Fighting world communism was always the excuse. Getting a handful of hostages out so Reagan could take credit for his "tough laying down the law" to terrorists was the goal. Reagan was the little kid who payed off the schoolyard bully with his lunch money and then bragged how he didn't get picked on because he was so tough. Fighting communism was always the excuse, solidifying the conservative domestic agenda and philosophy by political control of the courts and bureaucracy and legislature was always the goal behind it. No humiliation, no crime was too much if it could be cloaked in "fighting communism". The Right never cared about the country, it only cared about its investments. Those commies who dealt with us, like the Chinese, got pretty much everything they wanted. Today, there are no more communists, but the excuses and the goals still remain the same.

The ayatollahs showed more integrity than Reagan did, and rebuffed his submissive posture and his grovelling. The Gypper apparently got money to fight his dirty little war elsewhere. I wonder where? Did the Israelis act as go-betweens with the Iranians? Did it come from Contra drugs? Did we ever get our hostages back?

As for Kennedy and Cuba... He negotiated a deal with the Russians and both sides honored it because both sides got what they wanted. We wouldn't invade Cuba if they would pull the missiles out. Everybody knew that, it was never a secret. And when Kennedy was forced into the humiliation of giving Castro 500 John Deere Tractors to ransom back the Bay of Pigs prisoners, he did it in the open, where everyone could see it. They weren't delivered in the dead of night in secret, unmarked transports by a cake-and-pistol bearing Colonel North.