OOC: No he wasn't!
JFK's opponent for president was Richard Nixon, who was a hawk and in league with McCarthy himself. Obviously, JFK doesn't want to appear "soft" on communism, but you've got it backwards...
The situation with Cuba was festering for decades with all of the US manipulation going on there. Batista was essentially a gangster's stooge who left Cuba with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of lewt. As far as I understand Cuba, that was one of many signs that the CIA was going totally nuts. JFK didn't authorize the Bay of Pigs invasion, indeed, the CIA has been a little crazy, at least until the Church Commission in the Carter Presidency forced them to stop their political assassinations.
JFK would probably not have sought re-election for health reasons. Yes tensions were explosive with the Soviet Union, but Khrushchev is getting removed over the Cuban Missile Crisis anyway...
Really, Avalon, please try to create a tighter scenario than just something silly. If I didn't smack this one down many others would have...