The Kennedy Doctrine 1961-1963 - Research Paper Example

If Kennedy would not have inherited the legacy of the Recession of 1960-61, and also if ‘the Bay of Pigs’ invasion would not have failed, the Kennedy Doctrine had been, possibly, read as an anecdote or sequel to his predecessor Eisenhower’s foreign policy which rigidly was permeated with the president’s confidence in the country’s military strength to suppress any threat in international politics. Though within the first six months of his presidency in the Oval Office, Kennedy recovered from the recession, the increased military expenditure in the following years was the reflection of Kennedy’s policy to deter any possible offensive role of the Soviet Union.

In this regard Gaddis (2005) opined that also the failed CIA-backed military coup in Cuba, in spite of Kennedy’s promise to refrain from Cuban Affairs, provoked the president to be bold to pronounce the United States’ defensive stance regarding the Berlin issue and the diplomatic acknowledgement of the Soviet Union’s concern in Germany. (Gaddis, 2005, pp. 112-115). Outlines of the Kennedy Doctrine and Historical Background Though the Kennedy Doctrine is often misinterpreted as the elaborations of Eisenhower and Truman’s foreign policy prerogatives to contain Communist expansion around the world at any cost, even by involving into another war, the skeletal difference of JFK’s policy with his predecessor’s was determined by the country’s experience of fighting the recession during its earliest months, of failure of the “Bay of Pigs” and the “Cuban Missile Crisis”.

Kennedy promised to pay “any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty” (The Avalon Project, 2008). In his augural speech; nevertheless he was aware of the pressure of a tumultuous economy that was suffering from the fourth great recession in the US history. In one of his Union addresses, Kennedy admitted it: “The present state of our economy is disturbing. We take office in the wake of seven months of recession.

Insured unemployment is at the highest peak in our history. In short, the American economy is in trouble” (Sorensen, 2009, p. 98). Unlike his predecessor, Eisenhower, Kennedy took the reign of America at a time when “business bankruptcies had reached the highest level since the 1930s, farm incomes had decreased 25 percent since 1951, and 5.5 million Americans were looking for work” (Miller Center, n.d.). Failure of the “Bay of Pigs” Invasion: A New Turn in Kennedy’s Foreign Policy Indeed Kennedy’s perception of the country’s economy along with the failures of his overly enthusiastic but covert military enterprises in Cuba in April 17, 1961 seemed to provoke him to be more diplomatic in confronting Communism around the World.

Researchers often tend to characterize the Bay of Pig Invasion as Kennedy Administration’s initial trend to tread down the predecessors’ path to respond to Nikita Khrushchev’s “support for the wars of national liberation” in January, 1961 and the Soviet role in Congo crisis in February, 1961. According to Gaddis (2005), such experience in the “Bay of Pigs” might bring a new twist in Kennedy Foreign Policy (p. 89). This event provoked the president to voice the US positions clearly, less depending on the covert role, in the Berlin