Iran Is No Cuban Missile Crisis

by tristero.

There is a meme going around that Iran is the Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion. Short version: bullshit.

How do I know? Am I a scholar on the subject? No. But I’ve done a lot of deep research on the Missile Crisis and I know a lot more than David Ignatius does about it.

True: Ignatius doesn’t distort history as willfully, deliberately, and maliciously as David Irving does. And I am not comparing him to Irving. But I am hard-pressed to remember the last time I read any history in a so-called mainstream media outlet that was so consciously, consistently, and dangerously misleading as the following excerpt, and that is saying a lot:

Kennedy’s genius was to reject the Cuba options proposed by his advisers, hawk and dove alike, and choose his own peculiar outside-the-box strategy. He issued a deadline but privately delayed it; he answered a first, flexible message from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev but not a second unyielding one; he said he would never take U.S. missiles out of Turkey, as the Soviets were demanding, and then secretly did precisely that. Disaster was avoided because Khrushchev believed Kennedy was willing to risk war — but wanted to avoid it.

I started to annotate this but gave up because there simply isn’t a single clause that has any undistorted truth to it. I am not kidding, I have rarely been so overwhelmed with the task of debunking rightwing stupidity. But in this case, I’d have to write some 10,000 words to start to straighten out all the errors, sins of omissions, idiotic conclusions, and bizarre misapprehensions in this paragraph. This is such sheer crap I don’t know where to begin and therefore I won’t waste my time.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that what Ignatius wrote really is willfully malicious garbage crafted with ruthless cunning at the molecular level is invited to learn about the Missile Crisis first by going to democracy arsenal’s takedown which is where I found the link to Ignatius. Then, you might want to click on this link which links to a pdf of speech I gave in October, 2002 contrasting Bush and Kennedy the first time Bush’s lying acolytes tried to make this analogy. For those who are really interested, get a copy of The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis and read the whole thing.* Or you can try this excellent sort-of-summary of the tapes, Averting ‘The Final Failure’: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings

Then you can read Bobby Kennedy’s Thirteen Days but whatever you do, don’t base your opinions on the Costner movie, which, like Stone’s JFK, is just a Hollywood film. Also, read One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Castro, 1958-1964 the Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That will serve as a brief (no irony) introduction to the Cuban Missile Crisis; I’m sure some of you folks have other books you like as well. For those who are new to the subject, once you start to learn what actually happened during the Missile Crisis you’ll understand why I simply can’t believe that the Washington Post permitted Ignatius’s column to run: “inaccurate” is a gross understatement. The hiring of Ben Domenech is beginning to seem more and more like a conscious decision to ruin their reputation and not a dumb, aberrant mistake.

Like I said, I’m no scholar. But I have researched some subjects in considerable depth and seriousness, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reading Ignatius’s column gives me considerable insight as to how a serious scientific expert like NIles Eldredge or Richard Dawkins must feel when they first encountered “intelligent design” creationism. Ignatius’s column should be simply beneath notice. But someone who is far more sanguine about these things than I really should notice and carefully dissect all his misrepresentations. And he should be very detailed and cruel so Ignatius never dares to touch the subject of the Missile Crisis again. The kind of bullshit he is peddling could get a lot of innocent people killed.

*Note: Eric Alterman has pointed out that this edition – edited by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, the latter a counselor to Secretary Rice – is often inaccurate. I bought a far more expensive scholarly edition of the tapes and checked. Alterman is correct. But for non-scholarly purposes, my opinion is that the May/Zelikow is more than adequate.