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You can speculate all you want about Vietnam. The evidence shows that JFK wanted out of there. National Security Memorandum #263 stated that 1000 troops were to leave Vietnam by the end of 1963, and no formal announcement was to be made.
LBJ reversed that strategy with National Security Council memorandum 273 dated November 24, 1963.
The logical conclusion is that JFK wanted to scale back from the level of involvement in Vietnam that was in place a month before his death.
JFK lost support of the public after the "Cuban Missile Crisis" and the Southern Democrats pulled their support of JFK and announced in January 1963 they were seeking candidates to run against JFK in the primary.
JFK could never have survived his display of incompetence, and a split of the Party would have allowed the Republicans to win in '64.
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Originally Posted by rishi85
Would he pull out the troops in Vietnam sooner?
No, he would have bought into the Gulf of Tonkin Incident just like LBJ and escalated just like LBJ.
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Originally Posted by rishi85
Would we have landed on the moon much sooner, and perhaps continued the space programme to reach unimaginable heights(Mars landing example)?
According to every medical expert, JFK would have died in 1967 of Addison's Disease.
JFK wasn't a good president. He was the beginning of the Military Industrial Complex. He immediately tripled the military budget and was more of a war monger. He also built a TON of unnecessary post office buildings which came at a great cost and is now slowly being dismantled, due to that cost. Not to mention the "bay of pigs" and a stupid embargo against Cuba that sadly still exists. The only country in the world with such an embargo. So much for freedom! Not a fan of Kennedy. I guess he was a good looking man, so many women liked him, but I don't think he did anything good for our country. Tripling the military budget alone was enough to give him thumbs down!
You can speculate all you want about Vietnam. The evidence shows that JFK wanted out of there. National Security Memorandum #263 stated that 1000 troops were to leave Vietnam by the end of 1963, and no formal announcement was to be made.
LBJ reversed that strategy with National Security Council memorandum 273 dated November 24, 1963.
The logical conclusion is that JFK wanted to scale back from the level of involvement in Vietnam that was in place a month before his death.
BTW, Memo #263 was signed by McGeorge Bundy.
Except that interviews and oral histories with RFK done in 1964 covered the administrations and JFK's beliefs on Vietnam. These transcripts are held at the Kennedy Library and are absolutely authentic:
This is just a snippet of the interview. If anyone knew what was on JFK's mind and what his intentions were in regards to an issue, it was Bobby...
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Martin:All right. At the beginning we seemed to have our lines crossed. I mean, the majority leader in the Senate, Mansfield, was saying this was not an American war, and he didn't think it was--that our--it should be--not, not--should not be an American war. He didn't think our heavy commitment there was justified. How'd you feel about it; how'd the president feel about it; and at what point did we get our lines straightened out?
Kennedy:Well, I don't think that . . .
Martin:Did I make myself clear?
Kennedy:No, I don't think that fact, Senator Mansfield or somebody in the Senate takes a position, necessarily means .. .
Martin:Well, he was majority leader.
Kennedy:Yeah, but, you know, he's frequently taken that, those, that line or that position on some of these matters. I don't think that the fact he has an independent view from the executive branch of the government, particularly in Southeast Asia, indicates that the lines aren't straight. I, no, I just, I think every. . . . I, the president felt that the. . . . He had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam.
Martin:What was the overwhelming reason?
Kennedy:Just the loss of all of Southeast Asia if you lost Vietnam. I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall.
Martin:What if it did?
Kennedy:Just have profound effects as far as our position throughout the world, and our position in a rather vital part of the world. Also, it would affect what happened in India, of course, which in turn has an effect on the Middle East. Just, it would have, everybody felt, a very adverse effect. It would have an effect on Indonesia, hundred million population. All of these countries would be affected by the fall of Vietnam to the Communists, particularly as we had made such a fuss in the United States both under President Eisenhower and President Kennedy about the preservation of the integrity of Vietnam.
Martin:There was never any consideration given to pulling out?
Kennedy:No.
Martin:But the same time, no disposition to go in all . . .
Kennedy:No . . .
Martin:. . . in an all out way as we went into Korea. We were trying to avoid a Korea, is that correct?
Kennedy:Yes, because I, everybody including General MacArthur felt that land conflict between our troops, white troops and Asian, would only lead to, end in disaster. So it was. . . . We went in as advisers, but to try to get the Vietnamese to fight themselves, because we couldn't win the war for them. They had to win the war for themselves.
Martin:It's generally true all over the world, whether it's in a shooting war or a different kind of a war. But the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there . . .
Kennedy:Yes.
Martin:. . . and couldn't lose it.
Kennedy:Yes.
Martin:And if Vietnamese were about to lose it, would he propose to go in on land if he had to?
just like if Elvis were alive today: he'd be scratching on the inside of his coffin wanting out.
Elvis is here, JFK's "while England Slept" deals with the rationale for appeasement and went AGAINST popular opinion.
The first SUMMIT meeting of modern times was held between Hitler and Chamberlain, England needed time to rebuild its armed forces and this stalling tactic of apparent "appeasement" was very needed.
Popular culture has treated this as a sellout, even our current Pols refer to as such, it wasn't.
Kennedy recognized that fact, and is on record as advising the French to get out of their Colonies,(including Vietnam) as they were winnable situations.
as for Kennedy's cabinet, he went against that advice and did not start a war over Cuba.
Elvis is here, JFK's "while England Slept" deals with the rationale for appeasement and went AGAINST popular opinion.
The first SUMMIT meeting of modern times was held between Hitler and Chamberlain, England needed time to rebuild its armed forces and this stalling tactic of apparent "appeasement" was very needed.
Popular culture has treated this as a sellout, even our current Pols refer to as such, it wasn't.
"While England Slept" is Churchill's book published in 1938 addressing the failure of Chamberlain's government to prepare for war.
"Why England Slept" is JFK's college thesis published in 1940 that argues against Churchill's position claiming that appeasement was necessary to buy time for re-armament and that an earlier war would have been even more disastorous.
As way of background JFK's father was embassador to England and a close perosnal friend of Chamberlain. JFK was basically writing his college paper in support of his father's friend. Always keen to elevate his sons stature, Jospeh Kennedy paid to have the book published. The renowned Harold Laski was asked to write the foreword, but he refused stating, "the book is of an immature mind; that if it hadn't been written by the son of a very rich man, he wouldn't have found a publisher."
If I am to believe the position of one of these men, I would tend to defer to Churchill's take on the matter over a college students thesis. History has since proven that JFK's position was wrong. The idea of "buying time" to build up the military was not the idea behind appeasement and Chamberlain even restrained the pace of re-armament after Munich even as the situation continued to deteriorate.
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Kennedy recognized that fact, and is on record as advising the French to get out of their Colonies,(including Vietnam) as they were winnable situations.
I'm not sure how much advising Kennedy did to the French who had withdrawan before JFK took office. However, assuming he gave such advice to the French, he did not practice what he preached and rapidly took over the role of supporting Diem and the South Vietnamese.
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as for Kennedy's cabinet, he went against that advice and did not start a war over Cuba.
Which is not entirely true. We know exactly what happened in the meetings of the ExComm since Kennedy recorded them all...
Kennedy reached consensus with his advisors on the course of action over a series of days and long debates. His position evolved and their positions evolved. He ultimately made the choices, but his selected course of action was not "against advice". Heck, the entire thing wasn't even about missiles in Cuba or Turkey. It was about Berlin...
JFK lost support of the public after the "Cuban Missile Crisis" and the Southern Democrats pulled their support of JFK and announced in January 1963 they were seeking candidates to run against JFK in the primary.
Complete nonsense, and demonstrably so.
Kennedy's approval rating spiked from a fairly high rating of 60% pre-Cuban Missile Crisis (October 19, 1962 - three days before he addressed the nation and announced the presence of missiles in Cuba) to 72% a month later and 75% in December. He received a boost from the crisis, not a loss of support. The bounce eventually faded, of course, and Kennedy's approval rating stablized in the latter half of 1963, with the final four monthly approval rating polls coming in at 60%, 56%, 58% and 58%, respectively. That 58% is a full 10% better than the break-even point of 48% (at or above that, Presidents get re-elected - below that, Presidents don't get re-elected). While we can't know precisely how 1964 would have played out, your claim is false. Period. And there was no downward trend in Kennedy's approval numbers past the summer of 1963, there were no policy obstacles in Kennedy's way, and Goldwater simply was not a candidate who was every going to win (which signals that the GOP in 1964, unlike you in 2014, knew full well that Kennedy was all but unbeatable). Simply put, outside of your imagination there is absolutely nothing to suggest that Kennedy would have lost his re-election bid.
As for the loss of Southern support, it's hard to imagine Kennedy suffering a worse loss in that regard than Johnson himself, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which when passed in July 1964 was completely owned by LBJ. Absent Kennedy's assassination, it is highly unlikely the Civil Rights Act passes before the 1964 election. George Wallace ran in numerous primaries against Johnson, and Goldwater won 5 Southern states. And it was still a Democratic landslide. The idea that Southern Democrats were going to cost Kennedy the nomination or the Presidency is absurd.
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According to every medical expert, JFK would have died in 1967 of Addison's Disease.
More nonsense.
JFK was diagnosed with Addison's in 1947 at the age of 30. His near-death experiences were in the mid-50s; by the time of his Presidency he was in great pain but the disease itself was being managed. The physicians who examined and treated Kennedy in the mid-50s told him in once instance that he be dead within a year, and in another instance advised him that he needed to receive last rites. And they were obviously wrong
Robert Dallek, the Kennedy biographer who was been given exclusive access to President ennedy's medical records: "I'm no physician and nobody, not even the most astute medical expert, can give you an authoritative opinion. I have, however, talked to physicians, and it's conceivable Kennedy wouldn't have outlived his 50s." http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20030514004/tscript.htm
So, the physicans Dallek consulted, and presented with the exclusive information he - Dallek - had, advised that was 'conceivable' (not certain: conceivable) that Kennedy wouldn't have reached 60 (he would have turned 60 in 1977). Thus, your 'every medical expert' silliness about him being definitely dead by 1967 is blatantly false.
To sum up, your post is spectacularly wrong in every regard.
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