In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The embargo doesn't affect the United States, not even minimally; all of Cuba's economy is smaller than that of Miami-Dade County, and the ones who suffer the most are Cubans. If you talk to them in the street, they're the ones most interested in the opening of a free market in their country.
In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba.
The U.S. trade embargo on Cuba is almost completely ineffective, as many other countries, including the European Union, do not honor it.
Kennedy had already, in 1962, lowered investment taxes on business. And after his tragic assassination, his broader tax proposals were passed into law in early 1964. And they worked. The U.S. economy grew by roughly 5 percent yearly for nearly eight years.
Look at what President Kennedy managed to achieve during the Cuban missile crisis. If Bush had been president in 1962, do you think he would have avoided a nuclear war?
You know, it's very clear, as one looks back on history again of the Cold War that, following the crisis in Cuba, following the Khrushchev - beating down of Jack Kennedy in Vienna, that President Kennedy believed that we had to join the battle for the Third World, and the next crisis that developed in that regards was Vietnam.
Our Cuba policy didn't make much sense during the Cold War and makes even less sense now.
Kennedy had made a mess in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He had to do something to look good. The Apollo program of going to the Moon was quite a goal.
Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That's why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.
In January 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations in response to Cuban nationalisation of U.S.-owned sugar plantations, banks and businesses.