Forums / Off Topic / Truth or BS, first I've heard of this

As to the "truth" of the claims, it's simply propaganda and conspiracy theory. Kennedy did a pretty good job standing up to the Russians at the time, so I don't think it is quite fair to claim he befriended them. The rest of the claims are, I think, just extreme points of view. Kennedy's so-called previous marriage is baseless. No one of his stature could have gotten married and divorced without people noticing. I guess I've become less of a Kennedy fan over time as I concentrate on his policies more than his martyrdom.

To people of my generation, Kennedy's assassination is the biggest thing that ever happened just as Pearl Harbor was to my parent's generation. I have a friend who was in the Army stationed in Germany when this happened. You have to remember the context. Bay of Pigs had happened. The Cuban Missile Crisis had happened. The USSR was a big, strong beast and many people thought war was a real possibility. Then Kennedy gets killed and the military freaked out. My friend, who was in intelligence, said the military was convinced this was it. Had the Russians not played it very cool and basically said, "Hey, calm down. It wasn't us." we could have had WW III. They were engaged in a military exercise in the eastern countries at the time and immediately stood down. This was an era of brinksmanship.

9/11 was bad, but not nearly as bad as the Kennedy assassination.

Kennedy saved the U.S. from nuclear war. He "Negotiated" if you will,with the Russians to remove the Ballistic Missiles from Cuba,and after much deliberation between the Soviet Union and Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in southern Italy and in Turkey, the latter on the border of the Soviet Union, in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba. I believe the missiles were called Jupiter that were in Italy and Turkey. So I say Kennedy prevented Nuclear war and saved the U.S.

I have stated else where that JFK was a childhood hero of mine..the sixties was a very turbulent time for this country. and weather you where 70 or seven it left a mark on you..we never will know the complete story on the murder of JFK in Dallas....that part of history has yet to be written

That part is conveniently left out because it makes us look like we kicked more butt than we really did. But still, it worked. There was another bit of trickery involved. Kruschev didn't believe the US would follow through, but we conveniently "leaked" a radio transmission that was "supposed to be secret" that indicated we were going ramp up. Kruschev was apparently in a meeting at the time when one of his underlings, ashen faced, brought in the transcript of the conversation. That was the key that turned things around. I forget where I read this. It was a long time ago.

Mutual Gain for both sides. Basically it was like this you move we move you attack we attack. And Khrushchev fearing for the worst agreed to the terms to avoid war and so the Jupiter Missiles were removed from Italy and Turkey in exchange for the Missiles in Cuba to be removed.

I was in the Army in Germany when Kennedy was killed, stationed in Frankfurt. A friend of mine and I heard about it in a bar, from the bartender. It was night there, and MP's were sent all over town to find all military personnel and herd them back to their post. We were issued full field gear, weapons and quite a bit of ammo, put into trucks and taken to the border with East Germany, and assigned an area to patrol. We had been sent into the mountains, it was cold up there, and we didn't have much in the way of full winter clothing. We damn near froze. When it was decided to stand down, someone had apparently forgotten about us. We didn't get a relief truck until the 4th day. We'd had nothing to eat, and no shelter. We broke into an old abandoned house on the border, and burned the furniture and the interior doors to keep warm, and drank, or ate snow. Boy were we pissed when we finally got back. I don't remember that anybody gave a shit about us, of course.
A friend of mine was in a missile battalion somewhat further south. He told me that they armed their missiles and went to full alert.
I suppose that if the Russians had come across the border in our patrol area we would have caused them a few minutes discomfort, if that, then they would have rolled over us like so many pissants.
We were incredibly outnumbered at the time.