Robert Conroy - Castro's bomb

Probably, he thought and shuddered.

Kennedy had his own enemies. With elections coming in the fall, contenders for his office had appeared from both parties. Senator Goldwater from Arizona was the heavy favorite to take the Republican nomination and he'd been vehement that the military should have gone into Havana, regardless of potential consequences. It was a stance that had many middle of the road Americans thinking was extreme and dangerous. Experts said that if he persisted, he might find himself unable to win a presidential election against either Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater was heavily involved with a senate sub-committee investigating just how and why Guantanamo had been so thoroughly surprised in the first place. Obviously, it was JFK’s fault and the president accepted that he would get the blame. After all, he was the man in charge.

Former General Curtis LeMay supported that, and another rumor had LeMay being Goldwater's vice presidential running-mate. An aging and ailing General Douglas MacArthur had criticized JFK as a playboy dilettante who'd twice caved in under pressure and who spinelessly permitted a communist nation to exist only a few miles from Florida.

Even his own vice president, Lyndon Johnson, had condemned Kennedy's actions as wrong because they were incomplete. Of course, Johnson was running to unseat JFK as the Democratic candidate. He was not given much of a chance as much of the nation was pleased that a full-scale war had been averted. Upsetting and incumbent president didn't ordinarily happen.

Still, LBJ had become a royal pain in the ass. He had the capability of splitting the Democratic Party at a time when it was necessary to show a solid front against the Republicans. In Kennedy’s opinion, Johnson had just gotten a case of religion when it came to civil rights, something the president supported but hadn’t wanted to deal with until after the 1964 elections. Now he was going to have to support LBJ’s civil rights stance in order to keep him quiet

Good thing the vice president was down in Miami, Kennedy thought. He was not trying to mend fences for Kennedy. No, he was telling the exiles how he would have won Cuba back for them if he’d been given just half a chance, and how he’d argued for taking Havana and toppling Castro. Bastard, JFK thought. Reports were that his message was not being well received by a Cuban community that had been ravaged by the war. They felt that LBJ was connected too closely with a White House that was, as Marine Commandant Shoup said in a meeting, as popular in Miami's exile community as venereal disease in a convent. Emilio Esteban and some of his force had survived their abortive invasion and escaped back to Florida where they were loudly condemning anyone connected to the current presidency.

Not everyone was against Kennedy. Former Presidents Truman and Eisenhower had supported him as had most of the media and the polls showed that fifteen hundred dead Americans was more than enough to pay for retaking Guantanamo and punishing Cuba. The thought of many more dead and wounded had they war gone on had silenced most critics.

And what had the military learned, he wondered? Along with the dead and wounded, there had been shock that twenty-five American planes had been shot down by Cuba. Only six from combat with Cuban planes, and U.S. forces claimed at least twenty MiGs shot down by them. But nineteen U.S. jets had been killed by surface-to-air missiles, which had been a complete surprise. Both the navy and the air force agreed that new equipment and new tactics had to be developed to counter these, especially since the Russians had newer and better SAMs coming on line.

The army had learned that a people might just fight like sons of bitches for their own country and, even though outgunned, inflict serious casualties on a well armed invader. There were some in congress who wanted more of a presence in South Vietnam, which was threatened by a communist takeover, but JFK was fighting the urge. There were twenty thousand American military currently in that divided land and he was of the opinion that it was more than enough. If the current pro-American government in South Vietnam couldn't stand without more help, then so be it. No land wars in Asia, he kept repeating to himself, no land wars in Asia.

The door to the Oval Office swung open. Kennedy was startled. He wasn't expecting anyone and the intrusion was a serious breach of protocol. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger rushed in. His face was pale.

"Mr. President, there's been a tragedy. Lyndon Johnson was just shot by some Cuban exiles in Miami who may have been associated with that Esteban character. Sir, he's dead.”