a recap of chapter 3 "kennedy and vietnam" from "jfk and the unspeakable: why he died and why it matters"
by james w. douglass (2008/2010 simon & schuster)
click the link for recaps of chapter 1 "a cold warrior" & chapter 2 "kennedy, castro & the CIA"
abraham bolden had been a secret service agent in chicago that kennedy met by chance and appointed to be the first african american detail at the white house. bolden was a man who had grown up in east st. louis and had risen to a relatively prominent position through a rare integrity, and playing by the rules and respecting authority. bolden was not pleased with his secret service cohorts in washington. he said that most agents seemed to hate kennedy and joked that if someone shot at him they would jump out of the way. they were generally disrespectful toward kennedy and created a very lax security around the president. within 2 months at the white house, bolden removed himself from duty and returned to chicago.
such was the atmosphere around kennedy. he was not liked or supported within many right wing communities, including those on the inside that were cold war patriots. there are, as we have seen, and will continue to see, a multitude of reasons why his support was deteriorating.
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john kennedy, and his brother robert, traveled to vietnam in 1951 when most advisors in the government were in favor of military support, however a member of the consulate in saigon, edmund gullion, gave them some sobering advice: "in 20 years there will be no more colonies. we're going nowhere out here. the french have lost. if we come in here and do the same thing, we will lose too, for the same reason. there's no will or support for this kind of war back in paris. the home front is lost. the same thing would happen to us."
kennedy considered gullion's perspective after becoming president and was inspired to issue national security memorandum 263 to begin withdrawing u.s. troops from vietnam. kennedy was killed 6 weeks after that was issued and it was ignored by the johnson administration. thomas merton had acknowledged as much, saying that if kennedy had taken too many steps toward peace he would "sooner or later be marked out for assassination." kennedy himself also said that he could "only afford so many defeats in one year." in the continued struggle with his national security state, kennedy understood the increasing isolation.
the military generals were shocked at the idea of withdrawal. general lemnitzer had been one of the more aggressive military commanders who had proposed operation northwoods in cuba, which encouraged deception in starting rumors against cuba, staging attacks, riots, sabotage and to "develop a cuban terror campaign" to trump up stories in the media to make cuba look irresponsible and add credibility to any u.s. retaliation. kennedy blocked this plan, but lemnitzer pushed the joint chiefs to support invasion so kennedy replaced him as the chief of staff. however, the entire government was in the cold war movement and the mindset of military force and the opinions of the rest of the staff were no different than lemnitzer.
the night before his inaguration, kennedy asked eisenhower if it was preferable to support a coalition to form a laotian government or intervene militarily through SEATO. eisenhower was shocked by the mere thought of concession to the enemy and counciled kennedy on the use of military. kennedy was skeptical and said it sounded like a "prescription for disaster from the man who, in a few hours, would no longer have to bear any responsibility for it...there he sat telling me to get ready to put ground forces into asia, the thing he himself had been carefully avoiding for the last 8 years." in contrast, kennedy had a meeting with former general douglas macarthur, who told kennedy, "anyone wanting to commit ground troops to the mainland of asia should have his head examined." JFK repeated this message everytime his generals brought up the issue and would tell them "go back and convince general macarthur and i'll be convinced."
laos was in a precarious situation. the CIA was backing phoumi nosavan who had risen to power through support of the eisenhower administration. souvanna phouma had been deposed even though his administration was supported by all the u.s. allies as well as the communist bloc. kennedy wanted to stabilize the country with a neutral government, however he had the same military advisors who had promoted the nosavan regime in the first place. the military was not going along and started asking for more and more troops the way they had tried to bully kennedy in cuba.
meanwhile, a similar situation was happening with a divided government in south vietnam. ngo dinh diem and his brother ngo dinh nhu (who were to be assassinated shortly before kennedy) had destroyed both the democratic government and the communist rivals with the support of the u.s government in 1955-56. like laos and cuba, kennedy refused to send combat units. kennedy had by then lost all confidence in the joint chiefs and, in fact, subverted them by planting a story in the n.y. times that the military leaders were against sending in troops. it was a dangerous game with the pentagon that worked with the public for a while. it did not please the military, who put more pressure on kennedy to at least send "advisors" though they could not possibly hold back the vietcong. the military would begin to use the advisor role as a cover for guerilla fighters. in some cases kennedy had to concede to their wishes. there was a show of force he authorized in thailand and some very controversial spraying of fields in vietnam to kill crops to weaken the country. kennedy had to keep his military at bay, saying he couldn't "go against his military advisors everytime." part of his problem was the need for re-election and to do that he had to seem as though he wasn't selling out to the communists. his plans for withdrawl had to be in convoluted political terms "like an elephant tiptoeing through a minefield" while he made piecemeal concessions. still, his ideas became obvious by the south vietnamese forces. they responded by wanting the americans out of vietnam. then, kennedy came with the great revelation of putting forces in power that were opposed to the u.s. support so that they would take pressure off him by demanding the americans leave. kennedy was telling his closest aides that "in '65, i'll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history. i'll be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser, but i don't care. if i try to pull out completely now from vietnam, we'd have another joe mccarthy red scare on our hands. but i can do it after i've been re-elected."
at the beginning of his presidency, kennedy was not as interested in a whites vs asians war of nationalism, but more in defusing tensions in berlin. generals lemnitzer and lemay wanted to use nukes everywhere, including berlin. in august of 1961, while the berlin wall was being constructed and the tensions were at their height, kruschev sent a messenger to talk with kennedy who was all smiles saying everything was almost over. kruschev was willing to work with kennedy and wanted a summit meeting so long as kennedy's october 1961 speech in berlin didn't turn into a war-like ultimatum. at the UN, kennedy said disarmament was a neccesity and challeged the soviets to a "peace race." while the forces at the epicenter had engaged in a tense 16-hour standoff at checkpoint charlie, kennedy and kruschev, through backchannel communications, called off the tanks and the u.s. agreed to end any threats of destroying the berlin wall. a year later, the rapport and trust the two leaders had started to develop would help the cuban missile crisis to be more easily resolved. in both cases, kruschev was happy to oblige and retreat first because he knew that kennedy was under even more pressure from his own cabinet than kruschev was being pressured from the kremlin.
despite the backdoor talks and deepening respect, kruschev was powerless to stop ho chi minh in north vietnam as much as kennedy was to stop ngo dinh diem in south vietnam. the politics interwoven between and within the southeast asian nations was more complicated than outside forces could handle. the idea of stopping the ho chi minh trail through laos was laughable in practice, but even moreso when neutrality was being systematically sabotaged by the CIA at the same time. it referencing another comment from macarthur kennedy then gave a notorious quote, "the chickens are coming home to roost from eisenhower's years and i live in the chicken coop."
tune in to next week's show, when i will begin reading chapter 4 "marked out for assassination"
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