Ultra-Liberal CTers Are Outraged Over New Book on JFK and Vietnam

[Benjamin Cole]

SMG--

Verily, JFK would not have simply waltzed away from the nation he helped to found.

There is a great deal of plasticity in JFKA CTs, driven by ideology.

For the Vietnam-era lefties, it was Vietnam, imperialism, the MIC.

Now the JFKA CTer's say it was Mossad.

So it goes.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

[John Corbett]

I find it quite interesting that JFK apparently had a great deal of respect for Henry Cabot Lodge, given that he defeated Lodge to win his Senate seat in 1952 and that Lodge was Nixon's running mate in 1960.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Why did JFK pick Lodge? Short answer: Probably because, in part, he was a Republican and could give JFK political cover in case of failure.

From Reeves' book: Kennedy was inclined to send Edmund Gullion, who was finishing a difficult tour as Ambassador to the Congo, as Nolting’s replacement. He was the young consul in Saigon who, twelve years before, had told Congressman Kennedy that the United States would be driven out of Vietnam if U.S. troops moved in after the French colonial army was defeated. But Rusk was opposed to Gullion and Kennedy decided to let him have his way. Besides, he already had another idea. At a ceremony at the Pentagon, he had run into Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the man he had defeated for the Senate in 1952. Lodge, the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1960, was a major general in the Army Reserve and had been doing his annual month of active duty. They had talked for a couple of minutes about Vietnam, and Kennedy remembered that when the first American combat troops had been sent there in 1961, Lodge had said he would be willing to serve as ambassador.

A couple of days later [i.e., June 15/16], the President asked Secretary of State Rusk to ask Lodge, unofficially, if he was still interested and available for the Saigon posting. Lodge said he was and Kennedy invited him to the White House. “Cabot,” he said, “I am beginning to spend more of my time on Vietnam than anything else. The Diem government seems to be in a terminal phase. . . . I’d like to persuade you to go out there as Ambassador and as my personal representative.” He would be reporting to the President rather than to Rusk. Once again, as with Lucius Clay in Berlin, Kennedy wanted a Republican in place to share the responsibility for whatever was going to happen next. That, the President told Lodge, might well be the overthrow of Diem and his family—probably in a coup by his own generals. With the Americans looking on, approvingly.

Appointing Lodge is one thing; deferring to him so much is another. Note, he would be reporting to JFK rather than Rusk! How did Rusk accept that?

[John Corbett]

Appointing Lodge is one thing; deferring to him so much is another. Note, he would be reporting to JFK rather than Rusk! How did Rusk accept that?

When you serve at the pleasure of the President, you have to accept a lot of things. All of the Cabinet officials can be fired without cause. I find it interesting that the only senior official the President can't fire is the Veep. He's stuck with him no matter what.

JFK appointed a number of Republicans to key positions including Cabinet secretaries Robert McNamara (Defense) and C. Douglas Dillon (Treasury).

AI had just told me that JFK had appointed no Republicans to Cabinet positions which further erodes my confidence in AI.

Nixon also made several cross-party appointments including JFK's brother-in-law Sargent Shriver as ambassador to France, John Connally as Treasury Secretary, and perhaps my favorite Democrat of all time, Daniel Patrick Moynihan as Ambassador to India and later to the UN.

[Sean Kneringer]

In the final speech of his life to the Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce, he mentioned Vietnam four times. Key quote: "Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight." Doesn't sound like a man who was about to pick up stakes and vamoose.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

In the final speech of his life to the Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce, he mentioned Vietnam four times. Key quote: "Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight." Doesn't sound like a man who was about to pick up stakes and vamoose.

Right, but you know the response: JFK was just saying that until he got re-elected, he was appeasing the "national security war state." Once he was re-elected the "real" JFK would emerge and expose all of this war hysteria and end the Cold War. And it was for that that he had to be killed. How did they know this? That this real JFK was going to do all of that? Something that RFK and McNamara and Rusk and Bundy didn't know? Don't ask, what are you a CIA apologist?, just go with it.

The conspiracy crowd has created an alternate universe. It's the only way their conspiracy can work. Two Oswalds, fake this and fake that, witnesses being killed, coverups for decades, a compliant media, and here, in effect, two different JFKs.

Yes, conspiracies happen; governments engage in them and then lie. But sometimes they don't happen and sometimes the government isn't lying. You need to be able to tell the difference.