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JFK and the Cold War...continued from Mouth of the Marmoset
Far from being world’s saviour as the planet teetered and nuclear annihilation seemed inevitable, it was his willingness to swallow the Cold War rhetoric of his predecessors and inability to try another way which lead to the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war and erection of the Berlin wall in 1961.
It’s highly debatable whether the Soviets had originally held any desires to spread their influence all over the world in the way that the US and UK believed they had in the immediate years after the war.
The Soviets, paid a heavier blood price in WWII than any other nation on earth.
Depending on which statistics you believe, the Soviet Union, lost 22-30 million souls in the conflict, which was about the same number as: Germany, Japan, Italy, France, Yugoslavia, Poland, the Philippines, Holland, India, the US and the UK combined. In fact more than a quarter of all people who died in WWII were from the Soviet Union.
This followed loses in WWI, the revolution and communist experiments which led to starvation.
It’s highly likely what the US saw as communist expansionism, was actually just the desperation of a nation which longed for peace and security.
The real fear that spawned the Cold War was, I believe, really the fear of popular uprisings spreading as people demanded fair distribution of their nations’ wealth.
The US right developed a narrative which suggested the Soviets hate freedom and that to adhere to their doctrines was to be un-American. JFK may or may not have bought this but he certainly acted as if he did.
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