If Nixon had won the 1960 presidential election, I've always wondered when watching this movie, what he would have done.
What do you think? Would we all still be here today?
Cause if I was alive back then, I probably would have voted for Nixon instead of JFK.
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Well, I think with Nixon, there probably would not have been a crisis in the first place. Because JFK was seen as being weak Russia. So he kind of took his eye off the ball and let the crisis happen.
shareWell, I think with Nixon, there probably would not have been a crisis in the first place. Because JFK was seen as being weak Russia. So he kind of took his eye off the ball and let the crisis happen.I understand what you say in the first two sentences. But I don't see a connection to your claim in the third sentence. How is it that Kennedy "took his eye off the ball and let the crisis happen"?
Werewolves Ate My Platoon!share
Well Republicans tend to pay more attention to foreign policy and tend be more tougher with our enemies. Russia took advantage of JFK, cause he seemed weak. Nixon would have probably been tougher and paid more attention to Russia and Cuba.
shareWhether the Soviets would not have tried to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 if Nixon were president is a legitimate point of debate.
But to claim that the crisis arose because Kennedy failed to pay enough "attention" to Russia and Cuba doesn't make any sense to me. The Soviets shipped the missiles to Cuba secretly on ships. Short of stopping and inspecting every ship sailing to Cuba, how could Kennedy - or Nixon, or any president - have prevented the missiles from reaching Cuba?
Werewolves Ate My Platoon!share
I agree.
Democrats have been pretty 'tough' on our enemies. FDR and Truman on Germany and Japan plus LBJ's mistaken 'toughness' in Vietnam
Frank: Just a man.
Harmonica: An ancient race.
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Typical right wing fantasy narrative about how the bad guys regardless of who they might be would have always been afraid of a right leaning president, and how they would always perceive the left leaning president to be a panzy.
shareYes, Khruschchev tried stuff against JFK that he was too scared to try against Eisenhower. After the Vienna summit he perceived him as weak and determined to see how far he could take things. Since the USSR was far behind the US in every way he figured he didn't have that much to lose.
shareThe Cuban missile crisis would not have happened because Nixon would have handled the Bay of Pigs differently.
The Bay of Pigs set up the Missile Crisis because of it's catastrophis failure.
I am sick of JFK being blamed for the Bay of Pigs incident! This mission was planned during the Eisenhower Administration.
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Yeah, he would have gone on a full-scale invasion, and we WOULD have engaged in military action with Russia.
shareThis idea that Democrats are "weak" on enemies is just a lie. BOTH World Wars were under Democratic presidents. Many military missions, including failed ones like Bay of Pigs (UNDER KENNEDY, IN CUBA) and Black Hawk Down's 1993 fiasco in Somalia were under Democratic presidents. A Democrat just now was behind the military when the SEALS got bin Laden.
The truth is, there's no way to know, but Russia most likely would have been doing the same thing (just as when Republicans are president, horrible, horrible things still happen all over the world, and power structures continue to grow, such as North Korea, Iran, etc. the past 5 years), and it probably would have come to a head, as well. Despite Nixon's clear villainy in a lot of ways, he was not a knee-jerk reactionary in a lot of his actual policies, so he probably would have shown some intelligence and likely we may have averted nuclear war. I also think the 1945 atomic bombings basically scared most of the world's powers, too, in that "we know what this can do, everyone loses." So people were just cautious as a whole, because they knew they'd lose, too.
The most dangerous politicians to me are the knee-jerk ones who think the world is black and white, good guys and bad guys, aggression is always the only tactic, otherwise just ignore something.
In my view, I think the only Democratic President that wasn't a "Cold War hawk" was Jimmy Carter. Truman, Kennedy and LBJ remembered the British-French policy of appeasing Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and clearly never wanted to be perceived to be "soft" on Soviet Communism. JFK might have been keenly mindful that his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, had been an outspoken isolationist/appeaser and was unwilling to come across as weak or too accomodating to Nikita Kruschev and the Soviet Union. Indeed, it was only after the Democratic Party's more "dovish" members became more prominent as a result of the anti-Vietnam War protest movement (1968-1972) that Dems became stereoptyped as being uncomfortable with American internationalism as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson (a Democratic President).
Historically speaking, Republican politicians tend to harbor a more isolationist world-view, at least until a GOP candidate gets elected to the Presidency. George W. Bush - unlike his father - won many supporters in the 2000 campaign when he dismissed any notions that the U.S. needed to be involved in "nation building" overseas. Indeed, his Administration took its collective "eye off the ball" internationally except for Iraq...until the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks gave America a horrific wake-up call.
He would have gone into Cuba. No doubt in my mind. We would have destroyed the missiles, but I don't think it would mean direct war with the Soviets.
shareI think the outcome may well have been very different- and we may have been drawn into the abyss. IMHO the overtures from RFK to Dobrynyn really allowed both sides to back off from the edge. While Nixon was an intelligent and crafty man in many ways he had no Bobbie to turn to. As to the question of whether or not the Soviets would have initiated the crisis in the first place- I have multiple lines of thought on that issue- but my conclusion is that, yes, they likely would have. Remember those were offensive weapons, designed for first strike capability. To have them in place, and nearly operational was a very provocative thing to do, being only 90 miles from our border. No doubt there were some in the Soviet Union
who believed a nuclear war not only survivable, but winnable. Interesting to consider this type of alternate history scenarios.
I have to say, Richard Nixon was actually a good president. He was arrogant, but he was actually a good leader. A lot of people say he was bad because of Watergate, but actually he wasn't behind Watergate which is what most people don't understand. Why he was being impeached was because he COVERED UP Watergate. If hadn't covered it up, then he would've been fine.
Either way I think Nixon would've been a bit more focused on the issue than JFK and the problem may have been avoided.
How could you possibly think Richard Nixon was a good president. Just because he did not give the order to the C.I.A. team to invade watergate does not mean he was not involved. First of all he knew about it and he did not stop it, he actually covered it up. That alone is in fact involving yourself in the illegal activity. If that is not enough James W McCord Jr. who was one of the men arrested in the watergate scandal, was in charge of security for the committee to re-elect Richard Nixon. Coincidence? I think not. You should take a deeper look into watergate and into Nixons entire presidency before you make a claim like that buddy
shareBut you pretty much agreed with me. Nixon wasn't going to be impeached because of Watergate. It's a fact. There wasn't enough evidence to support that he was behind the Watergate incident. The reason why he was going to be impeached was because he tried to cover it up. Basically he realized that people in his party were doing stupid things and tried to cover up his parties' embarrassment. Nixon was a good leader, while still arrogant.
shareTo clarify: What we refer to as Watergate was much more than one busted burglary in that office complex. It was an ongoing program of activities, some approved by Nixon directly, some clearly illegal, that began shortly after his team took office in January 1969. They included warrantless wiretapping of citizens; using the IRS to harass citizens with audits; illegal campaign "tricks" designed to secretly influence the Democrats to nominate the candidate Nixon felt would be easiest to beat in 1972; a burglary of the office of the psychiatrist of a man being prosecuted by the federal government in a bid to discredit the defendant, among other things. That is why Nixon was so adamant about derailing the investigation of the 1972 DNC burglary: He was very concerned about all the other illegal stuff being revealed before the election. While his impeachment under the "high crimes and misdemeanors" clause was for the blatant coverup for which Nixon's audiotapes were "smoking gun" evidence, the evidence for some of the other things was strong enough to send some of his aides to jail.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTOshare
On many levels Nixon was a very accomplished president. In the areas of diplomacy (Soviet/China)& environmental issues (EPA) his accomplishments to name a few were significant and groundbreaking. Of course all he get remembered for is his obsessive paranoia and penchant for secrecy and ultimately the Watergate scandal.
shareYeah Nixon was shady no doubt, but I don't think he was a hot-headed idiot that would just start a nuclear war just to be a cowboy. Nixon was smarter then that. I think Nixon would have handled it diplomatically just like JFK.
Now if George W. Bush was president during the Cuban Missile Crisis,....God help us all. That fool would have blown up the world just to prove he's a yee-haw good ol' boy Texan.
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The stigma is absolutely fair considering the 1973-74 Bretton Woods crash. Hence the landslide midterm of 74 and the 1976 presidential election would've been a wave election for the Democrats not a narrow victory if handled properly.
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