JFK seemed a reasoned, empathetic human being.
During JFK's presidency, aggravated by the absence of Gen. Eisenhower in the oval office to "call off the dogs", and JFK's unfortunate republican party member cabinet picks, JFK had to contend with the military officers who proposed "operation Northwoods",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoodsand the maniacal General, Curtis Lemay.
In the Trump administration, the roles are reversed. The most prominent military officers have been the voices of reason and restraint!
https://electronpencil.com/category/curtis-lemay/
.....
The Youth Candidate?
■
You want more? Fine. Wallace and LeMay were the preferred ticket of the majority of young white men in the entire nation that year....
Consider, in yesterday's press briefing, not a single question was asked about Trump's reaction to allegations he ignored intelligence that Putin's GRU was paying bounties to the Taliban for the heads of U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-070620/
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Issued on: July 6, 2020
....This vision is not a culture war, as the media seeks to falsely proclaim; it’s an embrace of our American family, our values, our freedom, and our future.
And with that, I’ll take questions.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280117571874951170
Peter.
Q Kayleigh, I want to ask you just a couple questions. The first one: Why is the President so supportive of flying the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: So I think you’re referring to a tweet this morning. Is that right?
Q Correct.
MS. MCENANY: Well, I think you’re mischaracterizing the tweet. The tweet was aimed at pointing out that the FBI report of the alleged hate crime at NASCAR concluded that the garage door pull, which had been there since last fall, was obviously not targeted at a specific individual because, in fact, it was a garage pull and, in fact, it was there since last fall, long before these 43 teams arrived. And it was concluded by the FBI that this was, quote, “not an intentional racist act.”
Q For clarity, I’m asking you about the Confederate flags. My question is: Why is the President so supportive of flying the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: The President never said that. Again, you’re taking his tweet completely out of context.
Q The President said that NASCAR saw bad ratings because they took down the Confederate flag, banned the Confederate flag. Does he believe NASCAR should fly the Confederate flag? And why don’t they fly it here?
MS. MCENANY: The whole point of the tweet was to note the incident, the alleged hate crime that, in fact, was not a hate crime. At the very end, the ban on the flag was mentioned in the broader context of the fact that he rejects this notion that somehow NASCAR men and women who go to these sporting events are racist when, in fact, as it turns out, what we saw with the FBI report and the alleged incident of a hate crime — it was a complete indictment of the media’s rush to judgment once again, calling this a hate crime when the FBI completely dismissed that.
Q Let me ask you about some of the President’s comments this weekend. The President said that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are totally harmless. Which members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force agree with that statement?
MS. MCENANY: So what the President was pointing to — and I’m glad you brought it up — was a factual statement, one that is rooted in science and one that was pointing out the fact that mortality in this country is very low. And I have two charts that we’ll pull up to illustrate that.
The first chart is the case fatality rate in the United States. And as you can see, the mortality rate has gone like this — (motions downward) — the case fatality rate. And also, in the second chart you’ll see — hopefully they have it up behind me — but the case rate — fatality rate in this country vis-à-vis other European countries is much lower than, let’s say, France and Italy. And what that speaks to is the great work of this administration with therapeutics and remdesivir and dexamethasone. And that’s what the President was pointing out.
Q So I want to get back to —
MS. MCENANY: Jon.
Q — just to follow up quickly, though. So if you don’t die, is it not harmless?
MS. MCENANY: The President was noting the fact that the vast majority of Americans who contract coronavirus will come out on the other side of this. Of course, he takes this very seriously. Of course, no one wants to see anyone in this country contract COVID, which is why the administration has fought hard to make sure that’s not the case with our historic response effort.
......
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos-african-americans-cdc-data.html?searchResultPosition=1
Jon.
Q Kayleigh, to follow on Peter’s question, what is the President’s position? Does he think NASCAR made a mistake by banning the Confederate flag?
MS. MCENANY: So he said he — I spoke to him this morning about this, and he said he was not making a judgment one way or the other. The intent of the tweet was to stand up for the men and women of NASCAR and the fans and those who have gone, and this rush to judgment of the media to call something a hate crime when, in fact, the FBI report concluded this was not an intentional racist act. And it very much mirrors other times when there have been a rush to judgment, let’s say with the Covington boys or with Jussie Smollett.
Q But let’s drill down on the Confederate flag. Does he think it was a mistake for NASCAR to ban it?
MS. MCENANY: The President said he wasn’t making a judgment one way or the other. You’re focusing on —
Q But what is his position on it?
MS. MCENANY: — one word at the very bottom of a tweet that’s completely taken out of context and neglecting the complete rush to judgment on this.
Q Wasn’t he saying that NASCAR’s rating were down because they banned the flag? That’s what he said.
MS. MCENANY: The President was noting the fact that, in aggregate, this notion that NASCAR men and women who have gone and who are being demeaned and called racist, and being accused in some venues of committing a hate crime against an individual, those allegations were just dead wrong.
Q Does he think —
MS. MCENANY: Paula.
Q Does he think his supporters should not take the flag to Trump rallies? Has he considered banning the Confederate flag from Trump rallies?
MS. MCENANY: Well, at Trump rallies, all flags that are not official campaign gear are banned.
Yes.
Q Kayleigh, why is it Bubba Wallace’s responsibility to apologize for an investigation into a noose that he didn’t report and he never even saw? It was NASCAR that found this, that reported this. And even the FBI referred to it as a noose, even if they said it wasn’t a specific crime against Mr. Wallace. Why is the President even suggesting that Mr. Wallace should apologize?
MS. MCENANY: Well, look, the FBI, as I noted, concluded that this was not a hate crime, and he believes it’d go a long way if Bubba came out and acknowledged that as well —
Q He has.
MS. MCENANY: This was not —
Q He has.
MS. MCENANY: — a hate crime, as noted —
Q In interviews, he’s been very clear that —
MS. MCENANY: — by the FBI. So, the President —
Q — the FBI found this was not intentional.
MS. MCENANY: One of the things —
Q Why is he directing this at Mr. Wallace?
MS. MCENANY: So one of the things that —
Q He was a victim of a suspected hate crime.
MS. MCENANY: One of — this is where the President comes from, and this is where the President stands, and he actually hinted at this in his July 4th speech: “To those in the media who falsely and consistently label their opponents as racist, who condemn patriotic citizens who offer a clear and truthful defense of American unity, we want a clear and faithful defense of American history and unity. And when you level false charges, you not only slander me, you slander the American people.” He believes —
Q Who was charged? It was an open investigation, Kayleigh —
MS. MCENANY: — the American people are good. And the allegations —
Q — into a noose. The FBI said —
MS. MCENANY: — and the rush to judgement —
Q — it was a noose.
MS. MCENANY: — with Jussie Smollett and the Bubba Wallace case and with the Covington Catholic boys, we shouldn’t be so quick to jump onto those narratives. Those are just three examples of those —
Q But you’re suggesting that Mr. Wallace —
MS. MCENANY: that have been proven false.
Yes.
Q — should apologize for an investigation that someone else initiated, suggesting he was possibly the victim of a hate crime?
MS. MCENANY: (Calls on next reporter.) Yes. ......
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19681004&id=W8QmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=biQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6910,316648
rusty knife
Curtis lemay have begun cam paigning together. ... To me, if I had to go to Vietnam and get killed with a rusty knife or get killed with a nuclear weapon, I'd rather ...
In the above article, the description of democratic presidential candidate Humphrey, "is shocked", in reaction to Gen. Lemay's comments.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-11-16-1997320026-story.html
A world free of nuclear arms Weapons: For decades the United States gave lip service to eradication of nuclear arms while building up its "overkill" capacity. Even now, few military leaders can agree on how
many warheads are enough.
Joseph R.L. Sterne
THE BALTIMORE SUN
At a manic moment in his 1968 campaign for the presidency, George Wallace called a news conference to introduce Gen. Curtis LeMay, the cigar-chomping former commander of the Strategic Air Command, as his vice presidential running mate.
Seven minutes later, about the time needed for a high-alert scramble at SAC headquarters, the Wallace campaign was a disaster-in-progress and LeMay was trying to assure the American people that he was not "a drooling idiot whose only solution to any problem is to drop atomic bombs all over the world."
Yet in a monologue that the frantic Wallace vainly tried to interrupt, LeMay established his credentials for political idiocy.
"I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon," he said.
Describing the scene at Bikini atoll after 20 nuclear tests, he noted that "the fish are all back in the lagoons, the coconut trees are growing coconuts, the guava bushes have fruit on them, the birds are back."
"As a matter of fact, everything is about the same except the land crabs. They . . . were a little bit 'hot.'"
After this outburst, Wallace made it plain that LeMay was too hot to answer questions. But if his career was in fade-out, his spirit was not.
The next two decades witnessed an ever-more-menacing nuclear arms race. At its peak, the two superpowers had amassed an overkill arsenal of 37,500 warheads.....
Dr. Strangelove :https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-and-world-war-iii
Annals of the Cold WarJune 19, 1995 Issue
The General and World War III
Curtis LeMay believed that the only sure nuclear defense was to launch a preëmptive first strike. During the Cuban missile crisis, he almost did it.
By Richard Rhodes June 12, 1995
In 1945, the Air Force sent a thirty-eight-year-old major general named Curtis LeMay to the Pacific to direct its ineffectual air war against Japan, where the newly discovered jet stream was playing havoc with high-altitude precision bombing. The New Yorker reporter St. Clair McKelway, who was serving as a public-relations officer on Guam, described the General’s arrival in these pages: “He was around a few days, said almost nothing to anybody, was what, by civilian standards, would be called rude to many people. He was a big, husky, healthy, rather stocky, full-faced, black-haired man.” He chewed a cigar stub to disguise the Bell’s palsy that he’d got from flying high and cold; it made one side of his lower lip droop. He spoke, McKelway wrote, “through teeth that had obviously been pried open only with effort, an effort with which the speaker had no real sympathy.” He was a warrior as hard as Ulysses S. Grant, a bomber pilot, a big-game hunter: dark, fleshy, smart. “I’ll tell you what war is about,” he once said with characteristic bluntness. “You’ve got to kill people, and when you’ve killed enough they stop fighting.”....
...Until his death, in 1990, this remarkable leader, whose efforts to carry out an impossible assignment took the world within a hair’s breadth of nuclear destruction, continued to believe that the United States had “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. We had not lost, nor had we won. The world had won. Science had revealed a limit to total war.
