Obama the wisest president since Kennedy, does it again!!

[Oldstyle]

So unless Bfrgn has an explanation why Robert Kennedy would LIE about JFK's mindset on Vietnam...the ship has sailed on that particular liberal "myth".

 

[Bfgrn]

The idea that JFK was going to pull troops out of Vietnam is nothing more than a myth that's been pushed by liberals for years in an attempt to posthumously "renovate" Kennedy's reputation. Bfgrn tried trotting this nonsense out before and failed miserably. Now he's back and claiming success? Self delusion at best!

Are you really going to try to lie your way through this again?

This is not speculation, it is documented FACT. You have every right to argue Kennedy might have changed his mind had he lived. But there is ZERO doubt the policy the day he died was to withdraw 1,000 military advisors by the end of 1963 and full withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Two key documents:

Withdrawal from Vietnam (Oct. 11, 1963). JFK signs NSAM 263, an order to withdraw 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Escalation in Vietnam (Nov. 26, 1963): Signed by President Lyndon Johnson four days after JFK’s death, NSAM 273 succeeded NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam.

There is ZERO evidence that Kennedy would EVER commit over 500,000 combat troops. There is NOTHING in his Presidency that would support that allegation. Laos, Berlin, Cuba...at EVERY turn Kennedy refused to use military force.

 

[Bfgrn]

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

page 304

 

[Oldstyle]

The idea that JFK was going to pull troops out of Vietnam is nothing more than a myth that's been pushed by liberals for years in an attempt to posthumously "renovate" Kennedy's reputation. Bfgrn tried trotting this nonsense out before and failed miserably. Now he's back and claiming success? Self delusion at best!

Are you really going to try to lie your way through this again?

This is not speculation, it is documented FACT. You have every right to argue Kennedy might have changed his mind had he lived. But there is ZERO doubt the policy the day he died was to withdraw 1,000 military advisors by the end of 1963 and full withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Two key documents:

Withdrawal from Vietnam (Oct. 11, 1963). JFK signs NSAM 263, an order to withdraw 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Escalation in Vietnam (Nov. 26, 1963): Signed by President Lyndon Johnson four days after JFK’s death, NSAM 273 succeeded NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam.

There is ZERO evidence that Kennedy would EVER commit over 500,000 combat troops. There is NOTHING in his Presidency that would support that allegation. Laos, Berlin, Cuba...at EVERY turn Kennedy refused to use military force.

The idea that JFK was going to pull troops out of Vietnam is nothing more than a myth that's been pushed by liberals for years in an attempt to posthumously "renovate" Kennedy's reputation. Bfgrn tried trotting this nonsense out before and failed miserably. Now he's back and claiming success? Self delusion at best!

Are you really going to try to lie your way through this again?

This is not speculation, it is documented FACT. You have every right to argue Kennedy might have changed his mind had he lived. But there is ZERO doubt the policy the day he died was to withdraw 1,000 military advisors by the end of 1963 and full withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Two key documents:

Withdrawal from Vietnam (Oct. 11, 1963). JFK signs NSAM 263, an order to withdraw 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Escalation in Vietnam (Nov. 26, 1963): Signed by President Lyndon Johnson four days after JFK’s death, NSAM 273 succeeded NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam.

There is ZERO evidence that Kennedy would EVER commit over 500,000 combat troops. There is NOTHING in his Presidency that would support that allegation. Laos, Berlin, Cuba...at EVERY turn Kennedy refused to use military force.

So you're contention is that Robert Kennedy...JFK's closest confidant...was lying in that interview? Is that what you're claiming, Bfgrn? Those are HIS words...not mine. So explain why Robert Kennedy would make that statement! There's no waffling...no ambiguity...he flat out declares that JFK had no intent to abandon South Vietnam to the communists.

Once again...the "plan" that you refer to is one that was approved when Kennedy was being told by his military leaders that the conflict in Vietnam was being won and there would soon be little need for American troops there. You seem to have a hard time differentiating between what a "plan" is and what "policy" is.

 

[Bfgrn]

The idea that JFK was going to pull troops out of Vietnam is nothing more than a myth that's been pushed by liberals for years in an attempt to posthumously "renovate" Kennedy's reputation. Bfgrn tried trotting this nonsense out before and failed miserably. Now he's back and claiming success? Self delusion at best!

Are you really going to try to lie your way through this again?

This is not speculation, it is documented FACT. You have every right to argue Kennedy might have changed his mind had he lived. But there is ZERO doubt the policy the day he died was to withdraw 1,000 military advisors by the end of 1963 and full withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Two key documents:

Withdrawal from Vietnam (Oct. 11, 1963). JFK signs NSAM 263, an order to withdraw 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Escalation in Vietnam (Nov. 26, 1963): Signed by President Lyndon Johnson four days after JFK’s death, NSAM 273 succeeded NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam.

There is ZERO evidence that Kennedy would EVER commit over 500,000 combat troops. There is NOTHING in his Presidency that would support that allegation. Laos, Berlin, Cuba...at EVERY turn Kennedy refused to use military force.

The idea that JFK was going to pull troops out of Vietnam is nothing more than a myth that's been pushed by liberals for years in an attempt to posthumously "renovate" Kennedy's reputation. Bfgrn tried trotting this nonsense out before and failed miserably. Now he's back and claiming success? Self delusion at best!

Are you really going to try to lie your way through this again?

This is not speculation, it is documented FACT. You have every right to argue Kennedy might have changed his mind had he lived. But there is ZERO doubt the policy the day he died was to withdraw 1,000 military advisors by the end of 1963 and full withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Two key documents:

Withdrawal from Vietnam (Oct. 11, 1963). JFK signs NSAM 263, an order to withdraw 1,000 troops out of roughly 16,000 Americans stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963, with the complete withdrawal by the end of 1965.

Escalation in Vietnam (Nov. 26, 1963): Signed by President Lyndon Johnson four days after JFK’s death, NSAM 273 succeeded NSAM 263 and ordered the planning of increased activity in Vietnam.

There is ZERO evidence that Kennedy would EVER commit over 500,000 combat troops. There is NOTHING in his Presidency that would support that allegation. Laos, Berlin, Cuba...at EVERY turn Kennedy refused to use military force.

So you're contention is that Robert Kennedy...JFK's closest confidant...was lying in that interview? Is that what you're claiming, Bfgrn? Those are HIS words...not mine. So explain why Robert Kennedy would make that statement! There's no waffling...no ambiguity...he flat out declares that JFK had no intent to abandon South Vietnam to the communists.

Once again...the "plan" that you refer to is one that was approved when Kennedy was being told by his military leaders that the conflict in Vietnam was being won and there would soon be little need for American troops there. You seem to have a hard time differentiating between what a "plan" is and what "policy" is.

Then PLEASE tell me what the POLICY was the day Kennedy was assassinated?

 

[EatMorChikin]

Shhhhhh

She thinks there was an agreement. Don't spoil it by telling her there's no agreement. Just a way for John Kerry to leave an empty room.

I know congress has to give their two cents....listen, you morons, no matter how hard you ass holes try to dumb me down, I'm not going any where...get over it...I'm hear to defend and protect my man, President Obama and I'm willing to get kicked off this site, as I have with others in order to do it.

You have already done a fine job in the dumb down department. Anyone who believes Obama is smart, is by default so fucking stupid I feel sorry for them.

 

[Oldstyle]

As Robert Kennedy stated...the "policy" of JFK was to stem the tide of communism. President Kennedy was more than willing to draw down troop levels in South Vietnam when he believed that the South was winning...but as his brother was quite clear on...JFK had no intentions of letting South Vietnam turn communist.

That was Kennedy's "policy" on day one of his administration and it remained thus up until the day he was killed.

 

[EatMorChikin]

Great diplomatic accomplishment by our President

Secretary Kerry also deserves alot of credit for delivering a better deal than could have been imagined

What's good about this deal, Winger?

Glad you asked

It provides a pathway for Iran to scale down their nuclear programs to a point where they can't produce weapons grade nuclear material

Iran is hurting right now and removing the sanctions will help them to start selling oil again and help their people

It provides for inspections and verification prior to removing sanctions. If they violate the deal or stop allowing inspections then the sanctions return and we are back to where we are today

They aren't letting any inspectors in, this game is gonna go round and round. All they wanted was sanctions lifted, so they can get back to business as usual. Can you fucking Obama drones even see, with your heads so far up Obamas ass?

 

[Bfgrn]

As Robert Kennedy stated...the "policy" of JFK was to stem the tide of communism. President Kennedy was more than willing to draw down troop levels in South Vietnam when he believed that the South was winning...but as his brother was quite clear on...JFK had no intentions of letting South Vietnam turn communist.

That was Kennedy's "policy" on day one of his administration and it remained thus up until the day he was killed.

No, THIS was the POLICY, and there is NO POSSIBLE way John F. Kennedy could ever change that POLICY after 12:30 CST 22, Nov 1963:

20 Nov 1963 - Honolulu Meeting Briefing Book, Part I. See also Part II.
The briefing books prepared for a Vietnam meeting in Honolulu reaffirmed the timetables for complete withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as the initial 1,000 main withdrawal, despite the recent coup in Vietnam.

Kennedy is now DEAD asshole


24 Nov 1963 - Memorandum for the Record of a Meeting, Executive Office Building, Washington, November 24, 1963, 3 p.m.
Within two days of President Kennedy's death, on Sunday afternoon, President Johnson already began receiving advice that "we could not at this point or time give a particularly optimistic appraisal of the future" regarding Vietnam. President Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the present course and particularly its emphasis on social reforms, and stated that "He was anxious to get along, win the war..."




Today it's fashionable to view the quagmire of Vietnam as a continuum beginning under Eisenhower and steadily escalating through the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. But JFK was wary of the conflict from the outset and determined to end U.S. involvement at the time of his death.

JFK inherited a deteriorative dilemma. When Eisenhower left office, there were by official count 685 military advisers in Vietnam, sent there to help the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in its battle against the South Vietnamese guerrillas known as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese soldiers deployed by Communist ruler Ho Chi Minh, who was intent on reunifying his country. Eisenhower explained that "the loss of South Vietnam would set in motion a crumbling process that could, as it progressed, have grave consequences for us." Ho Chi Minh's popularity in the south had already led Dulles' CIA to sabotage national elections required by the Geneva Accords, which had ended France's colonial rule, and to prop up Diem's crooked puppet government, which was tenuously hanging on to power against the Communists. Back at home, Republican militarists were charging JFK with "losing Laos" and badgering him to ramp up our military commitment.

In JFK's first months in office, the Pentagon asked him to deploy ground troops into Vietnam. JFK agreed to send another 500 advisers, under the assumption that South Vietnam had a large army and would be able to defend itself against communist aggression. He refused to send ground troops but would eventually commit 16,500 advisers - fewer troops than he sent to Mississippi to integrate Ole Miss - who were technically forbidden from engaging in combat missions. He told New York Times columnist Arthur Krock in 1961 that the United States should not involve itself "in civil disturbances created by guerrillas."

For three years, that refusal to send combat troops earned him the antipathy of both liberals and conservatives who rebuked him for "throwing in the towel" in the Cold War. His critics included not just the traditionally bellicose Joint Chiefs and the CIA, but also trusted advisers and friends, including Gen. Maxwell Taylor; Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; McNamara's deputy, Roswell Gilpatric; and Secretary of State Rusk. JFK's ambassador to South Vietnam, Frederick Nolting Jr., reported a "virtually unanimous desire for the introduction of the U.S. forces into Vietnam" by the Vietnamese "in various walks of life." When Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited Vietnam in May 1961, he returned adamant that victory required U.S. combat troops. Virtually every one of JFK's senior staff concurred. Yet JFK resisted. Saigon, he said, would have to fight its own war.

As a stalling tactic, he sent Gen. Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission in September 1961. Taylor was among my father's best friends. JFK was frank with Taylor - he needed a military man to advise him to get out of Vietnam. According to Taylor, "The last thing he wanted was to put in ground forces. And I knew that." Nevertheless, Taylor was persuaded by hysterical military and intelligence experts across the Pacific, and had angered JFK when he came back recommending U.S. intervention. To prevent the fall of South Vietnam, Taylor suggested sending 8,000 U.S. troops under the guise of "flood relief" - a number that McNamara said was a reasonable start but should be escalated to as many as "six divisions, or about 205,000 men." Later, Taylor would say, "I don't recall anyone who was strongly against [sending troops to Vietnam] except one man, and that was the president."

Frustrated by Taylor's report, JFK then sent a confirmed pacifist, John Kenneth Galbraith, to Vietnam to make the case for nonintervention. But JFK confided his political weakness to Galbraith. "You have to realize," JFK said, "that I can only afford so many defeats in one year." He had the Bay of Pigs and the pulling out of Laos. He couldn't accept a third. Former Vice President Richard Nixon and the CIA's Dulles, whom JFK had fired, were loudly advocating U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, while Asian dominoes tumbled. Even The New York Times agreed. "The present situation," the paper had warned, "is one that brooks no further stalling." This was accepted wisdom among America's leading foreign-policy gurus. Public sympathies in the summer of 1963 were 2-to-1 for intervention.

Despite the drumbeat from the left and right, JFK refused to send in combat troops. "They want a force of American troops," JFK told Schlesinger. "They say it's necessary in order to restore confidence and maintain morale. But it will be just like Berlin. The troops will march in, the bands will play, the crowds will cheer, and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It's like taking a drink. The effect wears off and you have to have another."

In 1967, Daniel Ellsberg interviewed my father. Ellsberg, a wavering war hawk and Marine veteran, was researching the history of the Vietnam War. He had seen the mountains of warmongering memos, advice and pressure. Ellsberg asked my father how JFK had managed to stand against the virtually unanimous tide of pro-war sentiment. My father explained that his brother did not want to follow France into a war of rich against poor, white versus Asian, on the side of imperialism and colonialism against nationalism and self-determination. Pressing my father, Ellsberg asked whether the president would have accepted a South Vietnamese defeat. "We would have handled it like Laos," my father told him. Intrigued, Ellsberg pressed further. "What made him so smart?" Three decades afterward, Ellsberg would vividly recall my father's reaction: "Whap! His hand slapped down on the desk. I jumped in my chair. 'Because we were there!' He slapped the desk again. 'We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it. We were determined never to let that happen to us.'"

In 1951, JFK, then a young congressman, and my father visited Vietnam, where they marveled at the fearlessness of the French Legionnaires and the hopelessness of their cause. On that trip, American diplomat Edmund Gullion warned JFK to avoid the trap. Upon returning, JFK isolated himself with his outspoken opposition to American involvement in this "hopeless internecine struggle."

Three years later, in April 1954, he made himself a pariah within his own party by condemning the Eisenhower administration for entertaining French requests for assistance in Indochina, predicting that fighting Ho Chi Minh would mire the U.S. in France's doomed colonial legacy. "No amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy that is everywhere and at the same time nowhere?.?.?.?[or an enemy] which has the sympathy and covert support of the people."

By the summer of 1963, JFK was quietly telling trusted friends and advisers he intended to get out following the 1964 election. These included Rep. Tip O'Neill, McNamara, National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy, Sen. Wayne Morse, Washington columnist Charles Bartlett, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, confidant Larry Newman, Gen. Taylor and Marine Commandant Gen. David M. Shoup, who, besides Taylor, was the only other member of the Joint Chiefs that JFK trusted. Both McNamara and Bundy acknowledged in their respective memoirs that JFK meant to get out - which were jarring admissions against self-interest, since these two would remain in the Johnson administration and orchestrate the war's escalation.

That spring, JFK had told Montana Sen. Mike Mansfield, who would become the Vietnam War's most outspoken Senate critic, "I can't do it until 1965, after I'm re-elected." Later that day, he explained to Kenneth O'Donnell, "If I tried to pull out completely from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy Red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm re-elected." Both Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Barry Goldwater, who were vying to run against him in 1964, were uncompromising Cold Warriors who would have loved to tar JFK with the brush that he had lost not just Laos, but now Vietnam. Goldwater was campaigning on the platform of "bombing Vietnam back into the Stone Age," a lyrical and satisfying construct to the Joint Chiefs and the CIA. "So we had better make damned sure I am re-elected," JFK said.

The Joint Chiefs, already in open revolt against JFK for failing to unleash the dogs of war in Cuba and Laos, were unanimous in urging a massive influx of ground troops and were incensed with talk of withdrawal. The mood in Langley was even uglier. Journalist Richard Starnes, filing from Vietnam, gave a stark assessment in The Washington Daily News of the CIA's unrestrained thirst for power in Vietnam. Starnes quoted high-level U.S. officials horrified by the CIA's role in escalating the conflict. They described an insubordinate, out-of-control agency, which one top official called a "malignancy." He doubted that "even the White House could control it any longer." Another warned, "If the United States ever experiences a [coup], it will come from the CIA and not from the Pentagon." Added another, "[Members of the CIA] represent tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."

Defying such pressures, JFK, in the spring of 1962, told McNamara to order the Joint Chiefs to begin planning for a phased withdrawal that would disengage the U.S. altogether. McNamara later told an assistant secretary of defense that the president intended to "close out Vietnam by '65 whether it was in good shape or bad."

On May 8th, 1962, following JFK's orders, McNamara instructed a stunned Gen. Paul Harkins "to devise a plan for bringing full responsibility [for the Vietnam War] over to South Vietnam." Mutinous, the general ignored the order until July 23rd, 1962, when McNamara again commanded him to produce a plan for withdrawal. The brass returned May 6th, 1963, with a half-baked proposal that didn't complete withdrawal as quickly as JFK had wanted. McNamara ordered them back yet again.

On September 2nd, 1963, in a televised interview, JFK told the American people he didn't want to get drawn into Vietnam. "In the final analysis, it is their war," he said. "They are the ones who have to win or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment. We can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam."

Six weeks before his death, on October 11th, 1963, JFK bypassed his own National Security Council and had Bundy issue National Security Action Memorandum 263, making official policy the withdrawal from Vietnam of the bulk of U.S. military personnel by the end of 1965, beginning with "1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963." On November 14th, 1963, a week before Dallas, he announced at a press conference that he was ordering up a plan for "how we can bring Americans out of there." The morning of November 21st, as he prepared to leave for Texas, he reviewed a casualty list for Vietnam indicating that more than 100 Americans to date had died there. Shaken and angry, JFK told his assistant press secretary Malcolm Kilduff, "It's time for us to get out. The Vietnamese aren't fighting for themselves. We're the ones doing the fighting. After I come back from Texas, that's going to change. There's no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life."

On November 24th, 1963, two days after JFK died, Lyndon Johnson met with South Vietnam Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, whom JFK had been on the verge of firing. LBJ told Lodge, "I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went." Over the next decade, nearly 3 million Americans, including many of my friends, would enter the paddies of Vietnam, and 58,000, including my cousin George Skakel, would never return.

John F. Kennedy's Vision of Peace

 

[mudwhistle]

The fact that Kennedy wasn't that wise notwithstanding, what the fuck is the OP babbling about? I mean besides stating that he wanted some Obama cock...

Warrior For Peace - The Lessons of J.F.K. - TIME

If it wasn't for John F. Kennedy's wisdom, restraint and his abhorrence of war, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.

Kennedy prevented American cities from being reduced to radioactive rubble in the fall of 1962 and averted WWIII and a nuclear holocaust.

Had he lived, 60,000 young Americans wouldn't have perished in Southeast Asian jungles.


"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Course if it hadn't been for our media and celebrities like Jane Fonda, I don't think as many would have died, because the enemy knew as long as they kept killing Americans our Democrats would eventually turn the tide against us in any war.

 

[Oldstyle]

As Robert Kennedy stated...the "policy" of JFK was to stem the tide of communism. President Kennedy was more than willing to draw down troop levels in South Vietnam when he believed that the South was winning...but as his brother was quite clear on...JFK had no intentions of letting South Vietnam turn communist.

That was Kennedy's "policy" on day one of his administration and it remained thus up until the day he was killed.

No, THIS was the POLICY, and there is NO POSSIBLE way John F. Kennedy could ever change that POLICY after 12:30 CST 22, Nov 1963:

20 Nov 1963 - Honolulu Meeting Briefing Book, Part I. See also Part II.
The briefing books prepared for a Vietnam meeting in Honolulu reaffirmed the timetables for complete withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as the initial 1,000 main withdrawal, despite the recent coup in Vietnam.

Kennedy is now DEAD asshole


24 Nov 1963 - Memorandum for the Record of a Meeting, Executive Office Building, Washington, November 24, 1963, 3 p.m.
Within two days of President Kennedy's death, on Sunday afternoon, President Johnson already began receiving advice that "we could not at this point or time give a particularly optimistic appraisal of the future" regarding Vietnam. President Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the present course and particularly its emphasis on social reforms, and stated that "He was anxious to get along, win the war..."




Today it's fashionable to view the quagmire of Vietnam as a continuum beginning under Eisenhower and steadily escalating through the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. But JFK was wary of the conflict from the outset and determined to end U.S. involvement at the time of his death.

JFK inherited a deteriorative dilemma. When Eisenhower left office, there were by official count 685 military advisers in Vietnam, sent there to help the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in its battle against the South Vietnamese guerrillas known as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese soldiers deployed by Communist ruler Ho Chi Minh, who was intent on reunifying his country. Eisenhower explained that "the loss of South Vietnam would set in motion a crumbling process that could, as it progressed, have grave consequences for us." Ho Chi Minh's popularity in the south had already led Dulles' CIA to sabotage national elections required by the Geneva Accords, which had ended France's colonial rule, and to prop up Diem's crooked puppet government, which was tenuously hanging on to power against the Communists. Back at home, Republican militarists were charging JFK with "losing Laos" and badgering him to ramp up our military commitment.

In JFK's first months in office, the Pentagon asked him to deploy ground troops into Vietnam. JFK agreed to send another 500 advisers, under the assumption that South Vietnam had a large army and would be able to defend itself against communist aggression. He refused to send ground troops but would eventually commit 16,500 advisers - fewer troops than he sent to Mississippi to integrate Ole Miss - who were technically forbidden from engaging in combat missions. He told New York Times columnist Arthur Krock in 1961 that the United States should not involve itself "in civil disturbances created by guerrillas."

For three years, that refusal to send combat troops earned him the antipathy of both liberals and conservatives who rebuked him for "throwing in the towel" in the Cold War. His critics included not just the traditionally bellicose Joint Chiefs and the CIA, but also trusted advisers and friends, including Gen. Maxwell Taylor; Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; McNamara's deputy, Roswell Gilpatric; and Secretary of State Rusk. JFK's ambassador to South Vietnam, Frederick Nolting Jr., reported a "virtually unanimous desire for the introduction of the U.S. forces into Vietnam" by the Vietnamese "in various walks of life." When Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited Vietnam in May 1961, he returned adamant that victory required U.S. combat troops. Virtually every one of JFK's senior staff concurred. Yet JFK resisted. Saigon, he said, would have to fight its own war.

As a stalling tactic, he sent Gen. Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission in September 1961. Taylor was among my father's best friends. JFK was frank with Taylor - he needed a military man to advise him to get out of Vietnam. According to Taylor, "The last thing he wanted was to put in ground forces. And I knew that." Nevertheless, Taylor was persuaded by hysterical military and intelligence experts across the Pacific, and had angered JFK when he came back recommending U.S. intervention. To prevent the fall of South Vietnam, Taylor suggested sending 8,000 U.S. troops under the guise of "flood relief" - a number that McNamara said was a reasonable start but should be escalated to as many as "six divisions, or about 205,000 men." Later, Taylor would say, "I don't recall anyone who was strongly against [sending troops to Vietnam] except one man, and that was the president."

Frustrated by Taylor's report, JFK then sent a confirmed pacifist, John Kenneth Galbraith, to Vietnam to make the case for nonintervention. But JFK confided his political weakness to Galbraith. "You have to realize," JFK said, "that I can only afford so many defeats in one year." He had the Bay of Pigs and the pulling out of Laos. He couldn't accept a third. Former Vice President Richard Nixon and the CIA's Dulles, whom JFK had fired, were loudly advocating U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, while Asian dominoes tumbled. Even The New York Times agreed. "The present situation," the paper had warned, "is one that brooks no further stalling." This was accepted wisdom among America's leading foreign-policy gurus. Public sympathies in the summer of 1963 were 2-to-1 for intervention.

Despite the drumbeat from the left and right, JFK refused to send in combat troops. "They want a force of American troops," JFK told Schlesinger. "They say it's necessary in order to restore confidence and maintain morale. But it will be just like Berlin. The troops will march in, the bands will play, the crowds will cheer, and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It's like taking a drink. The effect wears off and you have to have another."

In 1967, Daniel Ellsberg interviewed my father. Ellsberg, a wavering war hawk and Marine veteran, was researching the history of the Vietnam War. He had seen the mountains of warmongering memos, advice and pressure. Ellsberg asked my father how JFK had managed to stand against the virtually unanimous tide of pro-war sentiment. My father explained that his brother did not want to follow France into a war of rich against poor, white versus Asian, on the side of imperialism and colonialism against nationalism and self-determination. Pressing my father, Ellsberg asked whether the president would have accepted a South Vietnamese defeat. "We would have handled it like Laos," my father told him. Intrigued, Ellsberg pressed further. "What made him so smart?" Three decades afterward, Ellsberg would vividly recall my father's reaction: "Whap! His hand slapped down on the desk. I jumped in my chair. 'Because we were there!' He slapped the desk again. 'We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it. We were determined never to let that happen to us.'"

In 1951, JFK, then a young congressman, and my father visited Vietnam, where they marveled at the fearlessness of the French Legionnaires and the hopelessness of their cause. On that trip, American diplomat Edmund Gullion warned JFK to avoid the trap. Upon returning, JFK isolated himself with his outspoken opposition to American involvement in this "hopeless internecine struggle."

Three years later, in April 1954, he made himself a pariah within his own party by condemning the Eisenhower administration for entertaining French requests for assistance in Indochina, predicting that fighting Ho Chi Minh would mire the U.S. in France's doomed colonial legacy. "No amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy that is everywhere and at the same time nowhere?.?.?.?[or an enemy] which has the sympathy and covert support of the people."

By the summer of 1963, JFK was quietly telling trusted friends and advisers he intended to get out following the 1964 election. These included Rep. Tip O'Neill, McNamara, National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy, Sen. Wayne Morse, Washington columnist Charles Bartlett, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, confidant Larry Newman, Gen. Taylor and Marine Commandant Gen. David M. Shoup, who, besides Taylor, was the only other member of the Joint Chiefs that JFK trusted. Both McNamara and Bundy acknowledged in their respective memoirs that JFK meant to get out - which were jarring admissions against self-interest, since these two would remain in the Johnson administration and orchestrate the war's escalation.

That spring, JFK had told Montana Sen. Mike Mansfield, who would become the Vietnam War's most outspoken Senate critic, "I can't do it until 1965, after I'm re-elected." Later that day, he explained to Kenneth O'Donnell, "If I tried to pull out completely from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy Red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm re-elected." Both Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Barry Goldwater, who were vying to run against him in 1964, were uncompromising Cold Warriors who would have loved to tar JFK with the brush that he had lost not just Laos, but now Vietnam. Goldwater was campaigning on the platform of "bombing Vietnam back into the Stone Age," a lyrical and satisfying construct to the Joint Chiefs and the CIA. "So we had better make damned sure I am re-elected," JFK said.

The Joint Chiefs, already in open revolt against JFK for failing to unleash the dogs of war in Cuba and Laos, were unanimous in urging a massive influx of ground troops and were incensed with talk of withdrawal. The mood in Langley was even uglier. Journalist Richard Starnes, filing from Vietnam, gave a stark assessment in The Washington Daily News of the CIA's unrestrained thirst for power in Vietnam. Starnes quoted high-level U.S. officials horrified by the CIA's role in escalating the conflict. They described an insubordinate, out-of-control agency, which one top official called a "malignancy." He doubted that "even the White House could control it any longer." Another warned, "If the United States ever experiences a [coup], it will come from the CIA and not from the Pentagon." Added another, "[Members of the CIA] represent tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."

Defying such pressures, JFK, in the spring of 1962, told McNamara to order the Joint Chiefs to begin planning for a phased withdrawal that would disengage the U.S. altogether. McNamara later told an assistant secretary of defense that the president intended to "close out Vietnam by '65 whether it was in good shape or bad."

On May 8th, 1962, following JFK's orders, McNamara instructed a stunned Gen. Paul Harkins "to devise a plan for bringing full responsibility [for the Vietnam War] over to South Vietnam." Mutinous, the general ignored the order until July 23rd, 1962, when McNamara again commanded him to produce a plan for withdrawal. The brass returned May 6th, 1963, with a half-baked proposal that didn't complete withdrawal as quickly as JFK had wanted. McNamara ordered them back yet again.

On September 2nd, 1963, in a televised interview, JFK told the American people he didn't want to get drawn into Vietnam. "In the final analysis, it is their war," he said. "They are the ones who have to win or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment. We can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam."

Six weeks before his death, on October 11th, 1963, JFK bypassed his own National Security Council and had Bundy issue National Security Action Memorandum 263, making official policy the withdrawal from Vietnam of the bulk of U.S. military personnel by the end of 1965, beginning with "1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963." On November 14th, 1963, a week before Dallas, he announced at a press conference that he was ordering up a plan for "how we can bring Americans out of there." The morning of November 21st, as he prepared to leave for Texas, he reviewed a casualty list for Vietnam indicating that more than 100 Americans to date had died there. Shaken and angry, JFK told his assistant press secretary Malcolm Kilduff, "It's time for us to get out. The Vietnamese aren't fighting for themselves. We're the ones doing the fighting. After I come back from Texas, that's going to change. There's no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life."

On November 24th, 1963, two days after JFK died, Lyndon Johnson met with South Vietnam Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, whom JFK had been on the verge of firing. LBJ told Lodge, "I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went." Over the next decade, nearly 3 million Americans, including many of my friends, would enter the paddies of Vietnam, and 58,000, including my cousin George Skakel, would never return.

John F. Kennedy's Vision of Peace

LOL...I know you WANT to believe the revised "Oliver Stone" version of JFK's vision for Vietnam, Bfgrn...just as Robert Kennedy Jr. WANTS to rewrite history but you still haven't explained why Robert Kennedy Senior was so adamant in that interview that JFK had no "policy" to pull out of Vietnam when he was killed! You keep bringing up that same plan that was arrived at before things got worse in South Vietnam...before Diem was killed...and once again...it was only a plan...a plan that was approved because Kennedy was being given faulty intel. Kennedy was a staunch anti-communist! He wasn't giving Vietnam to the communists without a fight! He wasn't and you can pull all the "rewrites" of history by Kennedy fluffers you want out of your little tush and that STILL won't change what took place in Vietnam under Kennedy.

 

[Oldstyle]

And why you think Kennedy's earlier "plan" was somehow a "policy" etched in stone never to change amazes me! As a nation we make tentative "plans" to do lots of things that never pan out and end up being revised. What Barack Obama just did with a change in "plan" for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan is a perfect example of that. He had a "plan" to pull all the troops out. Did that happen? No...because events happened between the time the "plan" was approved and policy was decided. That's exactly what happened in South Vietnam between the time Kennedy asked for a plan to be developed to pull out troops out and the time that he was killed.

 

[Oldstyle]

I'm amused by the almost desperate attempts by people to change what they see as John F. Kennedy's major fault as an icon of liberalism...namely that he DID get us deeper into Vietnam! The truth of the matter is that JFK was about as staunch an opponent of communism as there was back then. In his inaugural address he laid out his "policy" towards communism and it was far from nuanced!

“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, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

 

[Bfgrn]

As Robert Kennedy stated...the "policy" of JFK was to stem the tide of communism. President Kennedy was more than willing to draw down troop levels in South Vietnam when he believed that the South was winning...but as his brother was quite clear on...JFK had no intentions of letting South Vietnam turn communist.

That was Kennedy's "policy" on day one of his administration and it remained thus up until the day he was killed.

No, THIS was the POLICY, and there is NO POSSIBLE way John F. Kennedy could ever change that POLICY after 12:30 CST 22, Nov 1963:

20 Nov 1963 - Honolulu Meeting Briefing Book, Part I. See also Part II.
The briefing books prepared for a Vietnam meeting in Honolulu reaffirmed the timetables for complete withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as the initial 1,000 main withdrawal, despite the recent coup in Vietnam.

Kennedy is now DEAD asshole


24 Nov 1963 - Memorandum for the Record of a Meeting, Executive Office Building, Washington, November 24, 1963, 3 p.m.
Within two days of President Kennedy's death, on Sunday afternoon, President Johnson already began receiving advice that "we could not at this point or time give a particularly optimistic appraisal of the future" regarding Vietnam. President Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the present course and particularly its emphasis on social reforms, and stated that "He was anxious to get along, win the war..."




Today it's fashionable to view the quagmire of Vietnam as a continuum beginning under Eisenhower and steadily escalating through the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. But JFK was wary of the conflict from the outset and determined to end U.S. involvement at the time of his death.

JFK inherited a deteriorative dilemma. When Eisenhower left office, there were by official count 685 military advisers in Vietnam, sent there to help the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in its battle against the South Vietnamese guerrillas known as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese soldiers deployed by Communist ruler Ho Chi Minh, who was intent on reunifying his country. Eisenhower explained that "the loss of South Vietnam would set in motion a crumbling process that could, as it progressed, have grave consequences for us." Ho Chi Minh's popularity in the south had already led Dulles' CIA to sabotage national elections required by the Geneva Accords, which had ended France's colonial rule, and to prop up Diem's crooked puppet government, which was tenuously hanging on to power against the Communists. Back at home, Republican militarists were charging JFK with "losing Laos" and badgering him to ramp up our military commitment.

In JFK's first months in office, the Pentagon asked him to deploy ground troops into Vietnam. JFK agreed to send another 500 advisers, under the assumption that South Vietnam had a large army and would be able to defend itself against communist aggression. He refused to send ground troops but would eventually commit 16,500 advisers - fewer troops than he sent to Mississippi to integrate Ole Miss - who were technically forbidden from engaging in combat missions. He told New York Times columnist Arthur Krock in 1961 that the United States should not involve itself "in civil disturbances created by guerrillas."

For three years, that refusal to send combat troops earned him the antipathy of both liberals and conservatives who rebuked him for "throwing in the towel" in the Cold War. His critics included not just the traditionally bellicose Joint Chiefs and the CIA, but also trusted advisers and friends, including Gen. Maxwell Taylor; Defense Secretary Robert McNamara; McNamara's deputy, Roswell Gilpatric; and Secretary of State Rusk. JFK's ambassador to South Vietnam, Frederick Nolting Jr., reported a "virtually unanimous desire for the introduction of the U.S. forces into Vietnam" by the Vietnamese "in various walks of life." When Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited Vietnam in May 1961, he returned adamant that victory required U.S. combat troops. Virtually every one of JFK's senior staff concurred. Yet JFK resisted. Saigon, he said, would have to fight its own war.

As a stalling tactic, he sent Gen. Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission in September 1961. Taylor was among my father's best friends. JFK was frank with Taylor - he needed a military man to advise him to get out of Vietnam. According to Taylor, "The last thing he wanted was to put in ground forces. And I knew that." Nevertheless, Taylor was persuaded by hysterical military and intelligence experts across the Pacific, and had angered JFK when he came back recommending U.S. intervention. To prevent the fall of South Vietnam, Taylor suggested sending 8,000 U.S. troops under the guise of "flood relief" - a number that McNamara said was a reasonable start but should be escalated to as many as "six divisions, or about 205,000 men." Later, Taylor would say, "I don't recall anyone who was strongly against [sending troops to Vietnam] except one man, and that was the president."

Frustrated by Taylor's report, JFK then sent a confirmed pacifist, John Kenneth Galbraith, to Vietnam to make the case for nonintervention. But JFK confided his political weakness to Galbraith. "You have to realize," JFK said, "that I can only afford so many defeats in one year." He had the Bay of Pigs and the pulling out of Laos. He couldn't accept a third. Former Vice President Richard Nixon and the CIA's Dulles, whom JFK had fired, were loudly advocating U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, while Asian dominoes tumbled. Even The New York Times agreed. "The present situation," the paper had warned, "is one that brooks no further stalling." This was accepted wisdom among America's leading foreign-policy gurus. Public sympathies in the summer of 1963 were 2-to-1 for intervention.

Despite the drumbeat from the left and right, JFK refused to send in combat troops. "They want a force of American troops," JFK told Schlesinger. "They say it's necessary in order to restore confidence and maintain morale. But it will be just like Berlin. The troops will march in, the bands will play, the crowds will cheer, and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It's like taking a drink. The effect wears off and you have to have another."

In 1967, Daniel Ellsberg interviewed my father. Ellsberg, a wavering war hawk and Marine veteran, was researching the history of the Vietnam War. He had seen the mountains of warmongering memos, advice and pressure. Ellsberg asked my father how JFK had managed to stand against the virtually unanimous tide of pro-war sentiment. My father explained that his brother did not want to follow France into a war of rich against poor, white versus Asian, on the side of imperialism and colonialism against nationalism and self-determination. Pressing my father, Ellsberg asked whether the president would have accepted a South Vietnamese defeat. "We would have handled it like Laos," my father told him. Intrigued, Ellsberg pressed further. "What made him so smart?" Three decades afterward, Ellsberg would vividly recall my father's reaction: "Whap! His hand slapped down on the desk. I jumped in my chair. 'Because we were there!' He slapped the desk again. 'We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it. We were determined never to let that happen to us.'"

In 1951, JFK, then a young congressman, and my father visited Vietnam, where they marveled at the fearlessness of the French Legionnaires and the hopelessness of their cause. On that trip, American diplomat Edmund Gullion warned JFK to avoid the trap. Upon returning, JFK isolated himself with his outspoken opposition to American involvement in this "hopeless internecine struggle."

Three years later, in April 1954, he made himself a pariah within his own party by condemning the Eisenhower administration for entertaining French requests for assistance in Indochina, predicting that fighting Ho Chi Minh would mire the U.S. in France's doomed colonial legacy. "No amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy that is everywhere and at the same time nowhere?.?.?.?[or an enemy] which has the sympathy and covert support of the people."

By the summer of 1963, JFK was quietly telling trusted friends and advisers he intended to get out following the 1964 election. These included Rep. Tip O'Neill, McNamara, National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy, Sen. Wayne Morse, Washington columnist Charles Bartlett, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, confidant Larry Newman, Gen. Taylor and Marine Commandant Gen. David M. Shoup, who, besides Taylor, was the only other member of the Joint Chiefs that JFK trusted. Both McNamara and Bundy acknowledged in their respective memoirs that JFK meant to get out - which were jarring admissions against self-interest, since these two would remain in the Johnson administration and orchestrate the war's escalation.

That spring, JFK had told Montana Sen. Mike Mansfield, who would become the Vietnam War's most outspoken Senate critic, "I can't do it until 1965, after I'm re-elected." Later that day, he explained to Kenneth O'Donnell, "If I tried to pull out completely from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy Red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm re-elected." Both Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Barry Goldwater, who were vying to run against him in 1964, were uncompromising Cold Warriors who would have loved to tar JFK with the brush that he had lost not just Laos, but now Vietnam. Goldwater was campaigning on the platform of "bombing Vietnam back into the Stone Age," a lyrical and satisfying construct to the Joint Chiefs and the CIA. "So we had better make damned sure I am re-elected," JFK said.

The Joint Chiefs, already in open revolt against JFK for failing to unleash the dogs of war in Cuba and Laos, were unanimous in urging a massive influx of ground troops and were incensed with talk of withdrawal. The mood in Langley was even uglier. Journalist Richard Starnes, filing from Vietnam, gave a stark assessment in The Washington Daily News of the CIA's unrestrained thirst for power in Vietnam. Starnes quoted high-level U.S. officials horrified by the CIA's role in escalating the conflict. They described an insubordinate, out-of-control agency, which one top official called a "malignancy." He doubted that "even the White House could control it any longer." Another warned, "If the United States ever experiences a [coup], it will come from the CIA and not from the Pentagon." Added another, "[Members of the CIA] represent tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone."

Defying such pressures, JFK, in the spring of 1962, told McNamara to order the Joint Chiefs to begin planning for a phased withdrawal that would disengage the U.S. altogether. McNamara later told an assistant secretary of defense that the president intended to "close out Vietnam by '65 whether it was in good shape or bad."

On May 8th, 1962, following JFK's orders, McNamara instructed a stunned Gen. Paul Harkins "to devise a plan for bringing full responsibility [for the Vietnam War] over to South Vietnam." Mutinous, the general ignored the order until July 23rd, 1962, when McNamara again commanded him to produce a plan for withdrawal. The brass returned May 6th, 1963, with a half-baked proposal that didn't complete withdrawal as quickly as JFK had wanted. McNamara ordered them back yet again.

On September 2nd, 1963, in a televised interview, JFK told the American people he didn't want to get drawn into Vietnam. "In the final analysis, it is their war," he said. "They are the ones who have to win or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment. We can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam."

Six weeks before his death, on October 11th, 1963, JFK bypassed his own National Security Council and had Bundy issue National Security Action Memorandum 263, making official policy the withdrawal from Vietnam of the bulk of U.S. military personnel by the end of 1965, beginning with "1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963." On November 14th, 1963, a week before Dallas, he announced at a press conference that he was ordering up a plan for "how we can bring Americans out of there." The morning of November 21st, as he prepared to leave for Texas, he reviewed a casualty list for Vietnam indicating that more than 100 Americans to date had died there. Shaken and angry, JFK told his assistant press secretary Malcolm Kilduff, "It's time for us to get out. The Vietnamese aren't fighting for themselves. We're the ones doing the fighting. After I come back from Texas, that's going to change. There's no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life."

On November 24th, 1963, two days after JFK died, Lyndon Johnson met with South Vietnam Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, whom JFK had been on the verge of firing. LBJ told Lodge, "I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went." Over the next decade, nearly 3 million Americans, including many of my friends, would enter the paddies of Vietnam, and 58,000, including my cousin George Skakel, would never return.

John F. Kennedy's Vision of Peace

LOL...I know you WANT to believe the revised "Oliver Stone" version of JFK's vision for Vietnam, Bfgrn...just as Robert Kennedy Jr. WANTS to rewrite history but you still haven't explained why Robert Kennedy Senior was so adamant in that interview that JFK had no "policy" to pull out of Vietnam when he was killed! You keep bringing up that same plan that was arrived at before things got worse in South Vietnam...before Diem was killed...and once again...it was only a plan...a plan that was approved because Kennedy was being given faulty intel. Kennedy was a staunch anti-communist! He wasn't giving Vietnam to the communists without a fight! He wasn't and you can pull all the "rewrites" of history by Kennedy fluffers you want out of your little tush and that STILL won't change what took place in Vietnam under Kennedy.

THINK man. When Robert F. Kennedy gave that interview, what was his title? Was he a private citizen?? April 1964, look it up. Was it an election year? His replies were extremely terse.

You seem to want to ignore this important part, where RFK says they would not get into a land conflict.
Martin:
. . . in an all out way as we went into Korea. We were trying to avoid a Korea, is that correct?



Kennedy:
Yes, because I, everybody including General MacArthur felt that land conflict between our troops, white troops and Asian, would only lead to, end in disaster. So it was. . . . We went in as advisers, but to try to get the Vietnamese to fight themselves, because we couldn't win the war for them. They had to win the war for themselves.

 

[Bfgrn]

You keep bringing up that same plan that was arrived at before things got worse in South Vietnam...before Diem was killed

Either you are not paying attention, or you are just trying to prove you are not very intelligent.

20 Nov 1963 - Honolulu Meeting Briefing Book, Part I. See also Part II.
The briefing books prepared for a Vietnam meeting in Honolulu reaffirmed the timetables for complete withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as the initial 1,000 main withdrawal, despite the recent coup in Vietnam.

 

[Oldstyle]

Yet Bobby Kennedy very clearly states that his brother John had no intention of simply pulling out of Vietnam.

I know you want to "recast" what JFK's stance was on Vietnam but the truth is that Kennedy had run for office with a very strong anti-communist plank in his platform. Richard Nixon complained that Kennedy had convinced the country that he was more anti-communist than Nixon was when he ran against him in 1960. His inaugural address states clearly what one of his main objectives was as President...namely stopping the spread of communism. Yet despite that...you want us to believe that JFK was really going to just leave South Vietnam to the communists and call it a day?

Neither Kennedy's words...nor his actions back up that contention.

 

[Oldstyle]

As in all thing political you have to understand the context of what was occurring to make sense of people's actions. The Kennedy Administration's decision to withdraw 1,000 troops coincided with President Diem's political crackdown on opposition figures in South Vietnam. The proposed withdrawal of those troops has been portrayed as a signal of Washington's displeasure with the way Diem was handling things in Saigon. How displeased JFK was became abundantly clear when he gave the go ahead for a coup that displaced Diem (and led to his death!). Why go to the trouble of backing a coup if you're going to withdraw your troops and turn the country over to the communists?

 

[Bfgrn]

Yet Bobby Kennedy very clearly states that his brother John had no intention of simply pulling out of Vietnam.

I know you want to "recast" what JFK's stance was on Vietnam but the truth is that Kennedy had run for office with a very strong anti-communist plank in his platform. Richard Nixon complained that Kennedy had convinced the country that he was more anti-communist than Nixon was when he ran against him in 1960. His inaugural address states clearly what one of his main objectives was as President...namely stopping the spread of communism. Yet despite that...you want us to believe that JFK was really going to just leave South Vietnam to the communists and call it a day?

Neither Kennedy's words...nor his actions back up that contention.

NO, the Attorney General of the United States seven months before the 1964 election was unwilling to undermine the current president's policy.

I have proven to you numerous times that LBJ CHANGED the policy 2 days after Kennedy's assassination.

20 Nov 1963 - Honolulu Meeting Briefing Book, Part I. See also Part II.
The briefing books prepared for a Vietnam meeting in Honolulu reaffirmed the timetables for complete withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as the initial 1,000 main withdrawal, despite the recent coup in Vietnam.

24 Nov 1963 - Memorandum for the Record of a Meeting, Executive Office Building, Washington, November 24, 1963, 3 p.m.
Within two days of President Kennedy's death, on Sunday afternoon, President Johnson already began receiving advice that "we could not at this point or time give a particularly optimistic appraisal of the future" regarding Vietnam. President Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the present course and particularly its emphasis on social reforms, and stated that "He was anxious to get along, win the war..."



Kennedy's words and actions?

WHAT ACTIONS in his presidency? What did he do in Laos? What did he do in Cuba...twice? What did he do in Berlin?

You continue to IGNORE the actions of John F. Kennedy and you refuse to believe words spoken to his closest advisors. Instead you want to ignorantly portray Lyndon B. Johnson's decisions as Kennedy's decisions.

 

[Bfgrn]

JFK, Vietnam and Laos

For many years after his assassination, conventional wisdom was that LBJ was only continuing JFK's policies in Vietnam. Barbara Tuchman and Gore Vidal subscribe to the view that Kennedy would not have pulled out of Vietnam. Only in recent years have revisionist views on Kennedy and Vietnam begun to take hold.

JFK told Sen. Mansfield in Kenny O'Donnell's presence that he wanted to completely withdraw from Vietnam but "I can't do it until 1965--after I'm reelected." When Mansfield left the office, Kennedy said to O'Donnell: "In 1965, I'll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history. I'll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser. But now I don't care. If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm reelected. So we had better make damn sure that I am reelected." (Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye p16) When O'Donnell asked JFK how he planned to withdraw from Vietnam, he answered, "Easy. Put a government in there that will ask us to leave."

2/24/1968 Gen. James M. Gavin wrote an article in the Saturday Evening Post: "There has been much speculation about what President Kennedy would or would not have done in Vietnam had he lived. Having discussed military affairs with him often and in detail for 15 years, I know he was totally opposed to the introduction of combat troops in Southeast Asia. His public statements just before his murder support this view. Let us not lay on the dead the blame for our own failures."

As a young congressman in 1951, Kennedy went to Vietnam to look over the situation. He got the standard embassy briefing, but then "asked sharply why the Vietnamese should be expected to fight to keep their country part of France." This upset both the US diplomat in charge and the French commanding general. On returning to Washington, he complained, "In Indochina, we have allied ourselves to the desperate effort of a French regime to hang on to the remnants of empire...To check the southern drive of communism makes sense but not only through reliance on the force of arms. The task is rather to build strong native non-Communist sentiment within these areas and rely on that as a spearhead of defense rather than upon the legions of General de Lattre. To do this apart from and in defiance of innately nationalistic aims spells foredoomed failure."

He told Meet the Press, "Without the support of the native population, there is no hope of success in any of the countries of Southeast Asia." (A Thousand Days 321) Ted Sorensen recalled how Kennedy had watched the French collapse and wondered how the US could step in and do any better. (Ibid. 654) Sorensen recalled that Kennedy wanted to "both raise our commitment and to keep it limited...despite being pressed along both lines by those impatient to win or withdraw. His strategy was essentially to avoid escalation, retreat or a choice limited to those two, while seeking to buy time." (Ibid. 651-2) Kennedy liked the idea of strengthening Diem's regime, but resisted sending in troops: "But it will be just like Berlin. The troops will march in; the bands will play; the crowds will cheer; and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It's like taking a drink. The effect wears off, and you have to take another." (Ibid. 547) Sorensen said, "Kennedy recognized far more clearly than most of his advisors that military action alone could not save Vietnam." (Ibid. 655) He wanted to buy time so that the south could build up a competent government, supported by the people, and develop a counterguerilla force capable of keeping the insurgency under control. He envisioned a long, but relatively small, American commitment to this effort. (Ibid. 652)

Dave Powers and Ken O'Donnell wrote: "The President's order to reduce the American military personnel in Vietnam by one thousand before the end of 1963 was still in effect the day he went to Texas. A few days after his death, during the morning, the order was quietly rescinded." (Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye)

Sen. Mike Mansfield told the Washington Post 8/3/1970, "He had definitely and unequivocally made that decision [to withdraw.]"

Malcolm Kilduff recalled "There is no question that he was taking us out of Vietnam. I was in his office just before we went to Dallas and he said that Vietnam was not worth another American life. There is no question about that." (4/17/1991 interview with Livingstone, High Treason 2 503)

William Manchester remarked in the 1988 edition of his book, Death of a President: "...genuine detente with the Russians had begun...Kennedy had inherited a small US commitment to South Vietnam, but after much waffling he realized that it was failing, and he was cutting American losses....His withdrawal operation, which had already begun at the time of his death, would have ended this country's Vietnam commitment in 1965 with the evacuation, as he had put it to me, of 'the last helicopter pilot.' After his funeral Johnson countermanded these orders." (p xix-xx)

Daniel Ellsberg told Rolling Stone (12/6/1973): "A very surprising discovery to me in the fall of '67, as I began to study the documents of '61 in connection with the McNamara study project, was that the major decision Kennedy had made was to reject the recommendation made to him by virtually everyone that he send combat troops to Vietnam. Kennedy realized that most of the people in the country, whatever their politics, would have said, 'If it takes combat troops, or if it takes heavy bombing or nuclear weapons, it's obviously not worth it for us. We won't succeed.'"

JFK was to have met with Henry Cabot Lodge 11/24/1963 to nail down some of the final details on withdrawing from Vietnam. (JFK and LBJ, Wicker) Instead, that Sunday, LBJ was told in a meeting that "if Vietnam was to be saved, hard decisions would have to be made." (Ibid)

JFK told Arthur Krock 10/1961 that US combat troops had no business being on the Asian mainland, and he wanted to stall the military by sending Taylor and Rostow to South Vietnam. (In The Nation 1932-1966 p324-5, 447)

Max Taylor later recalled, "The last thing he wanted was to put in our ground troops. And I knew that. I had the same feeling he had on the subject. But all the way, starting with CINCPAC, the feeling was that we'd better get something into South Vietnam." When he recommended 8000 US combat troops, "I don't recall anyone who was strongly against, except...the President." (RFK and his Times 760)

Henry Brandon: "By the autumn of 1963, he seemed sick of it, and frequently asked how to be rid of the commitment....Just before his death, he gave Mike Forrestal...odds of a hundred-to-one that the US could not win. But he also knew that he could not get out of Vietnam before the elections in November, 1964..." (Anatomy of Error 30)

1/19/1961 JFK met with Eisenhower; also present were McNamara, Herter, Gates, Robert Anderson, Ike's staff aide Gen. Wilton Persons, Rusk, Dillon, and Clifford. Most of the discussion was about Indochina (particularly Laos). Rusk and Clifford recalled that Ike advocated US military intervention in Laos if absolutely necessary, but McNamara and Dillon remembered Ike sending mixed signals about that. (In Retrospect 35-6) Eisenhower warned him that if Laos fell, the US could "write off the whole area [Southeast Asia]." He also warned against a neutralist government that would permit Communists to share power. (Pentagon Papers) But JFK had long felt that neutralization was the only answer. (Promises to Keep p394) Ike also told him to support guerrilla operations against Cuba "to the utmost." Treasury Sec. Robert Anderson added, "Large amounts of United States capital now planned for investment in Latin America are waiting to see whether or not we can cope with the Cuban situation." (Portrait of Power 32) Ike also told JFK that there was no missile gap working against the US, and warned that he would publicly oppose him if he tried to recognize China and allow it a seat in the UN. (Ibid. 33) Ike and Herter told JFK that Laos was the key to the whole of Southeast Asia, and that if necessary, the US must be willing "to intervene unilaterally." He also warned against a coalition government there. (A Thousand Days 156)

When he was given a transitional briefing by President Eisenhower on January 19, 1961, the president-elect asked an unexpected question. It pertained to the rising conflict with Communist forces in Laos, Vietnam's western neighbor. Which option would Eisenhower prefer, Kennedy asked, a "coalition with the Communists to form a government in Laos or intervening [militarily] through SEATO [the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, to which the U.S. belonged]?" Eisenhower was taken aback by his successor's gall in raising the possibility of a coalition with Communists. He said it would be "far better" to intervene militarily. As his Secretary of State, Christian Herter had already said, any coalition with the Communists would end up with the Communists in control. Even unilateral intervention by U.S. troops was preferable to that. It would be "a last desperate effort to save Laos." Kennedy listened skeptically. He thought he was hearing a prescription for disaster, from a man who in a few hours would no longer have to bear any responsibility for it. "There he sat, "he told friends later, "telling me to get ready to put ground forces into Asia, the thing he himself had been carefully avoiding for the last eight years." (Foreign Relations of the United States (FR US), 1961-1963, Volume XXIV, Laos Crisis (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), p. 21; Kenneth P. O'Donnell and David F. Powers, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye " (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 244)

1/20/1961 JFK commented, "This is the worst one we've got, isn't it? You know, Eisenhower never mentioned it. He talked at length about Laos, but never uttered the word Vietnam." (The Diffusion of Power 265) Or: "This is going to be the worst one yet...Eisenhower never mentioned the word Vietnam to me." (The Diffusion of Power 264) Walt Rostow had just shown him a report written by Edward Lansdale showing the deteriorating situation in that country. (Rostow would later recall incorrectly the date Kennedy received the report as being 2/2/1961)

 

[Oldstyle]

You've got this little clique of liberal doves posthumously declaring that "privately" JFK told them he was going to pull of Vietnam. Why are they saying this? Because one of the unforgivable "stains" on the Kennedy liberal resume is that he DID in fact increase the number of American troops from the few hundred that were there under Ike to 15,000 under his administration. Kennedy was NOT a dove when it came to the spread of communism! Stopping it was one of the cornerstones of his Presidency. You can see that in his attempt to overthrow Castro. You can see that with the Cuban Missile Crisis. You can see that with the Berlin airlift. You still haven't explained Bobby Kennedy's adamant denials that JFK ever intended to abandon Vietnam to the communists. You've also failed to explain why Kennedy gave the go ahead for the military coup that eliminated Diem if he was going to pull US troops out of Vietnam. Why bother if you're going to let South Vietnam turn communist?