JFK at least, had made a decision to wind down our military involvement
HUH????
That JFK was determined not to see Vietnam lost was borne out by his actions all throughout 1963. It was JFK who decided that South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem needed to be removed from office not because Diem was engaging in repression against Buddhists, but because Kennedy had become convinced that Diem was an impediment to winning the war. As a result, when prodding from Washington failed to work, it was JFK who authorized the coup that resulted in Diem's overthrow and assassination on November 1, 1963 (the latter was not desired by JFK, but it was extremely naïve for him to not foresee such a result). Those who insist that JFK was ready to wash his hands of Vietnam and abandon the South never seem to realize that if that were the case, then why did JFK meddle so much in South Vietnamese politics right up to the eve of his death? Since the South was not in any immediate danger of collapse, it would have been far simpler for JFK to disengage than by engineering a coup against Diem.
Revisionists who claim otherwise about JFK and Vietnam hinge their assertions on two points. One, are the stories told by JFK aides Dave Powers and Ken O'Donnell that JFK had privately revealed his intention to withdraw, but only after the 1964 elections, when it would be politically far more feasible to do so. This assertion has to be taken with a grain of salt. The O'Donnell/Powers story, appeared in 1971 at a time when America was still deeply embroiled in Vietnam, and when all the Democrats who had originally supported the committment were now against the war, especially since it was now Republican Richard Nixon's war.
But five years earlier, when Vietnam had not yet torn the nation apart as deeply as it would by 1967 and 1968, the attitude of the JFK faction was entirely different. All of them, from Arthur Schlesinger to Pierre Salinger, and most importantly Teddy and Robert Kennedy, put aside their distaste for Lyndon Johnson to support the initial committment because, in their minds, Vietnam was perceived as having been a Kennedy operation. Not until late 1966 and 1967, when Vietnam was now seen in the public perception as having been entirely started by LBJ, was it safe for the Kennedy faction to be anti-war without being anti-JFK. And by 1971, there was hardly anyone in America who still remembered Vietnam as having been at one time a Kennedy operation. Therefore, when this context of when O'Donnell and Powers wrote their memoir is taken into account, one cannot call this confirmation of JFK's real intentions.
mcadams.posc.mu.edu |
