Now, he throwed me out, I slipped back and got up on the chair,
I could hear him addressing Congress, what it s gonna be next year.
You know, I dreamed last night, I was a millionaire,
I got up and wrote a check, it wouldn t cash nowhere.
You know, United States got a bomb, bomb and burn us out in a
week,
It go in the ground,  bout eight foot deep,
You know it cook up eyes, you know what it d do for me.49
Khrushchev did not have a high opinion of the young president of
the United States after the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation. Despite
his much publicized intervention, Kennedy had also been unable to pre-
vent the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, another factor that surely
must have influenced Khrushchev. As a result the Soviet Union felt safe
in installing intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba. CIA aerial pho-
tographs led to the discovery of this buildup, and on 22 October 1962
Kennedy ordered a blockade to prevent further supplies reaching Cuba.
In response, Khrushchev threatened to launch atomic missiles after a U.S.
invasion. For a week the world held its breath.
At this moment Kennedy proved his leadership; in a complicated bal-
ance of interests, he took sensible measures and was so determined that the
Soviet leader yielded to American pressure and removed its missiles from
the island. In a secret communication Kennedy promised to remove Jupiter
rockets from Turkey after four or five months.50 The Soviet prime minister
was now impressed by Kennedy s leadership, and the 5 August 1963 Limited
Test Ban Treaty, banning atomic tests in the atmosphere, was a direct result
of the favorable outcome of this confrontation. Khrushchev s long and
emotional telegram to President Johnson immediately after Kennedy s
assassination provided ample evidence of the respect that the latter had
gained in the Kremlin by his handling of the Cuban crisis.
 Red s Dream from 1962, during the Cuban crisis, was recorded by
Louisiana Red, the best known of the many soubriquets used by blues
guitarist Iverson Minter (b. 1936). It is yet another (albeit highly original)
version of Big Bill Broonzy s  Just a Dream. In an epic confrontation on
the floor of the U.N. General Assembly, Red publicly humiliates Castro
J F K S a y s I  v e G o t t o G o [ 4 1 ]