NSA bosses feared releasing Gulf of Tonkin intel would draw ''uncomfortable comparisons'' with Iraq

[Octafish]

3. Absolutely peace first. When we're the strongest nation in history...

...we already call the shots, so it should be a given.

What bothers me, though, is the warmongering. Always the warmongering...

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

SUBJECT: White House Staff Meeting, 5 August 1964

EXCERPT...

Some one asked what would happen if the ChiComs brought
their air power on the DRV. Bundy cautiously said that our people
thought we could handle them. He then looked at me and said,
"General LeMay doesn't think in terms of teh enemy, does he? He
assumes they won't be there." I made some response to the effect
that General LeMay assumes some of his people wil take care of the
enemy for him; he doesn't have to worry too much about that. All
this was said in good humor, and the matter dropped.

[font color="blue"]Referring to the President's meeting with Congressional
"leadership" yesterday, Bundy commented that "leadership" was a
funny word in this case, in that there was little Congressmen could
do in the way of leading in a situation in which the President's role
was so primary.[/font color]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/tonkin.pdf

War first is how the warmongers see things, the War Party, the BFEE. Contrast with JFK:

Even though they knew their invasion plans were compromised, the CIA and Pentagon tried to force Kennedy to make war over the Bay of Pigs.

While an attack on Soviet missile bases in Cuba and on ships at sea would escalate to nuclear war, the Pentagon and most of the Cabinet tried to force Kennedy to make war, nuclear if necessary -- the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Pentagon and the Hawks in Congress and his Cabinet recommended war in Vietnam and southeast Asia to stop the spread of Communism, Kennedy sent volunteers -- which he ordered out by the end of 1964 -- but said he would never commit U.S. draftees to fight in another country's civil war, Vietnam.

Most troublesome to me, seeing how the Hawks lied America into invading Iraq twice in the last 22 years, DCI Allen Dulles and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Lyman Lemnitzer counseled Kennedy to order an all-out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in Fall of 1963 -- the optimal time for a successful pre-emptive war.

Of course, we all know what happened next.

PS: I know you know all this, Mnemosyne. Sorry to get all didactic, my Friend. You know, old habits...