President Kennedy wanted to keep USA out of Vietnam

[Drunken Irishman]

27. I think his decision making in 1963 warrants at least a debate on the matter.

1) The memo of withdrawal as pushed by many (especially in the wake of Stone's JFK) was slowed down considerably even before Kennedy's assassination - in fact it ultimately would call for the removal of just one platoon.

2) Kennedy beefed up covert operations against the North Vietnamese before his assassination.

3) Kennedy admitted to Walter Cronkite in September, 1963, that he U.S. was prepared to continue assisting the South Vietnamese.

4) Kennedy was very critical of the South Vietnamese government and, within months of his criticism, President Diem was assassinated in a successful coup.

5) In the wake of that coup, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the Ambassador to South Vietnam.

I believe you could make the case Kennedy wouldn't have gone all in like Johnson...but I don't believe he was going to remove troops there.