for coming on. Pleasure to be here. Great great opportunity. You own my book. I don’t even own that copy anymore. I’ve given them all away. They’re too expensive to buy. We we we rescued a used from the library. That’s right. All right. Well, let’s jump in. Um, so we’re talking about JFK and he’s really a supporter of Cold War

2:06 containment. In his inaugural address, he promised to pay any price and bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. And this seems to me great to be a pretty expansive vision of foreign policy, but it was to meet Soviet

2:27 challenges, particularly in the area of the arms race and Khrushchev’s promise of national wars of national liberation across the globe. Uh, so what is JFK’s approach to the Cold War in response to this challenge? So I think in a couple of ways we we have the imagery of JFK as the young

2:47 vibrant president, which of course masked the fact that he was really unhealthy, that he had problems with his health, Addison’s disease, a disease of the adrenal glands. He had back problems stemming from his youth as well as from his service in World War II and his heroic actions on the on the patrol boat rescuing the crew, which worsened the

3:07 back issues. He So our sense would be he’s an optimistic young person facing this new decade of the ’60s. In some respects on the Cold War, he is very much a Cold War uh, adherent of the containment principles of George Kennan. So he wants to continue those principles while in office. But he’s actually quite a

3:28 pessimist, it seems, when it comes to the nature of American power going into the 1960s. The Democrats had run for the previous 2 years against Eisenhower’s foreign policy, which was predicated on the new look strategy of limiting the spending on defense, which Eisenhower had warned about in his farewell address to the American public in in January of

3:49 ’61, but also in in bigger bang for the buck and relying on nuclear weapons rather than troops and conventional forces. Kennedy wanted to shift that. He believes strongly, of course, in relying on nuclear weapons and it’s under him that you have the MAD doctrine kind of coming into fruition, mutually assured destruction and development of submarine-launched missiles as well as

4:09 ICBMs and IRBMs and the like. But he also wanted to expand our conventional forces in order to deal with the threat of communism around the the world, especially in undeveloped parts of the world, so-called third world nations. And he believed that we could fight and win what the administration would refer to as brushfire wars, you know, these wars that are

4:31 for decolonization and communist revolutionary wars throughout the third world. And so in part his his inaugural address is a direct response to Khrushchev’s challenge, which comes I think a few weeks before Kennedy’s inaugural, in the sense that the United States will now purposefully fight and try to win these conflicts around the third world. So it’s an expansive vision

4:53 of containment, which is expensive because you’re going to fund all sorts of different ideas, so it’s not predicated on fiscal management like Eisenhower’s. And it’s also in some respects dangerous because it means that the United States might get involved in other parts of the world where it doesn’t have the resources or ability to fight these conflicts very readily. Um in some respects he kind of is

5:15 influenced by the book The Ugly American, which was written by two journalists, William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. It’s great book, made into a terrible movie with Marlon Brando. Read the book, don’t watch the movie. And it’s about a fictional country which is really Vietnam called Sarkhan, and about how American foreign policy is unable to

5:35 kind of influence the peoples in Sarkhan and is bumbling and incompetent and corrupt. And Kennedy wants to Kennedy’s deeply influenced by this book, I think, to kind of change this. One of the reasons that you get the Peace Corps as well as the expansion of this idea of the Green Berets and all these other sorts of things that could help promote counterinsurgency in these third world

5:56 countries. So, in some respects he believes we’re losing the Cold War. We have to shift strategy. We have to be more aggressive. But his and his principles of containment following the logic of Kennan’s original idea of containment would be that the US has to meet challenges around the world, not just rely on nuclear weapons to keep the peace like Eisenhower had tried to do.

6:17 Right. Great. Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. Um and and looking more specifically uh at at a certain situation, many historians look at the failure of of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. And many believe that, you know, Kennedy took responsibility and and learned certain lessons uh you know, about

6:37 intervention and that really shaped his his statesmanship and and his decision-making which usually gets very high marks uh during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Uh is that your take? Is that how you see things? I think the Bay of Pigs is a reflection of the fact that he was so inexperienced uh on foreign policy terms that the CIA

6:59 had been planning this operation during the late uh after 1959 to remove Castro from power um that he inherited the CIA director John McCone and was kind of believed Eisenhower briefed him on this when they meet after the election in fact. And he believes that this is a doable project. It seems absurd that

7:20 you’re going to land troops on uh in Cuba, lead them up into the mountains, and foment a revolution. Revolutions tend to be very popular in their early years and that’s certainly what Castro’s revolution was. But what it winds up doing after of course the the bungled invasion occurs and Kennedy decides not to send air support in which would even

7:41 link the American role even more so than it does, is it gives him pause about trusting the military certainly going forward. So, when the Cuban Missile Crisis hits, you know, the military’s reaction is to bomb them, to attack the targets, maybe risking nuclear war. Kennedy to a degree takes a hard line early on, but then begins to moderate a

8:03 little bit as the crisis goes on for the 13 days and then beyond that because it’s a month and a half before all the missiles and bombers and other things are removed from Cuba cuz the Soviets have a huge force there, which the Americans had no idea of. In fact, McNamara is stunned, I think in early 1990s when there’s a conference about the Cuban Missile Crisis that includes all of the

8:24 practitioners, the Soviets, the Americans, and the Cubans, and it’s announced that there’s a force of 48,000 men in Cuba, Soviet troops. They never thought this for a minute. So, I mean, in his cool handling of that and his ability to kind of weigh the at the fears and outcomes of decisions when it comes to that, he does recapture a sense of statesmanship,

8:46 which the newest interpretation of that crisis, a book that just came out last this year by Serhii Plokhy, who’s at Harvard um using a lot of Soviet sources, um seems to suggest came closer to nuclear exchange than even I think earlier books had talked about. And it kind of assesses both Khrushchev and Kennedy’s leadership. And certainly Kennedy wins

9:08 the um Cuban Missile Crisis, but the trade-off of Jupiter missiles in Turkey uh as a as a way of and his decision not to invade, postpone invasion of Cuba for instance going forward, certainly seems to suggest that Kennedy learned some lessons from the Bay of Pigs uh and about but on the same circle, Operation Mongoose continues,

9:29 which is the CIA effort and in fact intensifies in 1963, which is the CIA effort to remove Castro, even assassinate him. And Kennedy gives some fiery speeches to human emigre groups after the Cuban Missile Crisis in which he seems to assert that Cuba will have to be freed. How much he learns, it’s unclear. And you know, this

9:50 a notion we can get into, I’m sure we will with Vietnam, is Kennedy really rethinking the Cold War commitments or is he gung ho still on them by 1963. So, that’s an important thing as well. But I think ultimately Kennedy um does deserve some praise for his role in handling the missile crisis. Um there’s no doubt that he comes across as the

10:12 more conciliatory um even though he’s worried while whereas the military and some of his other advisers are more more aggressive when it comes to dealing with the missiles in Cuba. Okay, great. Uh and in 1961 while all that is going on, you know, Khrushchev seems to get the upper hand at a Vienna summit meeting that they had.

10:34 And then Khrushchev erects the barrier that will eventually become the Berlin Wall. Uh Kennedy’s reaction, was it a a measure of presidential prudential restraint uh or is in 1961 is is he really dealing his hand from a sort of a

10:54 you know, a point of weakness uh and you know, at least for the time being weakens American credibility in the Cold War. So, the summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy occurs only about 2 months after the Bay of Pigs, so certainly Khrushchev has the advantages. Kennedy’s weakened by uh the Bay of Pigs invasion. He’s also

11:15 really in bad shape health-wise. He’s suffering from tremendous back pain. Um He he’s having trouble sitting for long periods of time, so you know, he’s distracted by that. And Khrushchev, as is want, uh as it had been his want in late ’50s, bullies Kennedy. You know, talks about Berlin, talks about taking care of the Berlin problem, which was I

11:35 think it’s 30,000 refugees a year were fleeing into West Berlin and East Berlin and East Germany was losing the cream of the crop of scientists, intellectuals, and talented artists and other sorts of people. And at that rate, you know, there would be nobody left in East Germany before too long. So, Khrushchev wants to take care of the Berlin problem. Kennedy gets bullied, doesn’t

11:57 respond very effectively, but when he comes home an interview to Look magazine and says that if Khrushchev moves on Berlin, it’s all over. And he suggests that he would take a harsh action. So, in September, just a month and a half after that, the Soviets begin building the Berlin Wall, which ironically kind of solves the problem of Berlin. Berlin had been

12:18 the thorn in the side of the European Cold War since the Berlin blockade, but with the wall, it kind of solves the issue of Berlin as a kind of a continuing festering sore between the superpowers. And in the other irony of ironies, if you have to build a wall to keep your people in, you’ve already lost the Cold War. I

12:39 mean, one can suggest that the Cold War should have ended right there with American victory because the Soviets are encouraging the East German allies to build a wall to keep their population in. Not a good thing. And so it becomes a great symbol. Then Kennedy goes there, "Ich bin ein Berliner", and refers to himself as a pastry. Reagan using it in the 1980s, you know,

12:59 "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." And when the wall finally comes down, it’s a hated symbol for the Germans, but in a weird way, it keeps the peace between the superpowers in Europe. And you know, the big question on a lot of people’s minds in foreign policy is a counterfactual regarding the Vietnam War.

13:21 Some people argue that you know, Kennedy was was definitely escalating, was it ramping up American aid, sending more advisers, and would have eventually, you know, sent in ground troops. While others argue he was just waiting for an opportunity, maybe after the election, ’64 election, to to withdraw in a way and and find a way that didn’t damage American credibility

13:43 and didn’t, you know, cause him to lose Vietnam. Either way, he seemed particularly interested in in hiding American involvement during his presidency from the press, from the American public. And you know, what’s your take on all of this? Um I don’t know if necessarily if he’s hiding it from the public. I mean, he does send in 14,000 military advisers and increases

14:05 America’s commitment to build the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam, which increasingly is showing its inability to fight effectively against the communists. And the general in charge then, Paul Harkins, is is having difficulties getting MACV, as it’s later known, to work effectively with the with the South Vietnamese generals to fight

14:27 resist the communist incursions in the South. There’s a battle that reflects poorly on their their role there, and the top brass, John Paul Vann’s one of them, sending back reports saying that the South Vietnamese army will not fight effectively. You’re getting journalist coverage like Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam, and who are very critical of the South Vietnamese regime. However,

14:49 not critical enough of the Viet Cong influence in the Buddhist protests and some of the other things, which the historian Mark Moyar has talked about. And Diem’s government is problematic, of course, and Kennedy had insisted in Vietnam in building a democracy, which is Americans always stumble at in many cases. We didn’t insist on that in South Korea, for instance, but in

15:10 South Vietnam, we insist on making South Vietnam, which has no tradition of democratic rights, a democratic government. It was a strongman’s government, but increasingly vote uh its repression turns the South Vietnamese people against them. Would he have So, when in the fall of 1963, Kennedy endorses an

15:30 assassination, well, at least a removal of Diem, not the assassination, which occurs. Um and that has always been kind of a sense of change that Kennedy kind of realizes maybe that it might be time to break. I kind of doubt that would have been the case because you consider a couple of things. His advisors, all of whom were gung-ho to go in and and fight in South

15:52 Vietnam and remain that way after Kennedy’s death, including Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, uh McGeorge Bundy, and others. All of these men, the so-called best and the brightest as Halberstam referred to them, were all backers of American role of an expanded American role in Vietnam. And pushed Johnson into that uh as well in 1964.

16:14 Um the second problem for Kennedy politically was the fact that in the early ’60s, the real story of America’s ’60s movements was the right wing and conservatism. And a strong anti-communist movement in the country uh was um already attacking Kennedy for being too weak on Cuba. Why are we

16:35 tolerating a Cuban government at all that’s communist? It’s 90 mi off the coast of Florida, for instance. You have the John Birch Society, you have young people organizing Young Americans for Freedom, you have National Review kind of at its peak, you have um Barry Goldwater emerging as a leading Republican figure. All of these sorts of anti-communist politicians make it difficult for

16:56 Kennedy kind of break from that. It would have been an extremely difficult for Kennedy in ’64 to carve out a more realistic assumption of the war in Vietnam and cut and run. He may not have made the same mistakes as Johnson did, but it would have been difficult for him to kind of think outside the box and maybe win election if he had broached that before the election. So, may have

17:17 been duplicitous and won re-election and then decided not to not to um uh go into Vietnam more more um aggressively. Right. Right. All right. Well, I’ll ask question. What impact do you think Kennedy’s approach to the Cold War had on American foreign policy and on the American presidency?

17:39 Uh obviously Kennedy’s presidency is short. So, our image of Kennedy’s short presidency and the fact that he was young and had a glamorous family and a glamorous background himself has led us to think that Kennedy’s presidency is one of the great presidencies in American history. Um we don’t know because he was taken from us what would have happened if he had

18:00 lived. You know, would he have faced the same struggles with the civil rights movement with with um the problems liberalism faced in the ’60s? Probably. Um would he have made the decision to go into Vietnam? Probably. Maybe not in the same way as Johnson, but certainly we probably would have had troops in South Vietnam fighting uh against the communist, which would have tarnished

18:20 his overall rep- reputation the way it did with Johnson and certainly hurt Nixon, too, uh dealing with these these troubles both at home and abroad. I think ultimately though Kennedy’s foreign policy uh as a Democrat, maybe the last uh Cold War Democrat. Certainly, Jimmy Carter might fit a little bit, but not too much um because

18:42 Carter seeking to move the Cold War beyond an East-West struggle and more towards a North-South uh focus. Kennedy is the last of the Cold War Democrats and perhaps I Russell has written a book about this that may even be a conservative, you know, that he was favored tax cuts and other sorts of things as well as his you know, his um concern his views about the communist

19:04 threat in the world. I’m not sure I buy that, but ultimately I think Kennedy is certainly within the framework of a Truman and other Cold Warriors when it comes to the Soviet threat and the need to do something about it in the world. Gregg Snyder, I want to thank you very much for coming on and enlightening us on on this really fascinating subject.

19:24 Thanks Tony. Great. Uh and thank you all for joining us on our mini curriculum video series on the Cold War and the presidency. Check out our other episodes on FDR, Truman, Nixon and Kissinger, and Reagan with interviews with several leading historians on this important topic. Thank you.