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In reply to the discussion: Since November 22, 1963... [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)105. LBJ had to lie America into War on Vietnam
The Gulf of Tonkin "incident" led to the introduction of combat troops a few weeks later, something JFK said he would never do -- send draftees in to fight another nation's civil war.
John M. Newman, in ''JFK and Vietnam,'' documented and chronicles the story. The Pentagon and CIA gave LBJ, as veep, a more accurate picture of what was happening in Vietnam than they provided JFK, as president.
Why? JFK said he would not get into a land war in Southeast Asia and he certainly was not going to place US draftees in the middle of Vietnam's civil war; Johnson did.
Vietnam Withdrawal Plans
The 1990s saw the gaps in the declassified record on Vietnam filled inwith spring 1963 plans for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces. An initial 1000 man pullout (of the approximately 17,000 stationed in Vietnam at that time) was initiated in October 1963, though it was diluted and rendered meaningless in the aftermath of Kennedy's death. The longer-range plans called for complete withdrawal of U. S. forces and a "Vietnamization" of the war, scheduled to happen largely after the 1964 elections.
The debate over whether withdrawal plans were underway in 1963 is now settled. What remains contentious is the "what if" scenario. What would Kennedy have done if he lived, given the worsening situation in Vietnam after the coup which resulted in the assassination of Vietnamese President Diem?
At the core of the debate is this question: Did President Kennedy really believe the rosy picture of the war effort being conveyed by his military advisors. Or was he onto the game, and instead couching his withdrawal plans in the language of optimism being fed to the White House?
The landmark book JFK and Vietnam asserted the latter, that Kennedy knew he was being deceived and played a deception game of his own, using the military's own rosy analysis as a justification for withdrawal. Newman's analysis, with its dark implications regarding JFK's murder, has been attacked from both mainstream sources and even those on the left. No less than Noam Chomsky devoted an entire book to disputing the thesis.
But declassifications since Newman's 1992 book have only served to buttress the thesis that the Vietnam withdrawal, kept under wraps to avoid a pre-election attack from the right, was Kennedy's plan regardless of the war's success. New releases have also brought into focus the chilling visions of the militarists of that erafour Presidents were advised to use nuclear weapons in Indochina. A recent book by David Kaiser, American Tragedy, shows a military hell bent on war in Asia.
CONTINUED with very important IMFO links:
http://www.history-matters.com/vietnam1963.htm
Funny in a police state sort of way how little of this gets mentioned in Corporate McPravda or LACKademia.
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'We have more will than wallet.' -- George Herbert Walker Bush, inaugural address
Octafish
Nov 2014
#116
I live in Sam Rayburn country and I am perplexed...to say the least...that it is very conservative
Horse with no Name
Nov 2014
#12
Well now, that's one way of interpreting McLean's magnum opus. But one could say that
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#42
America was touched by the lowest demons in our nature, setting us on a different course.
Octafish
Nov 2014
#62
...this country has seen the corruption of our liberties by the MIC become the norm.
robertpaulsen
Nov 2014
#6
...and Cuba. Ike was president when Dulles hired the Mafia to kill Castro -- 1960.
Octafish
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#93
It is remarkable, the moments when it strikes. For me, HBO's ''Nixon by Nixon''...
Octafish
Nov 2014
#67
Since we are discussing people who need clues, perhaps you should spend a few moments
jtuck004
Nov 2014
#25
WHy don't you look up "hungry", which is what the children of the people who have been put and left
jtuck004
Nov 2014
#31
Hey, my friend, please do not confuse 'nostalgia' with 'reactionary.' I can assure you that
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#46
Maybe just maybe we learn from the past that life does not have to suck like it does today. That
jwirr
Nov 2014
#80
WTF? Historians round the world are shaking their fists at you! :) - nt
KingCharlemagne
Nov 2014
#43
It's even more distressing to see 'progressives' forget what their party is supposed to be about.
sabrina 1
Nov 2014
#77
I was three. I still remember how upset I was. My mother had the old B & W tv on, I was watching
Dont call me Shirley
Nov 2014
#18
I don't want to piss in people's nostalgia Cheerios unduly, but JFK and RFK continued to
KingCharlemagne
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JFK's assassination heralded the start of a string of murders of our best and brightest....
Hekate
Nov 2014
#50
Those weren't really great times for minorities and I really don't see it as
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#34
No I've read Dallek's book and seen all the documentaries but I'm not impressed by JFK.
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#63
Probably it would help understanding if you had actually been there. The Cold War was not one-sided
Hekate
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#72
Maybe you're right but it all comes back to ideology with JFK for me or rather his lack of one.
craigmatic
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#79
Once JFK allowed the Vietnamese military to kill Ngo and his brother we owned Vietnam.
craigmatic
Nov 2014
#107
Except JFK did not order assassination, despite what E Howard Hunt and CIA want us to believe.
Octafish
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#108
Jon Stewart said O'Reilly seemed ALMOST a Kennedy Democrat in comparison to RW extremists
pinboy3niner
Nov 2014
#56
In other words, a humorous exaggeration by a satirist for comic effect. Makes more sense that way.
Hekate
Nov 2014
#57
Sure was. Hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. describe what JFK did during the 1960 campaign...
Octafish
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#104
For a time capsule of the transition from the idealism of the late 1950s to
GreatGazoo
Nov 2014
#106