Hi Lee, thanks for the kind words. Kennedy had his problems, there is no question of that. The Bay of Pigs
fiasco was tremendously ill conceived and ill executed. However, Kennedy dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis
with a sense of balance and equilibrium that very likely saved us from WWIII, or at least a probably nuclear war,
between the US and USSR. The military leaders, were advocating a more forceful tactical response that, in
the post mortems, would have blown up in our face. The Administration's brilliant maneuver of accepting the
conditions of the first message from the Soviets while ignoring the second message that subsequently came and
had stipulations that were unacceptable, was a stroke of genius. I believe the Admin. then used a back channel
to let the soviets know that the outdated missiles would be removed from Turkey in a number of months, but it
was not seen as a linked condition of the Cuban missile withdrawal.
I personally think that all President's need to be given a "Wide Berth" for some of there idiosyncrasies,
shortcomings, and cultural biases that they bring with them to the Job. It's a Job that is beyond Grace of
Mere Mortals; and there are certain duplicities inherent in a global system that is functioning on so many
conflicting spheres of power and influence.
Bobby Kennedy, was an amazing candidate in 1968, in the way in which he went out in the teeming masses and
met the people without concern for personal safety, Pictures of this are one of the more compelling parts of
the Murphy's Pictorial book "Jack and Bobby" by metrobooks.
I think he was probably the most gifted of candidates this century in his ability to promote socioeconomic
and racial conciliation, and this was during a very traumatic era in US history.
It almost seems like the January 1968 Tet Offensive, which greatly spread magnitude and death totals in Vietnam,
acted as a cultural catalyst, to spawn the Heavy Metal Music that started to proliferate with the likes of Blue
Cheer, a more menacing Stones, Led Zeppellin coming together and even groups like
the Beatles Cranking out songs like "Helter Skelter" in 1968.
The 1967 lightness and summer of Love was over by the fall of 1967, but it seemed like the Cultural Mass
Psychology got very Heavy and Angry after Tet in 1968. And of course as we worked our way into 1968, we
witnessed a Major top in the US stock market especially in the Broadest Averages such as the ValueLine Index,
and the Negative Mass Psychology produced a vicious Bear Market that bottomed first in April of 1970.
Then provided a Nifty 50 fake out rally, that lacked breadth, and underlying fundamentals, Some Elliotticians might
consider it a type of "B"Wave. and Then an even bigger stock Market and Economic Meltdown during 1973 and
1974.
We also saw economic disarray in other areas during these years, with convulse moves in the currencies,
particularlly the collapse of the dollar, and broad based commodity inflation with Crude going from 2.50 to
12 a barrel between 1972 and 1974, Cotton going from .24 to .98 in 2 years, Wheat going from 1.40 to 6.50 in
less than 2 years. Soybeans going from 3.00 to 12.96 in less than 2 years. etc.
An Interesting time in History.
John |
