Oliver Stone Talks to Jacobin About JFK’s Killing

[Steve M. Galbraith]

JFK had been gone for a while before the Gulf of Tonkin events happened. LBJ’s mindset regarding Vietnam was different than JFK’s mindset. No one can say with certainty what JFK might have done regarding Vietnam if he had not been assassinated. But he never strayed from his opinion that the conflict was one that the Vietnamese had to resolve. He believed that the U.S.’s role should be to assist the South Vietnamese, not to fight the war for them with American combat forces. LBJ, on the other hand, let his ego and insecurities get in the way of good judgment. He said that “HE wasn’t going to be the first U.S. President to loose a war.” The conflict was Vietnam’s war until LBJ decided to Americanize it by sending U.S. combat forces. Once Nixon became President, he began to re-Vietnamize the war by reducing U.S. forces and training Vietnamese forces to take the place of them. This, by the way, was exactly what JFK was doing when he was assassinated.

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK decides to leave, the South falls, in a year? six months?, and the entire region is likely thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South (as they did in 1975) and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. So all of SE Asia "dominoes" into communist control. Can JFK allow that to happen? Politically? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? What happens in the rest of the world? Again, we're all guessing about what he'd do if he decided it was unwinnable without putting ground troops there.

I insist on one thing though: If you asked JFK on November 22, 1963 what he was going to do if the South couldn't defend itself, it his policy of building a self-sustaining government after removing Diem failed, what would you do? He would say, "I don't know."

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

[Charles Collins]

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK leaves the South falls and the entire region is thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. Can JFK allow that to happen? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? Again, we're all guessing.

I insist on one thing though: If you asked JFK on November 22, 1963 what he was going to do if the South couldn't defend itself, it his policy of building a self-sustaining government after removing Diem failed, what would you do? He would say, "I don't know."

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

I think that Oliver Stone’s belief in the Vietnam situation being the reason that JFK was assassinated is nonsense. I don’t believe it whatsoever. My point is simply that I believe that JFK would not have sent U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. The plan at the time of his death was to reduce the number of U.S. military advisers back to the level it was before he took office. I think JFK probably would have been willing to negotiate a settlement after the 1964 elections. Sadly, LBJ had a different viewpoint. He took the situation personally. And he was willing to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight so that HE wouldn’t be the first U.S. President to loose a war.

[Jon Banks]

The starting and ending point of this case is the rifle.  Do you accept that Oswald owned the MC rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD?  The evidence of that fact is substantial. 

I don't know if the rifle found on the Sixth Floor is the same one Oswald allegedly ordered. The facts surrounding the rifle evidence remain as murky as lots of other stuff in the case.

And we learned just a few years ago that we can't conclusively say that all the bullets came from one rifle:

Bullet Evidence Challenges Findings In JFK Assassination
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070517142528.htm

There are order forms, PO Box, use of a known alias, prints, photos, and other circumstances that link Oswald to that particular rifle beyond any reasonable doubt.  Once you accept the fact that it was Oswald's rifle left at the crime scene, you have arrived at the simplicity that lies on the far side of CTer complexity.  Oswald had an opportunity to explain the presence of his rifle there, but instead he lied about his ownership of any rifle.  His rifle was not in the place where his own wife indicated that he stored it when the DPD searched the Paine's garage.  And there is no accounting for any other rifle ever belonging to Oswald EXCEPT for the one found on the 6th floor.  Oswald's rifle was found at the crime scene.  He had no explanation for it being there or alibi for the moment of the assassination.  Witnesses confirm that they saw a rifle in the 6th floor window at the moment of the assassination.  Fired bullet casings from Oswald's rifle were found by that window.  His prints are on the very SN boxes and bag by that window.  The basic evidence convicts him a million times over.  The prisons are full of criminals convicted with much less evidence.

I fully aware of all of the above. However, I pay attention to the parts of that which remain contested while you choose to ignore it.

No one would ever be exonerated in court if only Prosecutors, not Prosecutors and Defense attorneys, were allowed to present evidence. That's pretty much what basing your opinion on the Warren Report is. It's a prosecutorial document. They didn't allow counter arguments from people who wanted to challenge the evidence at that time. 

Oswald never got his day in court so the stuff that would've been challenged in court by his Defense attorneys has never faced legal scrutiny. It can only be debated in the court of public opinion.

[Jon Banks]

Well, we've gone round-and-round on JFK and Vietnam. JFK's top advisers all wrote books about their experiences. McNamara, Bundy, Rusk. Even RFK talked about it. All said that there were no plans, none, to simply leave the conflict. That's what they all said. In November of 1963 they still thought the war was winnable. The Pentagon Papers, the top secret history of the war, also said the same thing.

At what point does a JFK recognize that it wasn't? Who knows? What does he do? Leave? Or try to find a way out? As the people above said: that idea wasn't even considered since at that time they thought it was still possible to keep the South from being overrun. If JFK leaves the South falls and the entire region is thrown into disarray. Refugees pour out of the South and destabilize Laos and Cambodia. Those governments fall to the communists. Can JFK allow that to happen? He's not up for re-election but he wants, probably, RFK to follow him. Or a Democrat. Can he throw his party overboard? Again, we're all guessing.

What we can say with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight is that the Communist threat (ie. the Domino Theory) was inflated.

The north Vietnamese were more Nationalist than Communist. Hence why they went to war against China following our exit from Vietnam.

Most of the anti-colonial movements of the post-WWII era were driven by Nationalism and the desire for Independence moreso than political ideology. There's evidence that JFK understood and sympathized with some of the anti-Colonial movements of the early 60s. He was not nearly as rabidly anti-Communist as Eisenhower and Johnson. So it's fair to speculate that he indeed wouldn't have followed the same path as Johnson (who didn't like Kennedy and was taking advice from Eisenhower on Vietnam).

I'm fully aware that Kennedy was also anti-Communist, I just don't think he agreed with most of the national security establishment's views on how to deal with Africa, Asia, and Cuba.

In any case, Stone's thesis that JFK was going to leave and it was that, in large part, that he was killed is a flat out wrong. I won't say lie because I'm sure Stone believes it. But he's a ridiculously misinformed person.

The declassified documents since the 1990s vindicated Stone's view that JFK wanted to get out of Vietnam. Whether the political circumstances would've allowed Kennedy to do so if he had lived to serve a second term remains an open question. But Stone's view isn't baseless. It has corroboration.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

JFK's intentions regarding Vietnam:

https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/11/without-dallas-john-f-kennedy-and-the-vietnam-war/

[Martin Weidmann]

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

JFK's intentions regarding Vietnam:

https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/11/without-dallas-john-f-kennedy-and-the-vietnam-war/

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

BS. Even if Oswald did write the order form documents (and we only have a photocopy and an FBI agent's word for that) how does that even begin to prove he actually owned the rifle?

Are you really saying that there is no other explanation for Oswald writing the order forms.

[Jon Banks]

All of this has been argued to death, but here are a couple links.

Oswald owned the rifle:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

JFK's intentions regarding Vietnam:

https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/11/without-dallas-john-f-kennedy-and-the-vietnam-war/

Sorry but there's no final draft or interpretation of history.

The narrative on JFK and Vietnam has changed since the 90s due in part to Oliver Stone.

We can't possibly know what JFK would've done had he lived but we know he had plenty of opportunities to escalate in Vietnam as LBJ did (but chose not to).

[Tom Scully]

Jon is embracing the Oliver Stone/Jim Garrison history of the Cold War. That is, the US wanted to do this, the US did that, the US planned another thing. The MIC wanted this, the CIA that. That is, essentially, that this covert, all powerful "war state" hijacked American policy after WWII and created mythical threats to justify that power. Stone actually says that if Henry Wallace had been elected president in 1948 instead of Truman that no cold war would have followed. I would think one Josef Stalin would have had something to say about that.

Footnote: one of the top advisers to Henry Wallace during his campaign was one John Abt. Yes, the same John Abt that Oswald wanted as his lawyer.

All of that history ignores the actions of the Soviets, of China, of North Korea et cetera, during this conflict. The actions of Moscow or Beijing or Hanoi doesn't excuse whatever we did, doesn't justify all of the policies. I'm not saying that at all. But you can't look at what the US (and our allies who supported these efforts; how did the MIC get the UK and France and other western European nations to go with these policies?) did in a vacuum.

Garrison and Stone and DiEugenio put forward this vision of the Cold War to explain why JFK was killed. It was because JFK was going to dismantle the "war state", end the Cold War, pull out of Vietnam, normalize relations with Castro, et cetera. And it was for that that they had to kill him.

I'll repeat again: all of this conspiracy history is a sort of reverse engineering. Conspiracists think JFK couldn't have been killed by this pathetic Oswald with a cheap rifle; it had to be more. So who could have done it? And how could they pull it off? It had to be this secret military "deep state". Only they had the power and resources and motive to do so.

As to the Gulf of Tonkin: I think the whole discussion about the event - and it did happen; the North did attack US ships in the Gulf that first day; but NOT the second - is meaningless really. The North was intent on attacking the South and taking it over. For good or bad, the US was determined not to let that happen. So the conflict was bound to happen. Either initiated by that event or something else down the line.

You almost seemed reasonable. JFK did not create what he found himself confronted with, or appoint them, except the extremist hawks of the Ex-Comm...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Lemnitzer
"...Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September 1960. As Chairman, Lemnitzer was involved in the Bay of Pigs crisis and the early years of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. He was also required to testify before the United States Senate Foreign Affairs Committee about his knowledge of the activities of Major General Edwin Walker, who had been dismissed from the Army over alleged attempts to promote his political beliefs in the military.

As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Lemnitzer approved the plans known as Operation Northwoods in 1962, a proposed plan to discredit the Castro regime and create support for military action against Cuba by staging false flag acts of terrorism and developing "a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington". Lemnitzer presented the plans to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. It is unclear how McNamara reacted, but three days later President John F. Kennedy told the general that there was no chance that the US would take military action against Cuba. Within a few months, after the refusal to endorse Operation Northwoods, Lemnitzer was denied another term as JCS chairman.[3] ..."

https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/CMC50/DavidGWelchandJamesGBlightAnIntroductiontotheExCommTranscriptsInternationalSecurity.pdf
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