Kennedy and Vietnam

[erpowers]

I have been reading the book "Grand Expectations. In one of the chapters it is pointed out that Kennedy at one point was advised to seek a cease-fire between North and South Vietnam, but rejected that idea. I know that John F. Kenneyd probably cannot be blamed for the Vietnam War, but did Kennedy make a mistake by rejecting advise to push for a cease-fire between North and South Vietnam and an agreement that could lead to reunification of North and South Vietnam?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Rumor is he was going to order a cease fire and bring the US troops home

but he was assassinated.

[rurallib]

3. That is the story I heard also

After sending Galbreath (I think) to observe in VietNam, Kennedy had decided to pull out based on Galbreath's findings. We will never know.

[Thothmes]

17. But not until after the 194 elections

He didnt want to give the opposition a solid "soft on Communism" argument before the election.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. After the Bay of Pigs, JFK was concerned about looking soft...

...against communism, and Vietnam didn't yet look like the clusterfuck it ultimately became.

[KharmaTrain]

4. A Catch-22

By November, 1963...and the CIA-led coup of Diem, all bets in Viet Nam were off. In many ways, the situation wasn't in JFK's hands and in instability that was occuring in the country makes trying to predict how he would have reacted strictly conjecture.

A couple of things to consider...First was the 1964 elections. JFK expected to run against Goldwater and many were predicting a close race. Goldwater was hard line and surely would have moved JFK into a similar posture, just like Nixon did with him in 1960. IMHO, JFK would have reacted in a similar way to Johnson regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident...as it did occur in August, right before the election. And, yes, I think he would have tried to get war power authority just as Johnson did. The political climate was still too hot and the situation in South Vietnam too fluid to have reached out to Ho Chi Minh without a major fallout.

Now...how JFK would have handled things afterwards...that's another story and topic.

Cheers...

[dmosh42]

5. Having just volunteered for four years active in the USN...

when JFK was elected, I can remember how Eisenhower had resisted the push for doing more than advisors in Laos and So. Vietnam. He warned against the pressures from the 'military-industrial' people, to do invasions. But Kennedy stepped up the amount of forces after the Cuba fiasco, and the rest was history. In the movie "JFK", I believe Oliver Stone injected some idea that JFK issued a memo to the effect that we need to back off any large scale intrusion in SE Asia. And that may have been a reason for his assassination. But I never saw any proof of that.

[H2O Man]

6. Early in his years

as President, JFK did not consider Vietnam to be as important as Laos. The JCS and the Eisenhower administration had likewise identified Laos as the line in the sand. It is interesting to note that some of the more rightwing military advisers told Kennedy not to get involved in Vietnam; these were, curiously, men who Kennedy did not trust or have much respect for.

One of the myths from the past is that Kennedy "started" US involvement in Vietnam. This is way false. Had FDR lived, we would have had a good relationship with that nation after WW2. Truman made one of his worst mistakes by siding with the French, in their effort to regain control of Vietnam. And the US paid the bill for the French effort, which of course failed. But even as it did, there were more US "advisers" there than the public knew about.

By the fall of 1963, JFK had two potential routes planned, a tactic he often used, which allowed him to constantly adjust to new circumstances. He had issued an order to begin removing US forces by the end of the year, which was part of a plan to remove all US troops after he won re-election. But he also kept open the option of keeping troops there, and possible increasing them if needed on a (relatively) short-term basis.

Among his closest advisers, there is full agreement that JFK had decided to end US involvement in Vietnam during his second term.

[Peace Patriot]

8. You are correct, H2O Man. JFK was intent upon ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam,

and was also intent on ENDING the "Cold War" (and all its proxy wars), according to James Douglass, in his fabulously well-researched book on Kennedy, just published, "JFK and the Unspeakable: why he died and why it matters."

The turning point for JFK was his own personal facing of "armageddon" during the the Cuban Missile Crisis in fall 1962. He and Bobby alone resisted the overwhelming pressure from the Joint Chiefs, the CIA and others, to preemptively nuke Russia and Cuba. After that, JFK was a changed man. He opened secret backchannels to both Krushchev and Castro, and was just beginning to make good headway on a peace agreement--with the success of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the wheat deal with Russia (they were having a bad winter and people were starving) and other actions--when he was assassinated. Virtually everyone in his government opposed these peace moves (except Bobby). Douglass meticulously documents and narrates specifically the situation in Vietnam just before his death. He had sent Henry Cabot Lodge to Vietnam, who persistently disobeyed his orders to meet the South Vietnamese President Diem. Diem was moving toward an armistice with North Vietnam, and neutral status in the Cold War (such as Kennedy had engineered in Laos), and Kennedy felt that Diem and neutrality for Vietnam were vital to his peace effort with Krushchev. Lodge instead pursued the CIA war strategy, and engineered a coup and Diem's assassination. (Diem was no saint, for sure, but he was better than what came later, and he was genuinely interested in his country's independence.) What Douglass narrates is JFK's increasing isolation within his own government, and his fight with the generals (and the CIA lurking behind them) over nuclear war being "winnable." They thought they could 'win' an all-out nuclear exchange with Russia. They were willing to accept 30 million U.S. casualties (and of course had no clue about "nuclear winter" and the probable death of the planet within six months). And they pushed hard on JFK at every juncture, to use what they thought was their advantage--superior missiles with nuclear warheads. JFK was smack up against the war profiteers.

Douglass also meticulously lays out the case for the CIA's role in engineering his assassination, and solves many puzzles regarding the post-assassination. For instance, he explains that the trail that the CIA laid from Oswald to Russia and Cuba was intended to be the trigger for a nuclear strike on both. Why did this not happen? He documents LBJ's opposition to it, and his ordering the coverup of assassination details to prevent an insurrection in the country against our secret government, but also to prevent an outcry for vengeance against Russia and Cuba (who were innocent). As for the war profiteers, here is what LBJ said, "Now they can have their war" (meaning Vietnam). Two days after JFK's assassination, he rescinded JFK's executive orders and plan for withdrawal from Vietnam, and, within 11 months after JFK's death, the U.S. was in a full scale war in Vietnam, which soon spread to Laos and Cambodia.

The Cold War never let up after that--with millions of more deaths in Asia, in South and Central America, in Africa--until the hopes of billions of people for social justice were crushed, and Soviet Russia's economy lay in ruins, in the 1980s. It could have--and would have--ended two decades earlier, if JFK had lived.

Douglass also documents that JFK thought he could beat Goldwater in 1964 by advocating peace. His peace initiatives were very popular with the American people. LBJ did a mockery of that, by calling himself "the peace candidate." JFK was right. The people wanted peace. I wanted peace. I voted for LBJ because he promised peace. He won that election overwhelmingly because he advocated peace. But LBJ was lying. What I got for that vote, from LBJ, was 2 million people slaughtered in Southeast Asia, before it was over. JFK would never have let that happen, if he had lived, and if Douglass is correct, and I think he is. It's something I have felt instinctively all my adult life, but never had the evidence to establish for sure. Douglass provides it.

[coalition_unwilling]

9. The verdict on JFK and Vietnam is

far more ambiguous than your post would suggest. David Kaiser, in "American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War" (2000: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), argues convincingly that JFK sought constantly to keep his policy options open until after the 1964 elections.

JFK feared a new "Who lost China?" debate if he withdrew US forces too soon and allowed Vietnamese reunification to proceed under its own power. On the other hand, JFK understood that the Diem junta lacked popular legitimacy. Allowing the coup against Diem to proceed allowed JFK to preserve policy flexibility and defer a decision until after Nov. '64.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Well, Douglass argues convincingly, that JFK was trying to save Diem, and it was

Lodge who gave the go-ahead to So. Vietnamese generals to kill him. Also, Douglass is quite excellent on his narrative (with documentation) on the position Kennedy found himself in, feeling more kinship with Krushchev, who also wanted peace, than with anyone in his own government (except Bobby). Douglass is quite serious about the word "isolated." Kennedy was in fundamental disagreement with virtually everyone in his government, and what the Henry Cabot Lodge story reveals, is how readily some people were to to subvert the president--to do the opposite of what he told them to do. In any case, Kennedy's ambivalence was often a reflection of what he thought he could SAY--a reflection of his isolated position--with a wall of warmongering opposition at home (in the government). What he was thinking, and confiding to very few people, and to some extent to Krushchev and Castro, was way, way "outside the box." He wanted to end the possession of nuclear arms--to disarm--to end the proxy wars, and to create a friendly rivalry with communist countries, recognizing the understandable reasons for communist revolutions and the desire for social justice that, for instance, the Cuban revolution sought. This was only a few years after the red-baiting McCarthyite era, so it is amazing that he was thinking along these lines, and amazing that he thought he could achieve such goals.

I didn't know this about Kennedy. I always thought he was half there (or less), on the path to peace--a Cold Warrior who was on the way to rejecting war as the solution and got cut down before he really committed himself to it. But this book changed my view. And why it is so compelling (this book's thesis) is the other part of the story--the assassination, the convincing case for who masterminded it, and why. (He makes it part of his title--why--because that's what the book is very focused on.) Would the CIA and the MIC have done this to a president who was only fancying peace, half way to thinking it might be possible, and still convinceable on war, and/or trickable (into war)? And I have to say no. It was too big a thing, to all involved, to assassinate any president, let alone someone as popular as Kennedy, on the speculation that he might become peaceminded and might not be trickable into war. They had to have known for sure, to undertake this terrible act. And they did know, from his actions (such as his refusal to nuke Soviet Russia when he had the chance--against the insistent advice of the Joints Chiefs to do so), his statements (internal as well as external), and from illicit monitoring of his backchannel contacts.

The fact that they killed him reinforces Douglass' thesis that they had reason to kill him: he was intent on disarmament and peace. No more wars. No more war profiteering. And all the elaborate folderal to point to Russia and Cuba not only points directly at the CIA as the engineer of the crime, but further explains why they did it-- to undo Kennedy's peace initiatives to Krushchev and Castro, and in CIA-instigated conflicts like Laos (which he had already neutralized) and Vietnam (which he was trying to neutralize). If they thought they could get around him, they wouldn't have killed them. If they thought they could convince him, they wouldn't have killed him. It was too risky and too dreadful an act, not to have a solid reason. And it was a very, very elaborate plan--excessively loaded with misdirection, and many operatives (most of them unknowing)--and a very elaborate coverup, because they knew what the consequences would be, if it was uncovered (--a rebellion, by the American people, against the secret government; exposure of all their elaborate war profiteering schemes).

I had a little nagging thought, at the back of my mind, as I read the book, that Kennedy might have been gaming Krushchev, or Krushchev might have been gaming Kennedy--i.e., pretending to want peace, but really looking for information and weaknesss. By the end of the book, that doubt was pretty much gone, because there is such an overwhelming case for Douglass' thesis. You would have to disbelieve the sincerity of too many documents and too many people to conclude that it was just a chess game. And, once again, the man was assassinated, by our own government (of that I have no further doubt whatsoever). Why? This was no whim. This was no moment of madness. This was a very carefully thought out scheme with a very focused goal: to turn the country away from peace and back to war--for the next twenty years, as it turned out, and now picked up by our current political establishment as "the war on terror." The Forever War that Kennedy had hoped to spare us.

They had a very good reason to kill him. They thought he was a traitor to the "military-industrial complex." A traitor to the war that they intended to continue indefinitely.

[H2O Man]

13. The part about Lodge

is accurate. There is no question that he was running a program in Vietnam was was distinct from what the administration was advocating. That this included the coup is well-documented.

Lodge, of course, was setting the stage for his run for the '64 republican nomination.

[erpowers]

20. You and Coalition_Unwilling Might Both be Right

Peace Patriot, you and coalition_unwilling might both be right. According to "Grand Expectations" JFK allowed the CIA plot against Diem to proceed, but was deeply troubled when he was informed of its success against Diem. In addition, as I read further in the book it was claimed that Kennedy was indeed worried about being called "soft on communism" and that he was in fact considering removing all advisors after the 1964 election.

[Peace Patriot]

21. Yup, he had a bunch of traitors working for him. He had already fired the CIA Director

for trying to force him, and indeed trick him, into invading Cuba. At that point, early on, he was not quite there yet, as to being against such aggression, but he could not tolerate trickery (tricking him, the CiC). Douglass doesn't nail Dulles for the assassination (though he does nail Richard Helms), but I think it's just a matter of lack of evidence and being careful (as an investigator). And Dulles sure had personal--as well ideological and war profiteering--motive. He had been fired. That was the occasion for Kennedy's famous vow to "break the CIA into a thousand pieces, and scatter it to the wind."

If only he had lived to do it! Or Bobby had! What a terrible loss to us all--to North Americans, to South Americans, to Southeast Asians, to Russians, to the whole world. We are where are now--mired in war and treachery throughout the globe, and controlled by war profiteers--because of those assassinations. If LBJ's only fault was covering it up--and I have some doubts about that (Douglass believes he was not in on JFK's assassination)--what a terrible disservice he did to us. The CIA should have been broken into thousand pieces THEN AND THERE. Today, it's not just the CIA. (Hell, the CIA might even be considered virtuous today--they opposed torture, and the manufacture of war with the WMD lies--or many of them did.) Today, it's secrecy and plotting and wretchedness--and vast violations of the rule of law--throughout the government, with the line between government and corporate so smudged, there is simply no accountability. Even our voting machines are now run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code!

Anyway, I agree. After the 1964 election, Kennedy would have cleaned house, and would have proceeded with a major peace treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Russia, including neutrality for Vietnam. Instead, we killed 2 million people. Possibly those 2 million in some way spared the 30 million here, in a nuclear holocaust (and countless more in Russia). But that is not exactly comforting. How did this country reach a pass in which millions of innocent people must die, in the blighted cause of our "safety"--and why are we still there, at that same pass? How did our democracy become such a monstrous enterprise in the world? Because war is exceedingly profitable, that's why.

[H2O Man]

23. His 6-63 American University speech

identified his goals for his second term. He told those closest to him that making speeches was the easy part, and that he recognized that he would have a difficult time reaching those goals. Yet, without a doubt, that speech defined his thinking at that time.

[Hangingon]

10. Where can I find documentation of the pull out alternative?

People have searched for this illusive document for years. All we have are the statements of advisors.

[H2O Man]

12. From the Government Pronting Office:

The Kennedy administration Report titled "Vietnam: August - December 1963." It contains the memorandum that reports on the Taylor/McNamara mission to South Vietnam, which details how JFK's plan to end US involvement in the war (starting with the first wothdrawal of 1000 troops in 12-63) could be accomplished.

[Hangingon]

26. Sorry, that doesn't count.

Show me the JFK decision document. The one everyone has sought since 1963.

[H2O Man]

27. It counts.

You may not understand that, though, especially without looking at it.

[Hangingon]

31. I have read it. It is a nice report on "how to get out".

If there was a real plan we would have seen it.

[H2O Man]

33. Doubt it.

If you actually had, I don't think you would have wrote your third sentence. But perhaps you did, and either didn't understand it, or have forgotten, and would benefit from reading it again.

[Peace Patriot]

30. Yeah, well, maybe it went the way of his head x-rays.

TWO DAYS after he was murdered, LBJ rescinded whatever he had to rescind, and said, of the CIA and Vietnam, "Now they can have their war."

[H2O Man]

32. NSAM #263

When a person claims, as the person above did in post #10, that there is an "illusive document" that people have searched for "for years" without success, it is interesting to document two places where those documents are -- and where people have been "finding" them for years.

The first, which I make note of in post #12, is the "official recxord," made public by the federal government. It contains copies, for example, of the actual McNamara/Taylor Report that JFK had requested. If one bothers to read this "illusive" document (as thousands have), it provides a context of what the President asked them to look into on their then-recent trip to Vietnam. More, it provides their exact, non-illusive response.

It was then that the President issued NSAM #263. It can be found in a collection of documents that the government did not want to have provided to the public, known as "the Pentagon Papers." Again, thousands of people have found these mysterious documents, and actually read them.

For those who would prefer to deny that they exist, it may be easier to not read them, and say they "don't count." Each according to his or her needs.

[Peace Patriot]

35. The document is on this page. Start of the pullout: withdraw 1,000 troops

by the end of 1963. Document dated 10/11/63, a month before he was killed.

Also see (same page)

11/21/63 (note: the day before JFK's assassination)

DRAFT

TOP SECRET

NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263

http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/nsam263.htm

------

This paragraph is particularly chilling...

"4. It is of the highest importance that the United States Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinate go out of their way to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and in the field. More specifically, the President approves the following lines of action developed in the discussions of the Honolulu meeting of November 20. The office or offices of the Government to which central responsibility is assigned is indicated in each case."

--------

This document is also interesting. (from the Pentagon Papers - Memorandum from McNamara to JFK, 10/2/63)

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/doc142.htm

Clearly, JFK's plan was to withdraw 1,000 troops by the end of 1963 (item 3), and "the bulk of US troops" by the end of 1965 (item 2). Although this plan is based on the ultimately failed military plan to train the South Vietnamese troops to fight their own war, JFK didn't know, in 1963, that it would fail. I also think there are quite a few indications of big disagreements about how to proceed in Vietnam, and undercurrents from different factions within these documents, for instance, the pro-war, pro-big U.S. commitment faction were out to fool Sen. Fulbright and the public with withdrawal plans, and the military was trying fool JFK that training of South Vietnamese forces would permit withdrawal of US troops. Not evident in these documents, are the context and the documentation that James Douglass provides (in "JFK and the Unspeakable") of JFK's backchannel communications with Krushchev (and also Castro) and other actions and statements which completely contradict any intention of JFK's to become involved in a full-scale war in Vietnam. That is exactly what he was trying to avoid, according to extensive other evidence. The blustery stuff in the docs I've just referenced, about defeating Communism, etc., needs to be seen in this context and in light of Douglass' description of Joint Chiefs and NSA meetings from JFK's point of view, as stated to people outside of the meetings. Basically, he and the Joints Chief/NSA were in fundamental disagreement about where U.S. policy was heading--toward war or toward peace. JFK became increasingly aware that he was all alone (except for Bobby) in having a fundamental intention of peace, while everyone else was intent on war, either nuclear war with Soviet Russia or major conflicts around the world, such as they were planning in Vietnam (but JFK was not planning). Douglass does a good job of describing this atmosphere, which was punctuated by their assassination of JFK--colluding with it either by their silence, or their agreement or their complicity with the CIA plot.

In other words, JFK was "talking Cold War" because he didn't trust anyone around him--and was planning to fire them all, after the 1964 election--and was meanwhile planning to END the Cold War. He thought that the American people would be with him, and he was probably right. When LBJ ran on a "peace platform" the following year, he won by a landslide. LBJ, of course, was lying. But Kennedy was NOT lying--when he spoke to his most intimate friends and only those he could trust, during this period, of his Cold War peace plans.

[B Calm]

7. Vietnam was another war started by republicans. Eisenhower

sent our young men into harms way and left the mess for Kennedy. You bet, Kennedy made mistakes, but they are small compared to Johnson's.

[acmavm]

14. When I was young I was told that the reason Eishenhower got all involved

in Viet Nam was because he (the US) wanted to show the French how the country could be run through their 'man'. The French had lost control, what with monks dousing themselves in gasoline and lighting themselves on fire (never a good thing, it's makes quite a statement). So we were gonna take over from the French and bring Viet Nam into our sphere of interest.

[boomerbust]

16. Tin and tungsten exports

Was another reason Ike wanted the North to be stopped.

[Thothmes]

18. When Ike left the White House in 1961

there were 300 U.S. Military advisors in Vietnam. In December of 1963, that number had grown to 16,000. Who made a mess of it?

[Peace Patriot]

22. Well, read Douglass' book ("JFK and the Unspeakable"), and see if you end up with

the same opinion (presumably that it was all JFK's fault?). TWO DAYS after JFK's death, LBJ rescinded JFK's orders and plans to withdraw from Vietnam, and within 11 months, as LBJ increased troops levels, the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident was engineered, and Congress proceeded to okay a full scale war, that would soon involve more than 500,000 troops. Does the presence of 16,000 troops inevitably lead to half a million? JFK was trying to withdraw, as he began to see the quagmire the CIA had created, and as he began to create an overall plan for world peace, starting with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (Douglass convincingly argues, with documentation, that the Test Ban Treaty was only the beginning, and that neutrality for Vietnam, as with Laso, was a key part of that plan.) LBJ, on the other hand, eagerly and quickly escalated the war, and never questioned it. He had no peace plan. He had no exit strategy. He was fully supportive of a full scale war in Vietnam. Kennedy never was, and he was trying to get us out of it, when he was killed. I think Douglass presents some powerful evidence that this is true, including Kennedy's backchannel communications with Krushchev. And I would just suggest that you read it.

U.S. TROOP LEVELS IN THE VIETNAM WAR

1959 760

1960 900

1961 3,025

1962 11,300

1963 16,300 (Diem assassination, Kennedy assassinaton--within weeks of each other)

1964 23,300 ('Gulf of Tonkin" resolution 10/64; Pres. LBJ elected as "the peace candidate" 11/64)

1965 184,300

1966 385,300

1967 485,600

1968 536,100 (Robert Kennedy assassinated during his antiwar campaign for president)

1969 475,200

1970 334,600

1971 156,800

1972 24,200

1973 50

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/U.S._Troop_levels_in_Vietnam_War

[Thothmes]

29. Never said that it was Kennedy's fault

It took the willing action of Ike, Kennedy and Johnson to create the Vietnam War. Ike for his continued support of the regime in Saigon, Kennedy for thinking that he could resolve the problem with more troops. Then, when realizing that was not possible, not taking the direct action to end our committment. Then of course LBJ.

[Obamanaut]

19. The first military advisors were sent to Viet Nam during the Truman

administration, prior to the end of the Korean conflict.

Toward the end of the French involvement, the US was picking up a large portion of the bill for the French effort.

[Octafish]

15. Record shows JFK wanted out of Vietnam. He ordered Harriman to extend olive branch through Nehru.

Harriman refused to do so.
Then, he greenlighted CIA coup of Vietnam that led to the killing of Diem brothers.
JFK saw that the war was unwinnable. And he wasn't going to send draftees.
Harriman, BTW, was Prescott Bush's business partner in arming Hitler.

[Peace Patriot]

25. Douglass goes into detail about the Diem assassination.

It was a very complicated situation. Here's the background (not in Douglass' book): Ho Chi Minh (a war hero in the fight for independence from the French) was the legitimate president of Vietnam. He clearly would have been elected president, if country-wide elections had been held. Unfortunately, the country was temporarily partitioned by the UN, and a vote on re-unification scheduled for 1956. Meanwhile, a Prime Minister, Diem, with connections to the U.S. (and to Cardinal Spellman, a rightwing anti-communist prelate in New York) was appointed by the old emperor, over the objections of the French (the outgoing colonial power), who considered Diem incompetent. Diem was the CIA's boy, for fomenting a war against communism in Southeast Asia. Diem's nazi-like brother, Nhu (an admirer of Hitler) and his wife Madame Nhu, soon became notorious for corruption and dreadful oppression. A vote was held, only in the south, in 1955. The Nhu's won it for Diem by stuffing the ballot boxes and widespread brutal intimidation--an egregiously fraudulent election. When the scheduled vote on re-unification of the country came up, Diem simply nixed it.

This was the situation that Kennedy inherited when he became president in early 1961. He was a Cold Warrior. He believed in the anti-communist cause. However, he had visited Vietnam as a young man, seen the situation for himself, and concluded, that early on, that the U.S. should never repeat the mistakes of the French in Vietnam and get involved in a land war in Asia. (Douglass documents this.) But what he was presented with, as president, was a CIA that was working feverishly to do just that: to start an anti-communist land war in Vietnam (or, rather, continue the French colonial war against the true freedom fighters in Vietnam--the independence-loving Ho Chi Minh, his government in the north and his numerous supporters). What Douglass narrates is these two diverging purposes over the next two years--the CIA fomenting a war, Kennedy trying to prevent one.

Fast-forward to 1963: Diem and the Nhus caused nothing but trouble for Kennedy and for South Vietnam throughout the next two years, including brutal oppression of the large Buddhist population, with the collusion of the CIA. Attacks on the Buddhists were falsely blamed on leftists from the north. The oppression against any opposition to Diem became so brutal that Ho Chi Minh's government in the north authorized military help to the opposition in the south, to overthrow Diem. This is another juncture at which peace might have been arranged. Ho Chi Minh did not want a war with the U.S. The CIA was behind much of this conflict in the south. They wanted a war. What JFK tried to do, documented in Douglass' book, is to, first of all, separate Diem from his brother, Nhu. He wanted Diem to repair things with Buddhist community. He also wanted direct dialogue with Diem, through the U.S. ambassador, Lodge, who disobeyed repeated directives from Kennedy to do this. So Diem was never given a direct ultimatum (to remove his brother from power) until it was too late.

By this time, the CIA had decided to overthrow Diem and install a military junta, to further their objective of war. Kennedy made mistakes, for sure. He should have withdrawn Lodge, for one thing. And he should never have agreed to the removal of Diem, without a plan for democratic elections. He did agree to Diem's removal, but he did not order Diem's assassination--he urged Lodge to give him asylum in the embassy (never happened). He had sent several personal emissaries to Vietnam, to try to get around Lodge's obstinence, but this didn't work either. Why? Because the U.S. secret government was working at cross purposes with the President. He wanted stability in Vietnam--to help make Diem acceptable--in order for the U.S. to withdraw. The CIA was directly countering this policy, by stirring up trouble with the Buddhist community and many other actions. (Douglass documents that the CIA had operatives in every agency of the Diem government and in the military.) Also by this time--post Cuban Missile Crisis--Kennedy was in direct communication with Krushchev, and his object was a general world peace.

When Diem was assassinated (by Vietnamese generals, probably CIA operatives), Ho Chi Minh remarked that it was the stupidest thing the Americans could have done. And JFK may have made some mistakes, but he was not stupid. He knew that stability in South Vietnam was essential to peace, and he was trying to engineer stability for that purpose. Ho Chi Minh was no doubt thinking of the impending war escalation, which would not have happened, if JFK had lived. When JFK was assassinated, three weeks later, guess who went into mourning? Nikita Krushchev (who never really recovered from it), and also Fidel Castro (with whom JFK had also opened a backchannel communication). (He expressed sympathy with the Cuban revolution, opposition to the brutal fascist, Batista, whom Castro had ousted, and was trying to get Castro to agree not to foment revolution in other Latin American countries, as the plank of a peace agreement.)

The two assassinations--of first Diem, then JFK--are connected. Both were aimed at defeating peaceful solutions. Both were engineered by the CIA, in the service of war profiteers and other corporatists, who opposed every social justice movement on earth, even in a tiny, independence-minded country like Vietnam, whose leader, Ho Chi Minh, would have been a U.S. ally within the communist world, with an elected communist government, if the CIA had not been so bent on the opposite outcome, to the point of assassinating the President of the United States. There was a parallel situation with Cuba, which JFK was able to save from war, in a deal with Krushchev. That deal further informs us of JFK's intentions in Vietnam. He opposed a war in Vietnam, and was trying to un-stick us from that CIA-created quicksand.

[leftchick]

34. well now

after reading all of your posts it confirms much of what myself and many have always suspected, but tell me this. You have done a pretty great synopsis, should I still read the book?

:)

[Peace Patriot]

36. Absolutely! It is a great book! Well-written, well-researched, and with a

particular spiritual focus. He starts by explaining how he began writing letters about his fears of nuclear war and desire for peace, as a young man back in the Sixties, to a Trappist Monk named Thomas Merton (who is famous for his spiritual writings). Merton 's objections to nuclear weapons got him tagged "controversial" and his superiors forbade him to publish. But he could continue writing private letters. He had a correspondence with many people. One of them was Ethel Kennedy (Bobby's wife.) Douglass then uses Merton, and that focus, as the framing of the book, in support of his underlying thesis that JFK underwent a very dramatic change, while in office, on the issue of war and peace. His support for this notion is meticulously documented; so also his examination of the assassination evidence, and the case against the CIA as the chief engineers of the murder of JFK. His main aim is to explain WHY they killed JFK--it was no vague thing, it was a specific set of circumstances, in which JFK was pursuing an END to the Cold War and was trying to arrange a peace treaty with Russia, in diametrical opposition to everything the CIA and the military wanted. They wanted to NUKE Russia. JFK thought they were insane--or came to think they were insane. It took him a while. They were setting up all sorts of circumstances, that would lead to nuking Russia. They were trying to trap him into doing it. They thought they could WIN an all-out nuclear war with Russia.

I have always avoided the assassinaton because it is so painful to me. I was a young Kennedyite, at age 16. I won't go into all of what JFK's and RFK's and MLK's assassinations did to me (and my father's death, and my boyfriend's murder, all in the space of five years), but of course I'd picked up this and that detail about the investigations of JFK's death, and generally distrusted the official account. I had recently been thinking about Kennedy's peace speech to the UN, and how different he was, at the end, than earlier in that era. Something DID change in him, but I didn't know the whole story. So Douglass' book startled me. Here was someone else, who felt the same thing--that the event was too horrible to face (he calls it "JFK and the Unspeakable"), but who finally faced it, and in thoroughly exploring that event, puts together this remarkable story. WHY Kennedy was killed. It is riveting. It was especially riveting to me, having lived through it.

I think we all have to face this, fully. Our own government arranged for, and shot, the President of the United States, to stop him from pursuing peace. It has cost millions and millions of lives, and trillions and trillions of dollars, in war and militarism over the last four decades. It has deprived several generations of rightful leadership, and good government. And we are not out of this nightmare yet. Our own government! It's not that I didn't suspect that. I certainly did. So have many, many others. But face it? No. I hadn't faced it. That's what Douglass takes you through. Facing it. Facing the Unspeakable. And then looking at things now, and suddenly understanding them in a whole new light. Four decades of fraudulent government. Four decades of a veil over our nation that has never lifted. Four decades of a sort of illusion of a country, that can never quite wake up to what our own government did, and why.

[leftchick]

37. I am very familiar with Thomas Merton

and that explains a lot about JFKs peace stance. I am very excited about getting this book. Thank you so much!

[theboss]

24. As others have pointed out, Kennedy was on a stay the course plan until early 1965 at least

Politcally, he couldn't have pushed for a cease-fire without risking the '64 election. What his plans were for '65 and beyond are conjecture and probably would have been overtaken by events.

[Are_grits_groceries]

28. The US was involved in Vietnam a long time before "the war" began.

1940 Japan forces occupy Vietnam, restricting local French administrators to figurehead authority.
1940 The communists organize the Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or "League for the Independence of Vietnam") to launch an uprising at the war's end.
<snip>
1941 Japanese troops occupy Vietnam. The Vichy French colonial government is allowed by the Japanese to continue to administer Vietnam. French repression continues.
1941-1945 The Viet Minh resist Japanese occupation with the help of the United States and China. The Chinese Nationalists set up the Vietnam Revolutionary League (Dong Minh Hoi) as an anti-communist movement. The Chinese Nationalists initially imprison Ho Chi Minh as a communist, but he convinces them he is a Nationalist first and fighting teh Japanese is a comon cause. Ho is set free and given command of the Dong Minh Hoi. Ho returns to Vietnam and rejoins the Viet Minh under Vo Nguyen Giap.
<snip>
7 Dec 41 The Empire of Japan attacks the U.S. military forces on Oahu in Hawaii, including the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The USA declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy.
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of the CIA) allies with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh guerrillas to harass Japanese troops and to help rescue downed American pilots. Ho Chi Minh becomes "Agent 19" under the supervision of MAJ Archimedes Patti.
<snip>
30 Apr 45 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies.
30 Apr 45 Major Archimedes Patti US Office of Strategic Services(OSS) meets with Ho Chi Minh who shows his support for America and later asks Patti to take this message back to the American people., ".. . that the Vietnamese loved the Americans; ... tell the Americans that the Vietnamese would never fight the Americans". American arms and instructors support is increased to Ho and Giap.
<snip>
8 May 45 Germany surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.
Following the Nazi defeat, the Potsdam Conference is held by the Allies including the U.S., Britain, and Soviet Union to plan the post-war world. Vietnam is considered a minor item on the agenda; in order to disarm the Japanese in Vietnam, the Allies divide the country in half at the 16th parallel. Chinese Nationalists will move in and disarm the Japanese north of the parallel while the British will move in and do the same in the south. During the conference, representatives from France request the return of all French pre-war colonies in Southeast Asia (Indochina). Their request is granted. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia will once again become French colonies following the removal of the Japanese.
<snip>
Aug 45 At a spontaneous non-communist meeting in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh assumed a leading role in the movement to wrest power from the French. With the Japanese still in control of Indochina, Bao Dai went along because he thought that the Viet Minh were working with the OSS and could guarantee independence for Vietnam..
Aug 45 Vietnam's puppet emperor, Bao Dai, abdicates.
Aug 45 Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas occupy Hanoi and proclaim a provisional government in the North of Vietnam.
2 Sep 45 On the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japanese representatives sign the Instrument of Surrender proclaiming their unconditional surrender.
2 Sep 45 Chinese Nationalists accept surrender of Japanese Occupation Forces north of the 16th parallel.
2 Sep 45 The British are to accept surrender south of the line under British Major General Douglas Gracey's 20th Indian Division, some 26,000 men in all. British General Gracey arrives in Siagon (South Vietnam) which is in turmoil.
2 Sep 45 The Communist dominated Viet Minh Independence League with support from United States officials seizes power: Ho Chi Minh establishes the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (GRDV) in Hanoi, and issues his Declaration of Independence, drawing heavily upon the American Declaration of Independence as well as Sun Yatsen's "Three-people Doctrine".
2 Sep 45 Emperor Bao Dai abdicates
2 Sep 45 Ho Chi Minh writes several letters to US President Harry Truman requesting recognition, citing the Atlantic Charter and then the United Nations Charter on self-determination. He received no response.
Sep 45 The head of the OSS mission in Saigon, COL Peter Dewey, is shot by the Viet Minh, becoming the first American to die in the Viet Nam war.
22 Sep 45 The British release 1,400 French Paratroop POWs from Japanese camps around Saigon. With some of the 20,000 French citizens living there, the French riot, killing Viet Minh suspects and ordinary Vietnamese civilians in Saigon. The defeated Japanese forces are re-armed to assist and restore order. The Viet Minh respond by calling a national strike and organize a guerrilla campaign against the French.
23 Sep 45 French troops return to Vietnam and clash with Communist and Nationalist forces and seize power in the south, with British help.
24 Sep 45 General Jacque Philippe Leclerc arrives in Siagon and declares, " We have come to claim our inheritance". The first Indo-China War of 1946 - 1954, had begun.
Oct 1945 October A purely bilateral British/French agreement recognizes French administration of the southern zone.
Oct 45 In the North 180,000 Chinese troops go on a "rampage". Ho's Viet Minh are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with it. Ho Chi Minh accepts an Allied compromise for temporary return of 15,000 French troops to rid the North of anti-Communists. The Chinese troops of Chiang flee to Taiwan, looting as they depart.
1945 As World War II ends, starvation kills over 1 million Vietnamese.

http://www.ichiban1.org/html/history/bc_1964_prewar/first_indochina_war_1945_1954.htm

There is a very good timeline that continues at the link. As you can see, Ho Chi Minh was mixed up with Allen Dulles. Most people don't realize how much we were entangled in Vietnam before "the war." After WWII, Ho Chi Minh wanted freedom from the French, and he considered due because they fought on the side of the Allies.
However, the US sided with France and ignored Ho. Thus the French got entangled badly after WWII, and we considerately took their place. Ho Chi Minh was a communist and therefore suspect no matter what he had done during the war.
We should have avoided the whole bloody mess. There so many groups with so many agendas involved that who knows what was really going on. In addition, Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles had probably maintained links there and who knows what they were up to. I'm sure it was no good.
I think the US was manipulated a lot into bad decisions. The government never really did know who all the players were. Shadows everywhere.