Reply #21: Yawn

[adwon]

No matter how people try to exonerate Kennedy from responsibility concerning Vietnam, they fail. Let's examine some reasons why.

1. Did Kennedy truly intend to remove all advisors by the end of 1964? In October of 1963, he very well may have. The real quesetion is whether it matters. It doesn't. Kennedy would have been caught in the same trap as Johnson in mid 1964. The assassination of Diem greatly dislocated the existing power bases in South Vietnam. As a result, the Hanoi-sponsored NLF was seeing a change in fortunes. Had Kennedy decided to pull out then, he would have handed all of SE Asia to Moscow and Beijing. I can only imagine the fallout from this potential decision when, in conjunction with millions of refugees fleeing the terror that inevitably followed a communist takeover, it was also revealed that he and his brother were complicit in the death of Diem.

2. Why would Kennedy choose the end of 1964 as a target date? Many have asserted over the years that Kennedy would have removed the advisors only after the 1964 election. Oh really? He would have kept those soldiers in harm's way in order to gain domestic political standing? That is the import of the argument.

3. The Kennedys' complicity in the murder of Diem is routinely ignored by those who seek to exonerate them. This was the single most destabilizing act of the conflict and its consequences reverbrated for years. Diem, unlike the many generals who succeeded him, had at least some claim to legitimacy. He also, again unlike the generals, had a power base in the anti-French, Catholic South Vietnamese who supported him. While South Vietnam was no paradise and definitely no ideal country, it was far superior to its enemy to the north.

4. "(2) On October 5, Kennedy made his formal decision. Newman quotes the minutes of the meeting that day:

The President also said that our decision to remove 1,000 U.S. advisors by December of this year should not be raised formally with Diem. Instead the action should be carried out routinely as part of our general posture of withdrawing people when they are no longer needed. (Emphasis added.)
The passage illustrates two points: (a) that a decision was in fact made on that day, and (b) that despite the earlier announcement of McNamara’s recommendation, the October 5 decision was not a ruse or pressure tactic to win reforms from Diem (as Richard Reeves, among others, has contended3) but a decision to begin withdrawal irrespective of Diem or his reactions."

--The author doesn't understand what he read. "Withdrawing people when they are no longer needed." The same was done to Chiang and Rhee would get similiar threats. They didn't raise it with Diem so he couldn't raise a protest. This was a message to Diem to clean up his act, get the monks to quit setting themselves on fire, or you'll pay. To believe otherwise is to be ignorant of the fact that JFK was a very canny politician who knew how to send a message in the proper vein.

(3) On October 11, the White House issued NSAM 263, which states:

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.

In other words, the withdrawal recommended by McNamara on October 2 was embraced in secret by Kennedy on October 5 and implemented by his order on October 11, also in secret. Newman argues that the secrecy after October 2 can be explained by a diplomatic reason. Kennedy did not want Diem or anyone else to interpret the withdrawal as part of any pressure tactic (other steps that were pressure tactics had also been approved). There was also a political reason: JFK had not decided whether he could get away with claiming that the withdrawal was a result of progress toward the goal of a self-sufficient South Vietnam."

--It also occurs to me that Kennedy felt no need to tell Diem anything for the simple fact that he would be out of power very soon.


Vietnam is too often considered in a vacuum rather than as part of the Cold War. When considered as part of the whole, certain trends emerge that indicated that this war was no different from Korea or China, but was simply a case in which the United States failed at the tactical and strategic levels...but not the grand strategic.