the top five. the top five presidential decisions that shaped our country, when you think maybe a president doesn t make consequential decisions. kennedy decides to go to the moon. we were losing the cold war and missile gap and wanted 0 to rebrand. at the time 30 billion dollars and a lot of money and people called it a moon-doggle. we got there before 1970 and it worked, his lasting legacy, the moon. you said people called it a moon-doggle by the critics. now, number four on the list, harry truman in dropping the atomic bomb. it s considered one of the biggest decisions in the presidency because of the moral nature of it. he really, people thought he wrestled with the decision, but he really didn t. he felt like it would shorten the war, avoid an invasion of japan which would have been
we ve looked almost from the beginning. we ve been worried we were falling behind, losing our edge, lost the magic and yet we keep going and going. i point out in my piece in my whole life i ve been hearing how, you know, we were behind the host union. we had a missile gap. the country was falling apart in the 60s. stagflation in the 70s. crisis of confidence. loss of family values. one darned thing after another. and yet we are stronger now than we ve ever been. is it this type of dig that we need, this blatant look in the mirror that spurs measuring to be the best times where we are criticized? i absolutely agree with that. it s one of the things we do well. we are not a complacent country. and we identify problems and figure out how to solve them.
but it frightens people, and it s very effective in the campaign. i believe the soviet union is first in outer space. you yourself said to khrushchev, you may be ahead of us in rocket thrusts, but we re ahead of you in color television. i think that color television is not as important as missile development. the missile gap was a total lie. we out missiled them at that time better than 100 to 1. if eisenhower came forward and said this kid is not telling the truth, it would have been a different election. let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
didn t happen this weekend doesn t mean it won t happen soon. they are prepared to execute on one. but beyond a nuclear test, which is obviously very concerning, is the ballistic missile test. and clearly, kim jong-un thought it was okay to press on with theest the. even though it was a test, it was a failed test, but it gave them the capability to learn how it works. i think they will continue to test going forward. one of the things that got a lot of people s attention today was the headline in the new york times quoting someone as saying, this is like a cuban missile crisis in slow motion. is that descriptive? i think it is. if you listen to our leaders of the countries in the region, they are starting to feel as if they are under intense pressure. but they are also feeling, especially in tokyo, where they don t have offensive weapons, they are feeling they suffer from the missile gap. so as kelly said, the next stage
viewed, everybody viewed cuba to be a pawn of russia. of course in retrospect, hindsight s always 20/20. it s clear now that it was the other way around. that kruhrushchev was trying to make up for the missile gap between the united states and russia. he tried to use cuba, but all by positions missiles in cuba, but all that did was strengthen fidel s hand both in cuba and in the rest the rest of the hemisphere. jack jacobs, thank you very much for your comments. we ll bring in andrea mitchell. chief foreign affairs correspondent. quite a night. reporter: for you, as well. you ve been talking all night about fidel castro. and the fact that this moment which we all anticipated given his angel and health has finally arrived. and you interviewed him in 2002. and that interview went on until