What was John F. Kennedy referring to when he said “a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy”?
Excerpt
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
It was mostly before my time, so I don’t have that kind of insight. When I read it, it sounds to me a lot like what we see happening in the U.S. today.
Well, back then it was the Soviets, and now quite a lot of what we see in the west is being guided by the hand of Putin, so it basically is the same thing happening all over again.
He was talking about the Soviet Union. Don’t they teach this very basic history in school?
Who do you think was conducting the ‘Cold War’ in the last sentence?