Our Kennedy.

[Oldstyle]

"Liberals believe people are basically good, conservatives believe people are basically evil.
Liberals believe in raising people up, conservatives believe in pushing people down.
Liberals believe in encouragement, conservatives believe in scorn.
Liberals always stand up for the little guy, conservatives always stand up for the big guy."

Gee, listening to liberals HERE I got the impression that liberals believe liberals are basically good and conservatives are basically evil.

There is a difference between helping someone in need and creating a nanny state where generations of Americans never reach their potential because they're mired in your welfare state trap. You liberals always talk about how you want to help people but you never quite grasp how dependency doesn't make people's lives better.

Liberal educators have spent the last thirty years telling our kids that they are all "winners" no matter how they perform. Now the poor dears have no job skills and are getting their asses handed to them by the rest of the world. Nice job...

Liberals don't stand up for the "little guy"...they stand up for big government. There is a difference.

 

[Oldstyle]

And just so you know? Quoting flowery rhetoric from JFK means about as much as the flowery rhetoric that Barack Obama has graced us with for the past five years. It doesn't matter what you SAY...what counts is how you live your life.

The accomplishments of the Kennedy family speak for themselves. You a septic inside. A true conservative.

Do you even know any of the present crop of Kennedy's, Bfgrn? Joe Kennedy is a buffoon that makes Joe Biden look intelligent. He couldn't even win reelection in Massachusetts where being a Kennedy is the closest thing to royalty that we have in this country. Then there's William Kennedy Smith who doesn't know the meaning of the word "NO!" and thought the nation's female population was provided for his carnal amusement. Caroline Kennedy keeps getting brought up as potential Democratic "superstar" but the problem is that she's just not that bright. Then there was Michael Kennedy's statutory rape of his 14 year old babysitter and let's not forget Kerry Kennedy's adultery. The Kennedy family have the morals of alley cats and have been thumbing their noses at societies rules for the past fifty years. You see them through rose colored liberal glasses.

 

[Bfgrn]

"Liberals believe people are basically good, conservatives believe people are basically evil.
Liberals believe in raising people up, conservatives believe in pushing people down.
Liberals believe in encouragement, conservatives believe in scorn.
Liberals always stand up for the little guy, conservatives always stand up for the big guy."

Gee, listening to liberals HERE I got the impression that liberals believe liberals are basically good and conservatives are basically evil.

There is a difference between helping someone in need and creating a nanny state where generations of Americans never reach their potential because they're mired in your welfare state trap. You liberals always talk about how you want to help people but you never quite grasp how dependency doesn't make people's lives better.

Liberal educators have spent the last thirty years telling our kids that they are all "winners" no matter how they perform. Now the poor dears have no job skills and are getting their asses handed to them by the rest of the world. Nice job...

Liberals don't stand up for the "little guy"...they stand up for big government. There is a difference.

Ignorance is bliss...

Stuff the ignorant 'welfare trap' bullshit. HERE are the FACTS:

If there is a citizenry on this planet that does NOT have an entitlement mentality, it is the American people. American workers take less vacation time than any other people. American workers take pride in the quality of their work and their work ethic.

Who are the 47%?

Federal budget and Census data show that, in 2010, 91 percent of the benefit dollars from entitlement and other mandatory programs went to the elderly (people 65 and over), the seriously disabled, and members of working households. People who are neither elderly nor disabled — and do not live in a working household — received only 9 percent of the benefits.

Moreover, the vast bulk of that 9 percent goes for medical care, unemployment insurance benefits (which individuals must have a significant work history to receive), Social Security survivor benefits for the children and spouses of deceased workers, and Social Security benefits for retirees between ages 62 and 64. Seven out of the 9 percentage points go for one of these four purposes.

80 percent of the workforce has seen their wages decline in real terms over the last quarter-century, and the average household has seen 40 percent of its wealth disappear during the Great Recession. Through it all, families never asked for a handout from anyone, especially Washington. They were left to go on their own, working harder, squeezing nickels, and taking care of themselves. But their economic boats have been taking on water for years, and now the crisis has swamped millions of middle class families. ref ref

"Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower


Conservatives have NEVER given us 'less government', except for the hierarchy they worship.

Your idea of helping someone in need is to give them a cup and have them beg at your feet...it is what makes you right wing scum believe you are human.

Here is the ONLY 'nanny state' government created....

Conservatives built the BIGGEST Nanny State in the history of the world...

“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy."
Charles Krauthammer

Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?
Paul Craig Roberts - the father of Reaganomics

 

[Oldstyle]

LOL...didn't want to argue the "merits" of the Kennedy family did you?

 

[Oldstyle]

There is no argument.

The bombing led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Initially Nixon did think the Khmer Rouge would be a good way of keeping the North Vietnamese out of Cambodia and depose a sympathetic government.

Additionally it's the same binary argument you used to say "Nixon stopped the war".

Jerkoff.

Once again, idiot boy...the Khmer Republic (which Nixon supported as a way to keep the North Vietnamese out of Cambodia) is NOT the same thing as the Khmer Rouge (which was about as hardcore communist as you can possibly get) and were an offshoot of the North Vietnamese Army.

Why do you even keep coming back trying to argue this? Seriously...tuck your tail and run from this string. You don't know the first thing about Southeast Asia's history and you've embarrassed yourself with your ignorance. It there was a "mercy rule" on this board, a moderator would have stepped in and put you out of your misery long ago.

Why?

Because the man you are defending was a sociopath responsible for the deaths of millions.

That's why.

You are disgusting turd. You are defending a man that exonerated William Calley.

Another fuck that you probably think is a hero.

Who over saw the mass killings of a village and the gang rapes of little girls.

You folks aren't human.

You folks are reptiles.

I'm not defending Nixon, you ass clown! I've already stated in this string that I loathed the man! All I'm doing is pointing out that you're COMPLETELY wrong when you accuse Nixon of supporting the Khmer Rouge and being responsible for the millions of deaths they caused. You're so fucking stupid you didn't know there was a difference between the Khmer Republic and the Khmer Rouge.

I didn't support the Presidential pardon of William Calley but I remember that a majority of the country then didn't feel the same way as I did. Jimmy Carter was a very vocal advocate of leniency for Calley. So how does THAT compute with your notion that "you folks aren't human"? I suppose Carter IS human (because he's a liberal) but I'm not (even though I didn't support the pardon) because I'm a conservative?

 

[Sallow]

Once again, idiot boy...the Khmer Republic (which Nixon supported as a way to keep the North Vietnamese out of Cambodia) is NOT the same thing as the Khmer Rouge (which was about as hardcore communist as you can possibly get) and were an offshoot of the North Vietnamese Army.

Why do you even keep coming back trying to argue this? Seriously...tuck your tail and run from this string. You don't know the first thing about Southeast Asia's history and you've embarrassed yourself with your ignorance. It there was a "mercy rule" on this board, a moderator would have stepped in and put you out of your misery long ago.

Why?

Because the man you are defending was a sociopath responsible for the deaths of millions.

That's why.

You are disgusting turd. You are defending a man that exonerated William Calley.

Another fuck that you probably think is a hero.

Who over saw the mass killings of a village and the gang rapes of little girls.

You folks aren't human.

You folks are reptiles.

I'm not defending Nixon, you ass clown! I've already stated in this string that I loathed the man! All I'm doing is pointing out that you're COMPLETELY wrong when you accuse Nixon of supporting the Khmer Rouge and being responsible for the millions of deaths they caused. You're so fucking stupid you didn't know there was a difference between the Khmer Republic and the Khmer Rouge.

Wait, what? First off this began because you made the completely wrong claim that there was no historical evidence that John F. Kennedy was thinking about getting out of Vietnam. When you found out that was completely wrong you went off on a freakin dance to "clarify" your position. THEN you went off and said Nixon ENDED the war. Which without context sounds like Nixon was some kind of saint. Nixon was a monster. Kissinger had to stop the guy from blowing up dikes that would have killed 250,000 people in one day.

Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam

Nixon ENDED the war after killing millions. Nixon brought about the Khmer Rouge which killed Millions more. Kennedy on the other hand was considering ending the war.

By the way, I'm not sitting here "clarifying" LBJ's position. His actions were just as monstrous.

I didn't support the Presidential pardon of William Calley but I remember that a majority of the country then didn't feel the same way as I did. Jimmy Carter was a very vocal advocate of leniency for Calley. So how does THAT compute with your notion that "you folks aren't human"? I suppose Carter IS human (because he's a liberal) but I'm not (even though I didn't support the pardon) because I'm a conservative?

How does what compute? Carter didn't think Calley was responsible for the actions of his men because the war was so screwed up in the first place. Nixon? Didn't see what Calley did as a problem.

And stow it. I don't believe you protested the war unless you were out there with Romney protesting to send folks to it.

 

[Sallow]

LOL...didn't want to argue the "merits" of the Kennedy family did you?

Merits of the Kennedy family?

2 of Joe's boys FOUGHT in WWII and one of them died.

Then one of Joe's boys became President and was assassinated.

His brother was assassinated on a quest to become President.

And their brother went on to be one of the most successful legislators in the Senate.

It's you folks that loathe this family.

They've given a great deal back to the nation that made them rich.

 

[Oldstyle]

Why?

Because the man you are defending was a sociopath responsible for the deaths of millions.

That's why.

You are disgusting turd. You are defending a man that exonerated William Calley.

Another fuck that you probably think is a hero.

Who over saw the mass killings of a village and the gang rapes of little girls.

You folks aren't human.

You folks are reptiles.

I'm not defending Nixon, you ass clown! I've already stated in this string that I loathed the man! All I'm doing is pointing out that you're COMPLETELY wrong when you accuse Nixon of supporting the Khmer Rouge and being responsible for the millions of deaths they caused. You're so fucking stupid you didn't know there was a difference between the Khmer Republic and the Khmer Rouge.

Wait, what? First off this began because you made the completely wrong claim that there was no historical evidence that John F. Kennedy was thinking about getting out of Vietnam. When you found out that was completely wrong you went off on a freakin dance to "clarify" your position. THEN you went off and said Nixon ENDED the war. Which without context sounds like Nixon was some kind of saint. Nixon was a monster. Kissinger had to stop the guy from blowing up dikes that would have killed 250,000 people in one day.

Nixon White House Considered Nuclear Options Against North Vietnam

Nixon ENDED the war after killing millions. Nixon brought about the Khmer Rouge which killed Millions more. Kennedy on the other hand was considering ending the war.

By the way, I'm not sitting here "clarifying" LBJ's position. His actions were just as monstrous.

I didn't support the Presidential pardon of William Calley but I remember that a majority of the country then didn't feel the same way as I did. Jimmy Carter was a very vocal advocate of leniency for Calley. So how does THAT compute with your notion that "you folks aren't human"? I suppose Carter IS human (because he's a liberal) but I'm not (even though I didn't support the pardon) because I'm a conservative?

How does what compute? Carter didn't think Calley was responsible for the actions of his men because the war was so screwed up in the first place. Nixon? Didn't see what Calley did as a problem.

And stow it. I don't believe you protested the war unless you were out there with Romney protesting to send folks to it.

You keep making the same ridiculous claim...that Nixon "brought about" the Khmer Rouge when I've shown you repeatedly that Nixon backed the Khmer Republic. So are you brain dead, Sallow...or just REALLY REALLY stupid?

 

[Oldstyle]

And if you take the time to examine what was really happening with Kennedy and the Vietnam war instead of cherry picking a few statements that were made, it's very obvious that although Kennedy wanted to pull US troops from combat in Vietnam that he rapidly came to the conclusion that doing so would cause South Vietnam to go over to the communists, he was ADAMANT about not letting that happen and instead increased the numbers of "advisers". That is why the claim by progressives that Kennedy would have ended the war if he hadn't been assassinated is baseless.

 

[Bfgrn]

And if you take the time to examine what was really happening with Kennedy and the Vietnam war instead of cherry picking a few statements that were made, it's very obvious that although Kennedy wanted to pull US troops from combat in Vietnam that he rapidly came to the conclusion that doing so would cause South Vietnam to go over to the communists, he was ADAMANT about not letting that happen and instead increased the numbers of "advisers". That is why the claim by progressives that Kennedy would have ended the war if he hadn't been assassinated is baseless.

It is not 'baseless'. His own advisers and his Secretary of Defense said that he would have ended our involvement. It is totally ignorant to 'claim' that JFK would have escalated the war as LBJ did.

One of John F. Kennedy's most trusted and closest advisers was devout Keynesian John Kenneth Galbraith. JFK and Galbraith were working together to end the Vietnam War, against the recommendations of his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow. Kennedy sent Galbraith on a personal mission to Vietnam to assess the situation there. Kennedy didn't trust his ambassador (Henry Cabot Lodge), the military or anyone else would tell him the truth. Galbraith even arranged a private luncheon for Kennedy and India's Prime Minister Nehru at the Newport estate of Jacqueline Kennedy's mother and stepfather. No one from the State Department--to Secretary of State Dean Rusk's great consternation--was invited, save Galbraith. At the Nehru-Kennedy luncheon, Galbraith and JFK began probing the Indian leader about ways to avoid American militarization of Vietnam, a subject on which (for complex reasons) the neutralist Nehru remained maddeningly ambiguous, emphasizing only that the United States must stay out.

Galbraith and Vietnam

By Richard Parker

Monday, March 14, 2005

In the fall of 1961, unknown to the American public, John F. Kennedy was weighing a crucial decision about Vietnam not unlike that which George W. Bush faced about Iraq in early 2002--whether to go to war. It was the height of the cold war, when Communism was the "terrorist threat," and Ho Chi Minh the era's Saddam Hussein to many in Washington. But the new President was a liberal Massachusetts Democrat (and a decorated war veteran), not a conservative Sunbelt Republican who claimed God's hand guided his foreign policy. JFK's tough-minded instincts about war were thus very different. Contrary to what many have come to believe about the Vietnam War's origins, new research shows that Kennedy wanted no war in Asia and had clear criteria for conditions under which he'd send Americans abroad to fight and die for their country--criteria quite relevant today.

But thanks also in part to recently declassified records, we now know that Kennedy's top aides--whatever his own views--were offering him counsel not all that different from what Bush was told forty years later. Early that November, his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow, were on their way back from Saigon with a draft of the "Taylor report," their bold plan to "save" Vietnam, beginning with the commitment of at least 8,000 US troops--a down payment, they hoped, on thousands more to follow. But they knew JFK had no interest in their idea because six months earlier in a top-secret meeting, he had forcefully vetoed his aides' proposed dispatch of 60,000 troops to neighboring Laos--and they were worried about how to maneuver his assent.

Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, then Ambassador to India, got wind of their plan--and rushed to block their efforts. He was not an expert on Vietnam, but India chaired the International Control Commission, which had been set up following French withdrawal from Indochina to oversee a shaky peace accord meant to stabilize the region, and so from State Department cables he knew about the Taylor mission--and thus had a clear sense of what was at stake. For Galbraith, a trusted adviser with unique back-channel access to the President, a potential US war in Vietnam represented more than a disastrous misadventure in foreign policy--it risked derailing the New Frontier's domestic plans for Keynesian-led full employment, and for massive new spending on education, the environment and what would become the War on Poverty. Worse, he feared, it might ultimately tear not only the Democratic Party but the nation apart--and usher in a new conservative era in American politics.

more

 

[Oldstyle]

As for my feelings about the war and Nixon? By the time I graduated high school, it was obvious that the United States was running out the string in Vietnam. It wasn't about "winning" anymore...it was simply about what poor SOB would be the last American to get killed before we pulled out. Nixon ended that conflict in August of that year. It wasn't Kennedy who got that done. It wasn't Johnson. It was Nixon. As much as I loathed Nixon...I have to give him credit for stopping what had become a senseless waste of American lives.

 

[Bfgrn]

As for my feelings about the war and Nixon? By the time I graduated high school, it was obvious that the United States was running out the string in Vietnam. It wasn't about "winning" anymore...it was simply about what poor SOB would be the last American to get killed before we pulled out. Nixon ended that conflict in August of that year. It wasn't Kennedy who got that done. It wasn't Johnson. It was Nixon. As much as I loathed Nixon...I have to give him credit for stopping what had become a senseless waste of American lives.

If you actually lived through that era, you would KNOW that the only thing with a 'string' was Nixon's 5 year 'string' of lies, escalation of bombing, escalation into other countries, while Kissinger kept saying "peace is at hand".

No Kennedy was alive that could have ended the war.

 

[Oldstyle]

And if you take the time to examine what was really happening with Kennedy and the Vietnam war instead of cherry picking a few statements that were made, it's very obvious that although Kennedy wanted to pull US troops from combat in Vietnam that he rapidly came to the conclusion that doing so would cause South Vietnam to go over to the communists, he was ADAMANT about not letting that happen and instead increased the numbers of "advisers". That is why the claim by progressives that Kennedy would have ended the war if he hadn't been assassinated is baseless.

It is not 'baseless'. His own advisers and his Secretary of Defense said that he would have ended our involvement. It is totally ignorant to 'claim' that JFK would have escalated the war as LBJ did.

One of John F. Kennedy's most trusted and closest advisers was devout Keynesian John Kenneth Galbraith. JFK and Galbraith were working together to end the Vietnam War, against the recommendations of his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow. Kennedy sent Galbraith on a personal mission to Vietnam to assess the situation there. Kennedy didn't trust his ambassador (Henry Cabot Lodge), the military or anyone else would tell him the truth. Galbraith even arranged a private luncheon for Kennedy and India's Prime Minister Nehru at the Newport estate of Jacqueline Kennedy's mother and stepfather. No one from the State Department--to Secretary of State Dean Rusk's great consternation--was invited, save Galbraith. At the Nehru-Kennedy luncheon, Galbraith and JFK began probing the Indian leader about ways to avoid American militarization of Vietnam, a subject on which (for complex reasons) the neutralist Nehru remained maddeningly ambiguous, emphasizing only that the United States must stay out.

Galbraith and Vietnam

By Richard Parker

Monday, March 14, 2005

In the fall of 1961, unknown to the American public, John F. Kennedy was weighing a crucial decision about Vietnam not unlike that which George W. Bush faced about Iraq in early 2002--whether to go to war. It was the height of the cold war, when Communism was the "terrorist threat," and Ho Chi Minh the era's Saddam Hussein to many in Washington. But the new President was a liberal Massachusetts Democrat (and a decorated war veteran), not a conservative Sunbelt Republican who claimed God's hand guided his foreign policy. JFK's tough-minded instincts about war were thus very different. Contrary to what many have come to believe about the Vietnam War's origins, new research shows that Kennedy wanted no war in Asia and had clear criteria for conditions under which he'd send Americans abroad to fight and die for their country--criteria quite relevant today.

But thanks also in part to recently declassified records, we now know that Kennedy's top aides--whatever his own views--were offering him counsel not all that different from what Bush was told forty years later. Early that November, his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow, were on their way back from Saigon with a draft of the "Taylor report," their bold plan to "save" Vietnam, beginning with the commitment of at least 8,000 US troops--a down payment, they hoped, on thousands more to follow. But they knew JFK had no interest in their idea because six months earlier in a top-secret meeting, he had forcefully vetoed his aides' proposed dispatch of 60,000 troops to neighboring Laos--and they were worried about how to maneuver his assent.

Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, then Ambassador to India, got wind of their plan--and rushed to block their efforts. He was not an expert on Vietnam, but India chaired the International Control Commission, which had been set up following French withdrawal from Indochina to oversee a shaky peace accord meant to stabilize the region, and so from State Department cables he knew about the Taylor mission--and thus had a clear sense of what was at stake. For Galbraith, a trusted adviser with unique back-channel access to the President, a potential US war in Vietnam represented more than a disastrous misadventure in foreign policy--it risked derailing the New Frontier's domestic plans for Keynesian-led full employment, and for massive new spending on education, the environment and what would become the War on Poverty. Worse, he feared, it might ultimately tear not only the Democratic Party but the nation apart--and usher in a new conservative era in American politics.

more

When Galbraith sent his letters to Kennedy we had only 1,500 "advisers" in South Vietnam yet when Kennedy was assassinated we had 16,000 "advisers" in South Vietnam. Gee, Sallow...think Kennedy was escalating the conflict or ending it?

 

[Oldstyle]

As for my feelings about the war and Nixon? By the time I graduated high school, it was obvious that the United States was running out the string in Vietnam. It wasn't about "winning" anymore...it was simply about what poor SOB would be the last American to get killed before we pulled out. Nixon ended that conflict in August of that year. It wasn't Kennedy who got that done. It wasn't Johnson. It was Nixon. As much as I loathed Nixon...I have to give him credit for stopping what had become a senseless waste of American lives.

If you actually lived through that era, you would KNOW that the only thing with a 'string' was Nixon's 5 year 'string' of lies, escalation of bombing, escalation into other countries, while Kissinger kept saying "peace is at hand".

No Kennedy was alive that could have ended the war.

Trust me...I "lived through that era"! My draft lottery number was 18. Say what you will about Nixon...he DID end the war.

 

[Bfgrn]

And if you take the time to examine what was really happening with Kennedy and the Vietnam war instead of cherry picking a few statements that were made, it's very obvious that although Kennedy wanted to pull US troops from combat in Vietnam that he rapidly came to the conclusion that doing so would cause South Vietnam to go over to the communists, he was ADAMANT about not letting that happen and instead increased the numbers of "advisers". That is why the claim by progressives that Kennedy would have ended the war if he hadn't been assassinated is baseless.

It is not 'baseless'. His own advisers and his Secretary of Defense said that he would have ended our involvement. It is totally ignorant to 'claim' that JFK would have escalated the war as LBJ did.

One of John F. Kennedy's most trusted and closest advisers was devout Keynesian John Kenneth Galbraith. JFK and Galbraith were working together to end the Vietnam War, against the recommendations of his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow. Kennedy sent Galbraith on a personal mission to Vietnam to assess the situation there. Kennedy didn't trust his ambassador (Henry Cabot Lodge), the military or anyone else would tell him the truth. Galbraith even arranged a private luncheon for Kennedy and India's Prime Minister Nehru at the Newport estate of Jacqueline Kennedy's mother and stepfather. No one from the State Department--to Secretary of State Dean Rusk's great consternation--was invited, save Galbraith. At the Nehru-Kennedy luncheon, Galbraith and JFK began probing the Indian leader about ways to avoid American militarization of Vietnam, a subject on which (for complex reasons) the neutralist Nehru remained maddeningly ambiguous, emphasizing only that the United States must stay out.

Galbraith and Vietnam

By Richard Parker

Monday, March 14, 2005

In the fall of 1961, unknown to the American public, John F. Kennedy was weighing a crucial decision about Vietnam not unlike that which George W. Bush faced about Iraq in early 2002--whether to go to war. It was the height of the cold war, when Communism was the "terrorist threat," and Ho Chi Minh the era's Saddam Hussein to many in Washington. But the new President was a liberal Massachusetts Democrat (and a decorated war veteran), not a conservative Sunbelt Republican who claimed God's hand guided his foreign policy. JFK's tough-minded instincts about war were thus very different. Contrary to what many have come to believe about the Vietnam War's origins, new research shows that Kennedy wanted no war in Asia and had clear criteria for conditions under which he'd send Americans abroad to fight and die for their country--criteria quite relevant today.

But thanks also in part to recently declassified records, we now know that Kennedy's top aides--whatever his own views--were offering him counsel not all that different from what Bush was told forty years later. Early that November, his personal military adviser, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, and his deputy National Security Adviser, Walt Rostow, were on their way back from Saigon with a draft of the "Taylor report," their bold plan to "save" Vietnam, beginning with the commitment of at least 8,000 US troops--a down payment, they hoped, on thousands more to follow. But they knew JFK had no interest in their idea because six months earlier in a top-secret meeting, he had forcefully vetoed his aides' proposed dispatch of 60,000 troops to neighboring Laos--and they were worried about how to maneuver his assent.

Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, then Ambassador to India, got wind of their plan--and rushed to block their efforts. He was not an expert on Vietnam, but India chaired the International Control Commission, which had been set up following French withdrawal from Indochina to oversee a shaky peace accord meant to stabilize the region, and so from State Department cables he knew about the Taylor mission--and thus had a clear sense of what was at stake. For Galbraith, a trusted adviser with unique back-channel access to the President, a potential US war in Vietnam represented more than a disastrous misadventure in foreign policy--it risked derailing the New Frontier's domestic plans for Keynesian-led full employment, and for massive new spending on education, the environment and what would become the War on Poverty. Worse, he feared, it might ultimately tear not only the Democratic Party but the nation apart--and usher in a new conservative era in American politics.

more

When Galbraith sent his letters to Kennedy we had only 1,500 "advisers" in South Vietnam yet when Kennedy was assassinated we had 16,000 "advisers" in South Vietnam. Gee, Sallow...think Kennedy was escalating the conflict or ending it?

You don't even know who you are talking to...LOL

NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263

TO: Secretary of State
Secretary of Defense
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff


SUBJECT: South Vietnam

At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam.

The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1 -3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

...

2. The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963.

 

[Oldstyle]

Vietnam War Allied Troop Levels 1960-73

All the "spin" about who escalated the war and who drew it down can be solved by simply looking at troop levels in Vietnam on a year to year basis.

 

[Bfgrn]

Vietnam War Allied Troop Levels 1960-73

All the "spin" about who escalated the war and who drew it down can be solved by simply looking at troop levels in Vietnam on a year to year basis.

I understand the right wing brain can only operate on a 'slippery slope' level.

Would JFK have fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?

JFK’s Vietnam Withdrawal Plan Is a Fact, Not Speculation

My essays in Boston Review and Salon established that the plan to withdraw US forces from Vietnam by the end of 1965 existed. And that President Kennedy had decided to implement that plan. In 2003, this was controversial. Many historians had denied it. Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, and Arthur Schlesinger were exceptions. They were right, and documents and tapes released under the JFK Records Act proved them right. The issue was resolved by early 2008 when Francis Bator, who had been President Johnson's Deputy National Security Adviser, opened his reply to my letter in the New York Review of Books with these words:

"Professor Galbraith is correct [Letters, NYR, December 6, 2007] that “there was a plan to withdraw US forces from Vietnam, beginning with the first thousand by December 1963, and almost all of the rest by the end of 1965…. President Kennedy had approved that plan. It was the actual policy of the United States on the day Kennedy died."

 

[Oldstyle]

As for what happened in 1963? You've totally overlooked the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government in November...something that totally changed the dynamic from when Kennedy was exploring the feasibility of drawing down troop levels by 1,000 in October. Kennedy didn't go through with his "plan" because the situation in South Vietnam changed and he was cautioned that a US withdraw would almost certainly cause South Vietnam to fall to the communists.

 

[Oldstyle]

Did a plan exist? Yes it did! For about a month. Then cold reality slapped JFK in the face when he was informed that reports the South Vietnamese were capable of handling the fight against the North Vietnamese were optimistic at best.

 

[Bfgrn]

Did a plan exist? Yes it did! For about a month. Then cold reality slapped JFK in the face when he was informed that reports the South Vietnamese were capable of handling the fight against the North Vietnamese were optimistic at best.

The plan existed on the day he DIED. Anything that happened after that day cannot be blamed on JFK.