Both Robert McNamara (1916-2009) and McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996) have said that JFK was not going to fight the Vietnam War, and especially not send hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to the jungles of Vietnam. Combine this with JFK's track record of not fighting a war in Laos, not invading with the full force of the U.S. military at the Bay of Pigs and not bombing during the Cuban Missile Crisis (which would have led to WWIII). I forgot to mention JFK's embrace of Third World Nationalism, which is not some that Ike, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon did.
Was Vietnam JFK’s War? Oliver Stone Op-Ed for
Newsweek – 10-20-1996
Web link: Was Vietnam Jfk's
War? (newsweek.com)
WHY WOULD YOU GIVE OLIVER STONE $7
OF YOUR money?'' Thus spoke Richard Nixon, as quoted in the new book
""Nixon off the Record,'' by Monica Crowley. The reference was to my
film ""JFK,'' which Ms. Crowley had paid to see. Nixon, who did not
see the film, nevertheless found it objectionable. His objections were not so
much to the idea of conspiracy in the assassination but to the film's thesis
that Kennedy had intended to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. Nixon asserted
that Kennedy was an unreconstructed ""cold warrior.''
Was he? New evidence is emerging
that, on the contrary, President Kennedy's intention was to withdraw all
American forces from Vietnam. I met with Robert McNamara last year, when I was preparing to make my
film ""Nixon.'' He confirmed to me what he has since published in his
memoir, ""In Retrospect'': that it is his strong belief that JFK was
planning to pull all U.S. troops out of Vietnam after the 1964 election
and that he had already started the process before his death.
In the book McNamara
writes, ""I think it is highly probable that, had President Kennedy
lived, he would have pulled us out of Vietnam... I think he would have come to
that conclusion even if he reasoned, as I believe he would have, that South
Vietnam and, ultimately, Southeast Asia would then be lost to communism. ..
Kennedy would have agreed that withdrawal would cause a fall of the
"dominoes' but that staying in would ultimately lead to the same result,
while exacting a terrible price in blood... So I conclude that John Kennedy
would have eventually gotten out of Vietnam rather than move more deeply in.''
McNamara explains in his book that at a ""very important''
National Security Council meeting on Oct. 2, 1963, President Kennedy made three
decisions: (1) to completely withdraw all U.S. forces from Vietnam by Dec. 31,
1965; (2) to withdraw 1,000 U.S. troops by the end of 1963 to begin the
process; and (3) to make a public announcement, in order to put this decision
""in concrete.''
Following the fateful Oct. 2 meeting,
there was another NSC meeting on Oct. 5 that formalized the decision. Then, on Oct. 11, National
Security Action Memorandum 263 was issued, which codified the decision and
mandated the withdrawal of the first 1,000 troops. It should be noted that at
this time there were only a total of about 16,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, all
of which were noncombat advisers. Under Lyndon Johnson, the figure became more
than half a million combat troops.
This sequence of events is
documented in detail in the seminal work ""JFK and Vietnam,'' by John
Newman, professor of history at the University of Maryland. Four days after Kennedy's death
a revised order, NSAM 273, was issued by President Johnson, which reversed the
Kennedy policy and mandated an escalation of the war in Vietnam.
The revised proposal was first
raised at a Honolulu conference of Vietnam military planners on Nov. 20 and 21,
1963--ironically, almost simultaneous to JFK's assassination on Nov. 22 in
Dallas. Records of this conference are still classified. A tape of the crucial NSC
meeting of Oct. 2, 1963, exists at the Kennedy library in Boston but has not
yet been made public. Other records pertaining to Vietnam policy dating
from the fall of 1963 are also still classified.
What has been made public recently
is an oral history
of these events given by
McNamara to the Office of Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon in 1988,
20 years after he left that office. The oral debriefing, which was classified
but made available to Professor Newman, makes it clear that McNamara strongly
urged President Kennedy to pull out of Vietnam in 1963.
""Sometime in the latter part of 1963,'' said McNamara,
""following my return from a trip to South Vietnam, I recommended to
President Kennedy that we announce a plan to begin the removal of our forces.''
McNamara recommended that we pull out our advvisers to the South Vietnamese
army, and let it fend for itself. ""I believed that we had done all
the training we could... More training wouldn't strengthen them; therefore we
should get out. The president agreed.''
After the Oct. 2 meeting, Kennedy asked McNamara to issue these
recommendations as a "report'' from himself as secretary of defense along
with Gen. Maxwell Taylor. McNamara made the announcement personally from
the steps of the White House. As he headed off to face the reporters, JFK yelled after him,
""And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too.''
Kennedy's own public statements on
Vietnam were cautious, and sometimes contradictory. He knew that he would face
a tough race for re-election against Barry Goldwater in 1964 and could not afford
to look ""soft on communism.'' Nevertheless, the evidence is clear that he had made up
his mind to pull out of a losing effort in Vietnam. As McNamara points
out in his book, this is fully consistent with Kennedy's own pragmatism and
with the lessons he learned from the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis and
other international incidents.
After the film ""JFK''
was released, Congress passed a bill entitled the President John F. Kennedy
Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. It mandates release of all
government documents related to the assassination, with very limited
exceptions. Since 1993, some 2 million to 3 million pages of documents have
been released. However, little or nothing has been declassified pertaining to
JFK and Vietnam. This is a serious omission that needs to be corrected, for the
sake of history.
Under President Kennedy, less than 100 Americans lost their lives in
Vietnam. Under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, that number increased to more than
58,000. Was Vietnam Kennedy's war? Nixon claimed it was. But Robert
McNamara, who should know, says it was not. When the tapes and documents are
finally released, the American people can decide for themselves.
OLIVER STONE is the director of
""Platoon,'' ""Born on the Fourth of July,''
""Heaven and Earth,'' ""JFK'' and ""Nixon.''
Sincerely,
Robert Morrow 512-306-1510 Austin, TX
Presidential Historian and Distinguished Fellow at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Institute for the Study of Presidential Crime
The World’s Foremost Authority on the JFK Assassination
The Top Historian in the World on Lyndon Johnson (sorry Robert Caro, it is not you …)
The Greatest Presidential Historian in American History
One of the World’s leading public intellectuals due to my sparkling expertise in the JFK assassination
America’s Premier Living Historian
Knows more about the JFK assassination than every Presidential Medal of Honor winner EXCEPT Lyndon Johnson (1980 posthumous recipient) who orchestrated the murder of JFK.
One of the top Menches in the United States. “Mensch” being a person of integrity, honor and noble character.
One of the top two of the Greatest JFK Assassination Researchers of all time, superceded only by Joachim Joesten who nailed the JFK assassination in real time in the 1960’s.
Knows far more about the JFK assassination than Oliver Stone who can’t figure out that LBJ murdered JFK because “Vietnam” is Stone’s hammer and he thinks everything is a nail.
Nation’s #1 Opposition Researcher on the Clintons & the author of The Clintons’ War on Women (published 2015)
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all the professors of history and politics who have ever taught at Princeton University combined.
Up and Coming Scholar on the USS Liberty Murders which were orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson and the leaders of Israel and were to be blamed on Egypt to give the USA a pretext to enter the Six Day War
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the 27 Smartest People on the Planet combined. (See “Here is a List of the 27 Smartest People On the Planet,” by Osien Kuumar)
Smarter by a country-mile, generously better informed and significantly less egotistical than the New Yorker’s (lone nutter) Lawrence Wright.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all the professors at Princeton, Harvard , Yale, Stanford, the University of Texas at Austin and SMU and anyone who has ever written for the New York Times or Washington Post combined.
Can out-debate 40 Ivy League professors of history and politics on the topic of the JFK assassination at one time.
Runs the best blog on the internet on the many crimes of Lyndon Johnson and the topic of the JFK assassination at “Robert Morrow Political Research” blog
A lot smarter than anyone who has ever written for Texas Monthly, the Texas Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, The New Yorker, The Daily Beast or the Washington Post; or who has ever reported for WFAA Dallas or KLBJ radio Austin
Far more knowledgeable and accurate than the Sixth Floor Museum on the topic of the JFK assassination. Executive director hilarious (lone nutter) Nicola Langford and curator Steve Fagin do not know a tenth of a thimble compared to what I know.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all the 8,000 scholars and scientists combined who have been fellows at the Princeton, NJ Institute for Advanced Study in its 90-year history
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined knowledge of all recipients of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science which has been awarded since 1995
Knows far more about the JFK assassination than Ken Jennings (lone nutter), who won 74 consecutive Jeopardy contests and is the highest earning American game show contestant of all time.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined membership of the ultra high IQ Mega society which is only composed of people with an IQ level of one in a million.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all the people who have ever been members and subject matter experts at the Council on Foreign Relations combined except for those members who were involved in the murder of JFK from their roles in U.S. intelligence
Knows more about the JFK assassination that all the people who have received MacArthur Fellow “genius grants” combined since the program began in 1981.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all the people who have ever received a Whiting Writers’ Award or a Guggenheim Fellowship combined.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than any single person alive since 1963 who has a tested IQ score of 175 and above.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than Mel Kiper knows about the NFL draft.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the entire lot of the living 4,500 Rhodes Scholars who are in over 100 countries around the world.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than all 250 members of the Texas Philosophical Society combined.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined membership of the Society of Fellows at the Aspen Institute as well as the entire Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the collective knowledge of all pathologists, medical examiners and ballistic experts who have ever practiced in the history of the USA.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined knowledge of the current and past members of the American Historical Association, the Society of American Historians or Organization of American Historians.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined knowledge of everyone who has won a Pulitzer Prize.
Knows more about the JFK assassination and Lyndon Johnson than the combined knowledge of everyone who has ever won: a Century Association Archives medal, a National Book Foundation medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a Los Angeles Book Prize in Biography, a Plutarch Award from the Biographers International Organization, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, The New York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize, a Gold Medal for Distinguished Service to Humanity from the National Institute of Social Sciences, Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Biography, a Biographers International Organization Award for major contribution to the advancement of the art and craft of biography, a History Makers Medal (the highest honor of the New York Historical Society, a Bookend Award (the highest honor of the Texas Book Festival), a Gold Medal in Biography (awarded once every six years by the American Academy of Arts and Letters), the Ambassador Book Award for Distinguished Achievement from the English-Speaking Union, the John Steinbeck Award, Carl Sandburg Literary Award (from the Chicago Public Library Foundation), the National Book Award in Nonfiction, a Pulitzer Prize, a New School for Social Research – Doctor of Humane Letters, Lifetime Achievement Award for the Guild Hall Academy of Arts, a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Washington Monthly Political Book Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, H.L. Mencken Award for Best Book, an American Institute of Architects Special Citation, Francis Parkman Prize (awarded by the Society of American Historians), a Carnegie Fellowship at the Columbia University School of Journalism, a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, a Deadline Club Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, a Society of Silurians Award for outstanding achievement in the field of public service or been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences or been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters or been inducted into any state’s or country’s Writer’s hall of fame or who has been made an honorary member of the Texas Rangers or been named a Living Landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
Knows more about the JFK assassination than the combined knowledge of everyone who has received a Nobel Prize in any field.
If Professor K. Anders Ericsson (deceased) were alive, this internationally renown “experts on experts” would sure proclaim me as the “World’s Greatest Expert on the JFK Assassination.”
Unlike CFR member Max Boot I have never written a biography which proves that Gen. Edward Lansdale murdered JFK (“The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam”) and then hollered at the top of my lungs that a lone nut commie killed JFK.
Unlike Texas Tribune editor Evan Smith, I was not personal friends with the wife of the murderer of JFK, Lyndon Johnson, nor did I ever chum up to her and call her “Mrs. J” and nor have I taken money from the daughter of Lyndon Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson. [“Mrs. J,” Evan Smith, Texas Monthly, September 2007 and Texas Tribune All Time List of donors: Luci Baines Johnson & her husband Ian Turpin - $149,097 as of 1/5/2022.]
Unlike longtime columnist Michael Barnes of the Austin-American Statesman I don’t pal around with ultra wealthy Luci Baines Johnson while somehow weirdly forgetting to mention in the Austin paper for literally decades that Lyndon Johnson murdered JFK.
Unlike LBJ biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, I have never had the man who murdered JFK – Lyndon Johnson – ask me to marry him (“A Tale of Hearts and Minds, Sally Quinn, Washington Post, 8-24-75)
Unlike LBJ biographer Robert Caro, I have was never co-opted by one of the men – LBJ crony Ed Clark – who murdered JFK (see “Blood, Money, and Power” by Barr McClellan, published 2003)
Unlike LBJ biographer Robert Dallek, I do not endorse the ludicrous, machine gun-riddled Warren Report fantasy that Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, the KGB, Gerald Ford, Sen. Richard Russell, Sen. John Sherman Cooper, Cong. Hale Boggs, Sen. Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, CIA chief William Casey, JFK aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers, and LBJ’s inner circle mistress Madeleine Brown, LBJ kickbacks king Billie Sol Estes and and JFK’s longtime secretary Evelyn Lincoln never believed.
Unlike LBJ biographer Michael Beschloss, I was never a personal friend of Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of the man Lyndon Johnson, who murdered JFK and I have never implied that Fidel Castro might be behind the JFK assassination.
Unlike LBJ biographer Julian Zelizer, I have never defamed Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of JFK, a crime that Lyndon Johnson committed.
Unlike Senior News Reporter Jason Whitely of WFAA (Dallas) I have never pushed the fantasy that a lone nut named Oswald killed JFK.
Unlike the LBJ Library, I have not erected museum exhibits that endorse the validity and accuracy of the truly bonkers Warren Report that not even Lyndon Johnson believed for one minute.
Has an IQ closer to 140 than 130
Princeton, A.B. – History, 1987
Univ. of Texas at Austin -- MBA, 1990
Tuscaloosa Academy, graduated #3 out of 40 students. Recipient of TA’s highest academic honor, 1983
Star basketball player for Tuscaloosa Academy from 1980-1983, leading my teams to a 114-5 record over 4 years. The last years were an unblemished 90-0 with 3 consecutive private school state championships. I was my teams’ MVP as a freshman, junior and senior. I like losing less than Nick Saban, Vince Lombardi, Mike Krzyzewski, Tom Brady and Lyndon Johnson combined.
On top of ALL that, I found the “golden egg” at the Indian Hills Country Club (Tuscaloosa, AL) Easter Egg hunt TWICE in approximately 1974 and 1975 (back to back years) which meant that I received a very large stuffed bunny each time.
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