Remembering The Cuban Missile Crisis

[poliphilo]

The difference is we took Kennedy and Khrushchev seriously. I'm not sure they were really any wiser or more imposing than Trump and Kim but the world viewed them as statesmen and not as over-tired toddlers. Politics may not have changed in the intervening half century but I think the world has. We're less frightened, less respectful of power, less willing to put up with high level silliness.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Krushchev was an old Bolshevik and that rarest of things in that bunch, a genuine working class boy who regretted his lack of education.

[poliphilo]

In the new movie about the death of Stalin he's played by Steve Buscemi. Now there's a counter-intuitive piece of casting.

[qatsi]

I'm fairly confident they were wiser - in the sense of having wisdom, at least, because the current pair have about as much wisdom as the average single-celled organism.

[poliphilo]

They lived in an pre-internet world of greater deference and tighter news management- and didn't have to endure the kind of constant scrutiny that modern politicians are subjected to. The fact remains that they came very close to blowing up the world between them.

[shewhomust]

I'm not sure that I am less frightened. I wish...