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

[Benjamin Cole]

AI version:

Historian Ken Hughes from the Miller Center has used newly unclassified historical evidence and secret White House recordings to reveal President John F. Kennedy's direct, hidden role in the 1963 coup against South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm.Key

Research Findings

The Green Light: Newly examined audio recordings show that JFK gave U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. a functional "green light" to move forward with replacing Diệm, challenging the long-held myth that Lodge acted entirely on his own.

Outcome: The tapes and documentation indicate that while the Kennedy administration did not explicitly order an execution, Washington officials and JFK were well aware that a military coup could result in the assassination of Diệm and his brother.

Political Motives: Hughes's research highlights that Kennedy’s primary objective in backing a change in leadership was to secure a stable pro-American government and avoid losing Vietnam ahead of the 1964 presidential election.

[Tom Scully]

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/31468-cardinal-spellman-and-jfks-vietnam-war/page/6/#comment-571501

There is actually nothing new in Cheevers' "revelations". This book, in 2013, presented a day by day account of that critical leadup.

Right wing extremists never quit In this thread, Trump and his sycophant supporters (Rubio ?) are posting crocodile tears for Diem and his brother.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/JFK_s_Last_Hundred_Days/ixNDi6w2FnIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ON+TUESDAY,+HE+SUGGESTED+ASKING+LODGE+AND+GENERAL+HARKINS,+THE+COMMANDER&pg=RA1-PA42&printsec=frontcover
JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the ...
Thurston Clarke · 2013
",,,On Tuesday (Aug. 27, 1963) , he suggested asking Lodge and General Harkins , the commander of the U.S. military assistance program ..."

And yes, JFK is quoted asking Lodge if he thinks Madam Nhu is a lesbian.

[Michael T. Griffith]

McMasters..... Ultra-Liberal?

Huh? No, I didn't say McMaster is an ultra-liberal. I'm not sure how you got that from my OP. McMaster has praised the book, as I mention in the OP.

The claim that Kennedy ordered a full withdrawal, not to mention the claim that he planned to unconditionally withdraw after the election, has been debunked every which way and is rejected by the vast majority of scholars all across the spectrum. Even most liberal historians reject the claim.

This is a prime example of the refusal of ultra-liberal JFKA researchers to listen to fact and reason.

I devote an entire chapter in A Comforting Lie to debunking the JFK-full-withdrawl myth. The far-left assertion that JFK planned on unconditionally withdrawing from Vietnam, i.e., even if it meant losing the war and allowing North Vietnam to conquer South Vietnam, is even more inexcusable and erroneous.

Dr. Marc Selverstone's 2022 book The Kennedy Withdrawal proves, among other things, that the JFK White House tapes do not contain one syllable from JFK or RFK to the effect that JFK had any intention of pulling out of Vietnam after the election. In fact, RFK specifically rejected this claim in his April 1964 oral history interview.
 

[Tom Scully]

Huh? No, I didn't say McMaster is an ultra-liberal. I'm not sure how you got that from my OP. McMaster has praised the book, as I mention in the OP.

The claim that Kennedy ordered a full withdrawal, not to mention the claim that he planned to unconditionally withdraw after the election, has been debunked every which way and is rejected by the vast majority of scholars all across the spectrum. Even most liberal historians reject the claim.

This is a prime example of the refusal of ultra-liberal JFKA researchers to listen to fact and reason.

I devote an entire chapter in A Comforting Lie to debunking the JFK-full-withdrawl myth. The far-left assertion that JFK planned on unconditionally withdrawing from Vietnam, i.e., even if it meant losing the war and allowing North Vietnam to conquer South Vietnam, is even more inexcusable and erroneous.

Dr. Marc Selverstone's 2022 book The Kennedy Withdrawal proves, among other things, that the JFK White House tapes do not contain one syllable from JFK or RFK to the effect that JFK had any intention of pulling out of Vietnam after the election. In fact, RFK specifically rejected this claim in his April 1964 oral history interview.

Your opinions fly in the face of the actual historical record.

Withdrawal was the policy on the day JFK died.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d167

....And,

https://www.amazon.com/Virtual-JFK-Vietnam-Kennedy-Lived/dp/0742557006
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived

Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this provocative work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam had he not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history—and continue to affect us profoundly as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Your opinions fly in the face of the actual historical record.

No, they do not. Yours do. That's why even most liberal historians don't buy the claim that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam, even without victory, after the election. I don't think you grasp, or perhaps just don't care, that you are in a very tiny minority on this issue. Only a handful of scholars endorse the unconditional-withdrawal myth.

Again, since you ignored this fact the first time, let me repeat the fact that Dr. Marc Selverstone's 2022 book The Kennedy Withdrawal proves, among other things, that the JFK White House tapes do not contain one syllable from JFK or RFK to the effect that JFK had any intention of pulling out of Vietnam after the election, conditionally or unconditionally. In fact, RFK specifically rejected this claim in his April 1964 oral history interview. He was asked if JFK had planned on withdrawing from Vietnam, and he immediately said no, he had not. This was RFK, who knew JFK better than anyone.

In both of the speeches that JFK wrote for delivery on 11/22/63, he spoke of the importance of the war effort in Vietnam and expressed his support for it.

Every background document for NSAM 263 makes it clear that the withdrawal plan mentioned therein was not only gradual and phased but that it entirely depended on the situation on the ground, and that the ultimate goal was still victory. Even if the progress of the war effort had allowed the withdrawal to occur according to the conditional schedule, the documents state that a reserve force would still remain and that the U.S. would continue to aid South Vietnam. This is all in black and white in the background docs for NSAM 263.

But you and a few other ultra-leftists have transformed JFK's conditional, gradual, residual-force, continued-U.S.-aid withdrawal plan into a mythical plan to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election, even if it resulted in the collapse of South Vietnam.

Withdrawal was the policy on the day JFK died.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d167

You must be kidding. You're repeating claims that have been debunked every which way, even by radical leftist scholar Noam Chomsky. In fact, let's read Chomsky's demolition of James Galbraith's article "Exit Strategy," which repeats the same arguments you're making:

Having worked through the relevant documentation that James Galbraith cites, I was curious to see how he could reach his conclusions in his article “Exit Strategy” (October/November 2003), at variance with the mainstream of scholarship and other commentary, as he notes. The basic method turns out to be simple: deletion.

As for others, the centerpiece of Galbraith’s discussion of the withdrawal plans is NSAM 263, in which JFK gave qualified approval to the recommendations of Robert McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, who were greatly encouraged by the military prospects in South Vietnam and were “convinced that the Viet Cong insurgency” could be sharply reduced in a year and that the U.S.–run war effort should be “completed by the end of 1965.” They therefore advised “An increase in the military tempo” of the war throughout South Vietnam and withdrawal of some troops in 1963 and all troops in 1965—if this could be done “without impairment of the war effort” and with assurance that “the insurgency has been suppressed” or at least sufficiently weakened so that the U.S. client regime (GVN) is “capable of suppressing it” (my italics; the crucial condition throughout).

Once again they stressed that the “overriding objective” is victory, a matter “vital to United States security.” JFK approved their recommendations, while distancing himself from the withdrawal proposal and approving instructions to Ambassador Lodge in Saigon stressing “our fundamental objective of victory” and directing him to press for “GVN action to increase effectiveness of its military effort” so as to ensure the military victory on which withdrawal was explicitly conditioned. The president, Lodge was informed, affirmed “his basic statement that what furthers the war effort we support, and what interferes with the war effort we oppose,” the condition underlying NSAM 263, as consistently throughout the period and beyond.

JFK and his advisers were concerned with the “crisis of confidence among Vietnamese people which is eroding popular support for GVN that is vital for victory,” and the “crisis of confidence on the part of the American public and Government,” who also do not see how “our actions are related to our fundamental objective of victory”—JFK’s invariant condition. JFK (and his advisers) recognized that the war was unpopular at home, but regarded such lack of support—as well as GVN initiatives toward political settlement—not as an opportunity for withdrawal, but rather as a problem to be overcome, because it posed a threat to the military victory to which they were committed. The significance of these facts for the thesis under discussion is obvious.

Virtually all of this was deleted from Galbraith’s account of NSAM 263, and the tidbits that remain he clearly misinterprets. Thus he does quote the qualification that troops can be withdrawn only “when they are no longer needed,” but fails to recognize that this is simply another reiteration of the unwavering commitment to military victory.

By this method, Galbraith is able to draw the conclusions rejected by virtually everyone he cites, who use the same documentary record (in all relevant cases) but without crucial omissions and misreadings. His treatment of his own prime example is typical, as interested readers can readily discover. (https://chomsky.info/200312__/)

[Michael T. Griffith]

The myth that JFK was killed because he was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election  has done considerable harm to the case for conspiracy among academics and journalists. Yes, many academics and journalists reject the lone-gunman theory, but many more would likely do so if many leading pro-JFKA-conspiracy researchers did not push the unconditional-withdrawal myth.

Some WC critics also peddle the bizarre 9/11 Truther claims. This action has done just as much damage to the case for conspiracy as the unconditional-withdrawal myth, if not more so.

To make matters worse, some WC critics, in addition to peddling the 9/11 Truther craziness and the unconditional-withdrawal myth, also praise and cite L. Fletcher Prouty as a reliable source and parrot his revolting slander that Edward Lansdale was a key player in the assassination plot and that Lansdale plotted against JFK because he was furious with his Vietnam policies.   

[Steve M. Galbraith]

The timetable for the phased withdrawal of most (but not all) troops, that 1965 date in particular, was simply pie-in-the-sky, a fantasy, a made up number. It was added for political purposes: either to pressure Diem and/or to appease those members of Congress and the public who were worried about a quagmire, who wanted an endgame. There was no way for the White House to predict something as complex as the future of Vietnam. And the withdrawal was contingent on events on the ground anyway: the plan says the US would withdraw as the South Vietnamese were able to take on the "essential functions" [however defined] that were being done by US personnel. Two things were going to happen; not just one.

Back to the 1965 date: where did it come from? This is from the Reeves' book on JFK's presidency, "Profile of Power." Remember, the McNamara/Taylor Report was the basis for the announced policy that JFK called for.

"McNamara, Taylor, and [a State Department official in Saigon] William Sullivan began working on the final wording of the report even before they left Saigon. They worked on separate sections, then exchanged rough drafts. When Sullivan saw Taylor’s draft on U.S. troop strength on the flight back, he jumped up to look for McNamara.

“I can’t buy this. This is totally unrealistic,” Sullivan told the Secretary. McNamara and Taylor had put in a timetable: The United States would begin withdrawing troops before the end of 1963, have all troops out of the northern regions of South Vietnam by the end of 1964, and have everybody home before the end of 1965. “We’re not going to get troops out in ’65. We mustn’t submit anything as phony as this to the President.” “You’re right,” McNamara said. He talked to Taylor and they took out specific numbers and dates. But Taylor said he still thought the timetable was a good idea and a good way of putting visible pressure on Diem to shape up or else. “Goddammit,” Taylor said. “We’ve got to make these people put their noses to the wheel—or the grindstone or whatever. If we don’t give them some indication that we’re going to get out sometime, they’re just going to be leaning on us forever. So that’s why I had it in there.” “I understand that,” Sullivan said. “But it’s not honest. If it becomes public, people will know it’s a fraud.”

It was a projection and not a hard date; and done for political reasons. Maybe JFK *was* going to withdraw in 1965; but nobody knew what he was going to do at that time, in late 1963. And nobody included JFK.

The one critical person who did want the timetable inserted, after initially opposing it, was JFK. He was persuaded by McNamara; although it's an open question whether that was needed. JFK was running for re-election and he knew he needed the timetable to persuade Congress, e.g., Fulbright, and the skeptical public. Once Diem was overthrown and the whole situation in South Vietnam thrown into the air, the timetable was revealed to anyone who believed it as meaningless. Well, revealed to everyone who isn't a conspiracist who think JFK was killed because he was going to abandon - not leave, abandon - South Vietnam.