"The Missiles of October" Redux? It seems to me we've been here before...

Testing... testing... this is only a test.

... but, having been present during the "before" I have no desire to see just how "Kennedyesque" the current President can be. Nor should you. The last time this sort of fooling around by Russia led from hints to actions, the policy of the United States was:

Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. -- President Kennedy's Address to the Nation on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba

Things are not nearly at that level, just yet, but "mighty oaks from little acorns grow...."

Cuba, Venezuela could host Russian bombers

MOSCOW – A Russian air force chief said Saturday that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, the Interfax news agency reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically....

The chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, was quoted by Interfax as saying Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had offered "a whole island with an airdrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers."

"If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible," Zhikharev was quoted as saying.

Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba has air bases with four or five runways long enough for the huge bombers and could be used to host the long-range planes.

But Alexei Pavlov, a Kremlin official, told The Associated Press that "the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that's all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment," he said.

The last time we saw Russian weapons mounted in the western hemisphere was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For those who were not alive or aware at that time, I do not exaggerate when I say that there were a number of very long days in which the entire population of the United States was convinced that thermonuclear war was just a shot away. It was not a pleasant feeling, but that was the way it was when:

Kennedy saw the photographs on October 16 he assembled the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm), fourteen key officials and his brother Robert, at 9.00 a.m. The U.S. had no plan for dealing with such a threat, because U.S. intelligence was convinced that the Soviets would not install nuclear missiles in Cuba.

What followed was a hodgepodge of responses that outlined the meaning of the word "brinksmanship" in flames.

During those days I can remember my mother joining hosts of other housewives in Sacramento in buying out the supermarkets. I can remember my father stocking the car with supplies and extra gas cans and then alerting my grandparents deep in the Sierra Nevada that we might have to pay them an emergency visit. Since Sacramento at the time was in the center of several SAC bases supporting units such as the 4134th Strategic Wing, I doubt we would have gotten very far. It would have been better just to walk out into the street, hold each other, and wait for the fireball.

The crisis went through a number of stages culminating on October 24, 1962 when a group of Soviet ships approached a quarantine/blockade line manned by US warships... and then turned away. This prompted the famous line by then Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "We're eyeball to eyeball,and I think the other fellow just blinked."

That "blink" won the nation a reprieve from Armageddon, and don't think that the mood of the country didn't reflect that. It did.