JFK Hated War!

President Kennedy hated war. He fought in one.



Worse, he lost men under his command in one. And he lost his big brother, Joe, on a top secret mission to stop Nazi guided missiles.

JFK said he would never send draftees to fight in Vietnam. Gen. MacArthur briefed President Kennedy and told him a ground war in SE Asia was un-winnable.

And when JFK saw the situation in 1963 was un-winnable, he planned total withdrawal of US military support, including the 12,000 advisors on hand.

Those who came after him, didn't think that way. Instead of peaceful negotiation, they chose the path of war and applied manpower. At one time, more than 500,000 soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, coast guardsmen and many thousand others in and out of uniform were in-country.

And that wasn't enough. And the United States, like the French in 1954, had to face reality and withdraw.

A student of history, only one President -- a proud, progressive and Liberal Democratic President -- tried to steer us clear of that outcome from the beginning: President John F. Kennedy. Like all good people, he was a man of peace.

Even though he was a rich boy who could've gotten a deferment for his bad back, President Kennedy chose to serve and volunteered for front-line duty.





Gee. Contrast that with the current occupant, a guy who went AWOL and then allowed his Rove and his minions to attack, slander and smear another REAL war hero, John Kerry.

Absolutely Octafish -- James W. Douglass' new book details that fact -- among others:

Stranger In a Strange Land: JFK and the Unspeakable (Orbis Books, 4/30/8)

Amazon.com: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters: James W. Douglass: Books
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters - Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x6350
http://www.911blogger.com/node/14962

I've always had a suspect in mind, a guy who's been at the scene of the crime, so to speak, since Nov. 22, 1963 -- right on through Vietnam, Watergate, the October Surprise, Iraq-gate, Iran-Contra, BCCI, Savings & Loan looting, Selection 2000...

Poppy Bush's eulogy for President Ford.

Notice the expression on his face when he says:

"...After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy,



our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others
to make sense of that madness.
And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will,
but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say
on this tragic matter.
Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it
and Jerry Ford’s word was always good..."

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2322084n

The big smile comes in at the 1:03 mark.

What they don't show you on TV:

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and ''Conspiracy Theorists'' at Ford Funeral

Given the re-emergence of the "Cold Warriors" (Cheney..Rummy..Dubya..McBain..) it is interesting to look back at a time when somebody had the courage to stand up to these nuts. John Fitzgerald Kennedy stood up to the "Cold Warriors" ( Lyman L. Lemnitzer..Allen Welsh Dulles..General Curtis LeMay ) of his day.

Actually it was Lyman Lemnitzer and Director of the CIA http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdullesA.htm">Allen Dulles ... who JFK fired for their roles in Operation Northwoods and the Bay of Pigs.

General Curtis LeMay's rocky relationship with JFK was portrayed in at least a couple movies:

Burt Lancaster's..Gen. James Mattoon Scott in Seven Days in May (1964) was inspired by Gen. LeMay

Plot Outline: US military leaders plot to overthrow the President because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty and they fear a Soviet sneak attack.

Kevin Costner's Thirteen Days (2000) was based on the White House Tapes during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Even though it was taken from the actual White House briefings, the Pentagon refused to cooperate with the production of Thirteen Days because it exposed General LeMay, for the nut he was. Documented here at the 41:50 minute mark of Operation Hollywood.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8163.htm

As with the book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters the movie Thirteen Days also documents the back-channel that Kennedy used to communicate more directly with Krushchev to avoid WWIII.

More Kevin Costner from The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x6350

Because he was being depicted by a lot of people inside and outside government as an "appeaser" of communists, President Kennedy worried the military would topple his government. Kennedy thought the book a bit simplistic in terms of Oval Office dialogue, outstanding in terms of depicting the time's political situation, and very important in terms of getting the public to know what JFK and the nation faced.

We need more brave filmmakers like the late John Frankenheimer. Journalists, too.

Here's more on Ford's role:

Real History Blog: The Real History of Gerald Ford, Watergate, and the CIA

The Secret History of the CIA - Google Book Search
Deep Politics and the Death of JFK - Google Book Search

Thanks.

Here's an excellent review and synopsis of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters:

JFK and the Unspeakable (Vietnam)


JFK and the Unspeakable (Oswald)

http://www.ctka.net/2008/jfk_unspeakable.html

He gave Kruschev, the Russian Dictator just enough wiggle room to get out of the Cuban Missile Crises. Others, like Nixon, might have not have been as agile and flexible.
..I met a fellow once who was on a ship ready to invade Cuba. He said the happiest day in his life was when the captain turned it around and the crisis ended. Kennedy averted a nuclear war.

Historian Ira Chernus documents how Eisenhower -- golf buddy of Prescott Bush -- is where Nixon learned his military strategery ...



"I'd rather be atomized than communized."

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03NewspaperPublishers04271961.htm


The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
New York City, April 27, 1961



Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.

You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.

We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.

It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.

Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.

If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.

I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

History shows.

For example, from the ANPA speech you so kindly found comes one of several money graphs:





Again, the contrast with the occupant of the Oval Office couldn't be greater.

These words of JFK's ring so true!

"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it."

It was a lifetime ago when these words were spoken. Now consider the depths to which we've fallen under the madman * and company.

And the press! JFK said: "And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent."

The press has fallen so far in reporting truth. What a damn shame. Now, we look to the press mostly to see how their corporate bosses, the neocons, are spinning (or ignoring) the latest developments.


horseshoecrab

First, he is basically asking the press to "watch what they say" as Ari the Liar put it back in 2002. He is using the "national security" canard to stifle any hint of dissent- even though there was almost none. Remember, that period was very quiet in terms of activism.

Perhaps more important is that this shows him to be a real cold warrior. That is problematic for me as I believe that the cold war has been shown to be a total joke- played on us.

Remember, the entire "ruthless conspiracy" threatening the globe would eventually fall without firing a shot. Guess it wasn't so ruthless after all.

Further, the Pentagon budget actually went up in the years immediately following the collapse of the USSR. What does that tell us about how US leadership really saw the "threat"?

You're welcome, horshoecrab! Something else I want to bring up: Some confusion exists in the historical record about what happened to South Vietnamese President Diem. President Kennedy ordered his evacuation from Vietnam. Somebody at the airport told him not to get on the plane and that changed the outcome for his country in a big way...



Then, there's the business of E Howard Hunt (once an employee of Averell Harriman) planting false cables in his White House safe to make it look like JFK ordered the assassination. That must be where the current occupant gets his "idea" about "making" history.

http://www.angelfire.com/ky/ohwhy/Bush.html

PS: A hearty welcome to DU, horseshoecrab!



Merostomata has graced our planet a long time.

I have often wondered why it has been so relentlessly drummed into us that JFK was behind the Diem assassination, which just didn't add up to me. Thank you for the link! I have a lot of reading to do!

It almost goes without saying that there's very little surprise that the name of E. Howard Hunt shows up. And Harriman! More reading to do!

When GHWB said at Gerald Ford's funeral that JFK was killed "by a madman" and laughed that awful laugh, I think I knew that finally there was confirmation that it was a job done by our own govt.
What an insane sound that laugh was.


Thanks for your hearty welcome. What a lovely photo of a beautiful horse shoe crab! At least I think that they're beautiful! The first time I saw one, I just about jumped out of my skin, but they are harmless and so very fascinating; and yes, they have been on earth for many millions of years, silently making their way about.

Thanks again Octafish. I always find your posts to be a worthwhile read and never regret the time taken in following your links and following up on what you've written.

Your friend,

horseshoecrab

Nixon Tape: Blame JFK for Vietnam and Harriman for Diem Assassination.



Below we read how Nixon the Crook wanted to blame JFK for the assassination of Diem. E Howard Hunt even took it upon himself to plant fake cables implicating Kennedy (Post #35). It's interesting how Nixon blamed Harriman for Diem's assassination. Hunt once worked for Harriman, too.



These lies were made to smear a good man.



The liars' descendants sit in the Oval Office today.

The story of PT-109 demonstrates the real courage of John F. Kennedy.

Less well known is the story of President Kennedy's big brother:



Ensign Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. with his Navy flight trainer.

The President’s big brother was the one being groomed for a life in politics by The Old Man, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. The younger Joe had served as a delegate from Massachusetts at the 1940 Democratic convention. A brave, athletic and conscientious young man, he volunteered for service in the US Navy before World War II.

After completing his tour as pilot of a US Navy B-24 Liberator on anti-submarine warfare patrol from 1943-44 over the North Atlantic, flying out of an airbase in England, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. volunteered for a top-secret mission, Project APHRODITE. The objective was to knock out the NAZI V-1 buzz bombs that were killing civilians in London and other English towns.

The Navy, in cooperation (and in competition) with the Army Air Corps, worked to develop a secret weapon. They would convert four-engine bombers into flying bombs that would be flown by remote control into the V-1 sites along the coast of France. Joe and other pilots would pilot experimental versions of the 4-engine B-24 and B-17 bombers. The planes had been converted from being a 10-man bomber, capable of carrying sixteen 500 pound bombs, into one giant flying bomb.

It was state-of-the-art science, engineering, and warfare. Joe Kennedy’s plane was among a few Liberators and Flying Fortresses modified for a very early version of remote control.

The ship, basically, was history’s first guided missile. The entire fuselage was filled with Torpex and gelignite, IIRC, and was to be armed by a rather elaborate, and untested, electronic arming panel.

Like something out of Buck Rogers, the Navy equipped the airplane with a primitive 2-channel remote-control pilot. One radio signal could make the plane dive and climb and another signal could make it turn left and right. A prototype video camera would also send information to the Mother Ship, where the remote pilot sat before a tiny TV monitor.

The scientists and engineers in the Mother Ship would take over and signal on two radio frequencies: One to turn the stick RIGHT or LEFT; or push the stick FORWARD or pull the stick BACK. Primitive today, they were the first remote-controlled weapon of mass destruction. The Mother Ship would follow two miles or so back and then fly it over the English Channel and guide it down into the rocket launch sites.

Kennedy’s job was to get the ship airborne from its airfield in Great Britain, point it toward Europe, and bail out over the countryside. Sounds simple, but it was anything but.

The technology was so primitive, human pilots were needed to get the flying bombs airborne. One aloft, they were to turn on the radio-guidance controls and arm the flying bomb. Then, somewhere over the English countryside, the pilot and bombardier were to bail out at an altitude of about one thousand feet. Bailing out from the modified aircraft was extremely dangerous work. One B-17 pilot was killed and another lost an arm in the process. By the time it was Joe’s turn in the first APHRODITE B-24, there was reason for concern about a plan that looked like a suicide mission.

For the Kennedys and the future of American politics, the tragedy was that the Navy ship used a rather primitive arming panel. The regular engineer/co-pilot refused to fly and instead the Navy sent aloft the engineer who designed and installed the system.
Over the English countryside, the ship exploded, killing the two flyers and changing American political history. Joe's younger brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy then became the heir to the family's political ambitions.

John F. Kennedy made an outstanding President, living up to his brother’s promise of greatness. JFK, it should be remembered, saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

While he never lived to see the dream realized, JFK also stretched mankind’s imagination and reach to the moon. Ironically, he even used the NAZI rocket scientist who developed the V-1 to do so. The same von Braun who the allied air command sent his lost brother, Joseph, to destroy.

One of Hitler's superweapons, the V-2 was developed by Werner von Braun and his team at Peenemünde. History's first ballistic missiles were used to rain death, destruction and terror upon London. The allies were worried that if the Nazis continued developing their super-weapons, the V-2’s descendants would be delivering bombs — possibly atomic — to New York City.


— Octafish

# # #

Two outstanding books on the subject of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and his service in World War II:

“Aphrodite: Desperate Mission” by Jack Olsen

and

“The Lost Prince: Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy” by Hank Searls.

for one of DU's best sources and guides to information, Octafish.

,...benefitting from war as peace. Christ, Mohammad, Buddha,...Ghandi, JFK, MLK,...to say the least of those in between and all around.

Someday, the peace-makers will replace the statues of war-makers' icons.

Someday.

President Kennedy said that at Amherst College on 10/26/63
-- a month from when he was killed.

Yes, my Friend. Someday. Someday real soon.

At a time when warmongers in the Pentagon tempted him to go all-out during the missile crisis.

You got that straight, brutalgolpeador!

Unfortunately, the crazy monkey's spokesmodel
doesn't know the difference between the Bay of Pigs
and the Cuban Missile Crisis.



Bet she can tell the diff between CIA and CYA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2454555

BTW: A most hearty welcome to DU! Putsch for Busch.

Really appreciate that you understand, defendandprotect.

Dulles bros. because he thought they were trying to promote a U.S. empire at the cost of democracy at home and abroad.

I believe you nailed it AP and that Jim DeEugenio wrote about it:



The Dulles brothers and their allies have domesticized their foreign policies. Treasonously, so.

JFK attacked Vietnam. Not just with "advisers" either. He attacked Vietnam with full on bombing raids and his policies killed thousands of innocent Vietnamese.

Yes, Johnson was far worse. Yes, Kennedy was as progressive as they came in 1960.

But he was not a man of peace. The documentary record proves this.

he still initiated the war.

That is a big problem. He might have regretted it, and may have wanted to end it...but he did after all... start it.

In December of 1960, Ike had 900 U.S. military personnel in Viet Nam. By Dec 1963 those numbers had grown to 16,000. Within two years of LBJ it was over 200,000. Kennedy neither started our involvment in Viet Nam nor did he take any action to end it either.

No prob. We'll always be pals, emperor72. JFK was a Cold Warrior and all that. What we know is he did all he could to keep the the planet out of World War III when the CIA and Pentagon were howling for air support at the Bay of Pigs; when the Cabinet and Pentagon were howling for bombing runs and an invasion during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and when the Pentagon tried to float Operation NORTHWOODS past him.

What I'm starting to think: People JFK thought were on his side had different agendas. The record appears to show that it was Harriman who secretly represented the War Party's interests in the run-up to Vietnam. The assassinations of the Diem brothers may've been under his watch (See Reply #13 above). We know Harriman, with his former close business associates, Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles, helped turn Herr Hitler and Comrade Stalin into good investments.

The historical record also shows it was Harriman who dragged his feet on JFK's peace overtures to North Vietnam in 1962.



Kennedy, relying on his ambassador to India,
John Kenneth Galbraith, planned to reach out to the North Vietnamese in April 1962,
through a senior Indian diplomat, according to a secret State Department cable
that was never dispatched.

A damn shame. Things would have been so much different had he lived.

:kick:

Who's got next? :patriot: