PRESIDENTS AND PREMIERS: MAJOR PLAYERS OF THE COLD WAR
THE WEST
JOHN F KENNEDY
Elected in 1960, John F Kennedy came to the presidency determined, despite his youth, to be the strong leader the United States needed to go toe-to-toe with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. His strategy would not be all-out aggression, though, but ‘flexible response’, where any political, economic and military option was preferable to nuclear war. He had previously spoken of cutting the perceived missile gap and building the defence forces, and, in office, he increased US involvement in Vietnam, visited West Berlin, and set the nation off on the race to the Moon.
Cuba became a chief source of alarm for JFK. In April 1961, he launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion to try and overthrow Fidel Castro’s left-wing regime – a move that led the Soviets to send the nuclear weapons that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 (). JFK kept a cool head throughout the 13-day standoff and negotiated a peaceful resolution, which he followed by signing the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Just a few months later, he would be assassinated.
