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We wouldn't have committed regular ground troops in Vietnam at all. Moon sooner? Maybe not. The limitations were not effort or funding. He would have been re-elected. If Bobby had not been killed he would have followed JFK as President for another eight years.
You are taking me back in a time a bit here. My father was a big Robert Kennedy supporter. In fact, somewhere in this house I have his autograph when he was campaigning for President in 1968.
I've made my views on JFK and Vietnam clear in earlier posts. I don't share the view that things would have been substantially different if he had lived. Vietnam was like a train coming down the track. The USA was committed to stopping communism and, at that time, we viewed the struggle between North Vietnam and South Vietnam as a struggle between communism and the free world. Only later, would we grasp it was simply a regional civil war that had gone on for decades.
That being said, what I really want to address is the prospect of RFK being elected President. RFK was a bright, young, and charismatic candidate. However, by 1968, Americans had become pretty disenchanted with liberalism and that is what RFK represented. He made no bones about it. His base of support, as he put it, was young people, minorities, and the poor. America was a strongly middle class nation at that point that was trying to get past a lot of racial prejudices. While my father would have been overjoyed at RFK's election. I Just don't think it was in the cards. Of course, his assassination was terribly tragic and left part of the social fabric of this country in tatters.
I don't think RFK appealed to a broad enough section of the country to win election. As it was, Hubert Humphrey (who was more status quo) ended up with the democratic nomination for President in 1968. He narrowly lost the race to Richard Nixon by less than one percent of the vote. Nixon's victory margin would have been even greater, except for the presence of third party candidate, George Wallace in the race. Wallace picked up a great number of conservative votes that would have gone to Nixon.
There is this notion that if John Kennedy had lived the USA would have gone to heaven and died. Its just not true. Its what happens when someone dies prematurely. The many "what ifs" about their life slowly are turned into legends. I wish people could keep their heads on straight about JFK. He was neither the huge heroic figure some on the left imagine him to be or the evil drug addict, sexual deviant the right makes him out to be. The truth, with all its complexities is somewhere in the middle.
1. no, you cannot say JFK would have escalated Vietnam. It is unsupportable and did not occur.
2. there's lots of material out there about JFK opposing "Israel"'s nuclear weapon programme.
3. JFK issued debt-free US Notes (not Federal Reserve notes), and Silver Certificate dollars.
all this is easily researchable.
now, I'm not saying who killed JFK. There are many parties who wanted it done.
But one thing I'm pretty sure of is that E. Howard Hunt lied on his death bed.
At rense.com, right?
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Originally Posted by Snowball7
Was JFK going to pull out of Vietnam?
Yes. He had a plan to do just that, as University of Texas professor Jamie Galbraith demonstrates in this recent piece for The Nation.
Jamie Galbraith, University of Texas
The question was hotly contested in late 1963. As with Cuba, most of JFK’s military advisers, as well as the Pentagon and the CIA, favored escalation, while President Kennedy resisted and sought to chart a different course. JFKfacts » Was JFK going to pull out of Vietnam?
In post #24 I provided a link to an interview with Booby Kennedy that quite clearly stated that JFK had a commitment to Vietnam and did not want to see it lost. RFK stopped at saying that they unequivocally would have committed ground troops, but he quite directly stated that JFK did not want to lose Vietnam.
Galbraiths entire argument, which was first published in the Boston Reivew, is based on the fact that JFK approved a timetable for withdrawal from Vietnam with the first troops leaving at the end of 1963 and complete withdrawal by 1965. Of course, if one actually reads the orders and associated memos it was quite clear that this was the plan dependent on the situation on the ground. Meaning, yes, JFK wanted to pull US forces out as long as the situation was acceptable for doing so.
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You're missing the point. It's not about silver. It's about sovereignty. Executive Order 11110
On June 4, 1963 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 providing him with the authority "to issue silver certificates against all silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption…" This seems like an attempt to bypass the Federal Reserve System by issuing real, silver-backed money to replace counterfeit Federal Reserve Notes. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
There is a rumor that the "Kennedy silver certificates" were actually printed and that one of the first things President Lyndon B. Johnson did after assuming power was to have the "Kennedy silver certificates" destroyed. In 1964 Johnson, serving as the voice of the Federal Reserve bankers, said, "Silver has become too valuable to be used as money." This amounted to a brazen boast that the bankers would eliminate any money with intrinsic value. On November 22, 1963, the day of Kennedy's funeral, the first 50 million "no-promise" Federal Reserve Notes were released into circulation.
Here is what JFK himself wrote in his Economic Report to Cognress in 1963. This echoes statements he had made to Congress since 1961:
Quote:
I again urge a revision in our silver policy to reflect the status of silver as a metal for which there is an expanding industrial demand. Except for its use in coins, silver serves no useful monetary function.
In 1961, at my direction, sales of silver were suspended by the Secretary of the Treasury. As further steps, I recommend repeal of those Acts that oblige the Treasury to support the price of silver; and repeal of the special 50-percent tax on transfers of interest in silver and authorization for the Federal Reserve System to issue notes in denominations of $1, so as to make possible the gradual withdrawal of silver certificates from circulation and the use of the silver thus released for coinage purposes. I urge the Congress to take prompt action on these recommended changes.
The House then took up HR 5389 which was designed to fulfill the presidents request. This was passed by the House and the Senate and signed into law by JFK in June of 1963. The entire purpose of the law was that Kennedy recognized that silver had become more valuable for industry making it a poor basis for currency, a path gold would take a decade later.
Executive Order 1110 itself was signed to authorize the release of additional silver certificates based on current un-encumbered silver reserves (aka Treasury could issue additional certificates based on current silver holdings, but could not buy more silver). This was done to ensure that there were no distrubances in the money supply during the transition to Federal Reserve Notes. EO 1110 was nothing more than a technicality to ensure a smooth transition. A transition which JFK himself advocated for.
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He did that begrudgingly as an incentive for Israel to not produce nuclear weapons.
It was nothing more than a political maneuver.
289. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel
Washington, July 4, 1963, 3:02 p.m. Docs 284-308
"Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
"It gives me great personal pleasure to extend congratulations as you assume your responsibilities as Prime Minister of Israel. You have our friendship and best wishes in your new tasks. It is on one of these that I am writing you at this time.
"You are aware, I am sure, of the exchanges which I had with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion concerning American visits to Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona. Most recently, the Prime Minister wrote to me on May 27./4/ His words reflected a most intense personal consideration of a problem that I know is not easy for your Government, as it is not for mine. We welcomed the former Prime Minister's strong reaffirmation that Dimona will be devoted exclusively to peaceful purposes and the reaffirmation also of Israel's willingness to permit periodic visits to Dimona.
/4/See Document 258.
"I regret having to add to your burdens so soon after your assumption of office, but I feel the crucial importance of this problem necessitates my taking up with you at this early date certain further considerations, arising out of Mr. Ben-Gurion's May 27 letter, as to the nature and scheduling of such visits.
"I am sure you will agree that these visits should be as nearly as possible in accord with international standards, thereby resolving all doubts as to the peaceful intent of the Dimona project. [3-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]
"Therefore, I asked our scientists to review the alternative schedules of visits we and you had proposed. If Israel's purposes are to be clear beyond reasonable doubt, I believe that the schedule which would best serve our common purposes would be a visit early this summer, another visit in June 1964, and thereafter at intervals of six months. I am sure that such a schedule should not cause you any more difficulty than that which Mr. Ben-Gurion proposed in his May 27 letter. It would be essential, and I understand that Mr. Ben-Gurion's letter was in accord with this, that our scientists have access to all areas of the Dimona site and to any related part of the complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient time be allotted for a thorough examination.
"Knowing that you fully appreciate the truly vital significance of this matter to the future well-being of Israel, to the United States, and internationally, I am sure our carefully considered request will have your most sympathetic attention.
"Sincerely,
"John F. Kennedy"
300. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to President Kennedy/1/
Washington, July 23, 1963.
In any case, Israel will not give us nuclear promises unless we either: (1) literally force them to back down; or (2) pay a price. So we ought to look at the minimum we may be able to get away with, while still limiting risk of strong Arab reaction and Soviet response. In fact, such a price may even be necessary to permit us to continue a flexible Arab policy without such constant Israeli harassment as to make the domestic cost of such a policy too high. What are the possible options:
A. It's just possible that, if we could trade some form of security assurance for Israeli nuclear self-denial
JFK was worried about Israel destabilizing the region through introduction of nuclear weapons and the effect that would have vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. The Israeli program was an indepedent enterprise supported by the French through the provision of the reactor. JFK was opposed to Israel becoming a nuclear power and wanted to avoid that occurring. He offered them the security assurances in the hopes of heading off Israel becoming a declared and open nuclear power. Israel basically refused to abandon the program, but in the following years stopped short of becoming a confirmed and declared nuclear power while still developing a nuclear capability.
This situation is a result of the direction JFK set and there is little evidence that the outcome would have been any different with him in power. The US lacked the ability to completely stop the Israeli's program, but certainly had the influence via security guarantees to steer them towards a course where their capability is "hidden".
No. I think my theory is a good one - but hey, it's just one of many floating around out there. LBJ believed Castro was behind the assassination, and I happen to agree with him to some extent about that.
I don't see how these (rather meaningless) designations of "liberal" and "conservative" would have relevance in regards to your question about what the Marxists would do. Marxists aren't liberals in any respect (far from it) and LBJ was no conservative in some respects. I believe the Marxists were in fact behind the JFK assassination because they wanted us out of Vietnam, and they believed removing JFK was the best way to precipitate that occurence. LBJ was the VP... what could they do? In my mind though, JFK would have been a much bigger obstacle for them on the Vietnam question.
JFK was a staunch opponent of communism and a defender of American values for the preservation of Democracy around the world against totalitarian aggression. 1. That is not "liberal" in either the modern sense or the sense of the 1960s. That is, and was in 1961, a solidly conservative value. LBJ pursued the war with veracity, but not with the SKILL, the popularity OR the even greater veracity of JFK. In short, LBJ was a poor commander, and he was even more poor as a communicator and an inspiring figure. And he was surrounded by bad advisors - some of whom, I believe, may have been traitors.
George McGovern was a liberal in the 1960s, and his stance on Vietnam reflected the minority liberal point of view. 2. Most of the country, contrary to your point of view did NOT agree with this position until well after LBJ was in his first full term. And the decline in public opinion was not related as much to the philosophical basis of the war as it was to the poor military execution orchestrated by LBJ's administration and to the devastating propagandizing of a Leftist friendly press and entertainment/media establishment.
3. The notion that the war initially was prosecuted by the government against the wishes of the American people is false. The notion that the vast majority of American youths took to the streets to end the Vietnam War is equally false. Early initiatives by the United States under Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy received broad support. It received broad support in Congress. Not surprisingly. The overall tone and sentiment of BOTH parties in this period was CONSERVATIVE. And very conservative when it came to issues of stopping communism.
Now that you have explained it more thoroughly, I see what you are getting at. Your first post made it seem more "fringe" then this follow-up. In a world abounding with JFK assissination theories, this makes more sense than most of them.
I would address a couple of points to clarify my own position and thoughts, to the bolded...
1. I wouldn't characterize it as either "conservative" or "liberal" more as general American foreign policy which tends to transcend party affiliation. My used of the words earlier was more directed at the orientation of LBJ relative to JFK within the Democratic party. I only mentioned that based on not fully understanding your position as presented.
2. I never said anything about the position of "most of the country", so you are putting words in my mouth. I fully agree that the majority of Amercians supported the Vietnam War and the support only began to erode as the military situation deteriorated. I believe I may have even posted a chart with the public support numbers in order to support the stance that JFK would have pursued the war as public opinion against it did not really turn until 1968 and the Tet Offensive.
3. I do not disagree and never said anything to imply otherwise. What I did say and is a very valid point to be considered, is that the counter-culture movement was galvanzied around opposition to the Vietnam War. I said this as a point in the first page over "what if there was no Vietnam". The counter-culture movement was always a minority, but it gained strength the longer the war provided a common rallying point for otherwise uncommon agendas.
Like any other war such as WWI with the deaths it got little support and in time changed minds from we are going to cure the world to the slaughter realized. Wars are seldom liked in the end just as being 66 I can well remember veterans of WII talking with my father saying they never wanted to see the backside of Europe again in their lifetime.
Thank you for saying this. I am so tired of a certain group of people saying that if JFK had lived there would have been no Vietnam War. The same group often claims, with a complete absence of any evidence, that LBJ had a role in his assassination. These people probably think this is "history". In fact, they are spreading nonsensical rumors that have no basis in fact.
Vietnam was like a train coming down the tracks. It would have been very difficult to stop what happened from occurring. The Cold War was very real and most Americans saw Vietnam as simply another country that the communists were trying to take over. This, alone, required us to do everything we could to stop it. It was also simply beyond the capability of most Americans or our politicians to imagine that a third world country could put up as much resistance to our armed forces as Vietnam did. We had to go through the actual experience of the war to learn that unfortunate lesson.
JFK's dying is what preserved the "Kennedy mystique". Had JFK lived, its likely he would have faced the debacle of not being able to win the Vietnam War. His reputation would have been shredded quickly.
I think this is absolutely true. It will never be a popular opinion, but the martyred Kennedy and the "lost potential" exceeds the reality.
Had JFK lived, its likely he would have faced the debacle of not being able to win the Vietnam War. His reputation would have been shredded quickly.
Vietnam was not an unwinnable war on the battlefield. What lost it for us was the war for the hearts and minds of the nation. We didn't lose the war on the battlefield. We quit and came home. We lost the war on the nightly news.
I think JFK would have done a better job than LBJ did in prosecuting the war. I think he would have trusted his commanders more (especially given the fact that he served as an officer in the field under combat), BUT he would have had the experience and military instincts to know when to follow their advice and when not to. Nixon did a much better job, but by the time he took office, public opinion was already on the wane in the face of withering anti-war activities, much of which was supported by the Communists themselves through American proxy groups like the SDS.
Vietnam was not an unwinnable war on the battlefield. What lost it for us was the war for the hearts and minds of the nation. We didn't lose the war on the battlefield. We quit and came home. We lost the war on the nightly news.
I think JFK would have done a better job than LBJ did in prosecuting the war. I think he would have trusted his commanders more (especially given the fact that he served as an officer in the field under combat), BUT he would have had the experience and military instincts to know when to follow their advice and when not to. Nixon did a much better job, but by the time he took office, public opinion was already on the wane in the face of withering anti-war activities, much of which was supported by the Communists themselves through American proxy groups like the SDS.
I don't disagree that one can conjure up some scenario by which the USA could have "won" the Vietnam War. However, much of the blame that people attempt to attach to LBJ or other politicians for its failure is misplaced. If I were to provide a short analysis of what went wrong in Vietnam it would be along these lines:
1. Americans had no concept of the lengths that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese were willing to go to resist the Americans. In short, we grossly underestimated our enemy. This was not limited to LBJ. I would say virtually everyone in the country couldn't imagine this being a serious war that would take substantial time and resources.
2. Domestic problems in South Vietnam and ambivalence among much of the population kept them from being an effective ally in the conflict.
3. The fact that Vietnam bordered a nuclear super power, China, kept us from pursuing a more aggressive strategy.
4. The American people (and rightly so) would not indefinitely sustain something like the Vietnam Conflict which took place half way around the world and had few genuine implications for our national security.
5. LBJ had a well founded, but mistaken belief that he could fight the Vietnam War the way the Korean War was fought. In other words, he didn't have to destroy North Vietnam. He simply had to put enough pressure on them that they would agree to a "Korea-type settlement" and split up the country.
None of these factors would have changed if JFK was President. Please don't carry on the tired line that the reason we lost Vietnam was because of "communist subversion" in our own country. It has about as much credibility as the German belief following World War I that the reason they lost was because they were "stabbed in the back" by communists and certain ethnic groups.
We gave up on the war because we finally realized anything that could be accomplished wasn't worth the commitment that had to be made.
None of these factors would have changed if JFK was President. Please don't carry on the tired line that the reason we lost Vietnam was because of "communist subversion" in our own country. It has about as much credibility as the German belief following World War I that the reason they lost was because they were "stabbed in the back" by communists and certain ethnic groups.
Agreed, esepcially on the bold which is exactly what I thought when readin Led Zeppelins post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Led Zeppelin
Vietnam was not an unwinnable war on the battlefield. What lost it for us was the war for the hearts and minds of the nation. We didn't lose the war on the battlefield. We quit and came home. We lost the war on the nightly news.
You don't see the cyclic relationship in this statement? We lost the hearts and minds because we were unable to achieve any sort of definable victory on the battlefield. No one knew what winning was in Vietnam and the American public was not going to indefinitely support a war that had no defined goal or framework of victory. As markg pointed out, those issues weren't going to be corrected by JFK, primarily because Vietnam was not a "war against communism" but an intervention in a long running civil war.
You are taking me back in a time a bit here. My father was a big Robert Kennedy supporter. In fact, somewhere in this house I have his autograph when he was campaigning for President in 1968.
I've made my views on JFK and Vietnam clear in earlier posts. I don't share the view that things would have been substantially different if he had lived. Vietnam was like a train coming down the track. The USA was committed to stopping communism and, at that time, we viewed the struggle between North Vietnam and South Vietnam as a struggle between communism and the free world. Only later, would we grasp it was simply a regional civil war that had gone on for decades.
That being said, what I really want to address is the prospect of RFK being elected President. RFK was a bright, young, and charismatic candidate. However, by 1968, Americans had become pretty disenchanted with liberalism and that is what RFK represented. He made no bones about it. His base of support, as he put it, was young people, minorities, and the poor. America was a strongly middle class nation at that point that was trying to get past a lot of racial prejudices. While my father would have been overjoyed at RFK's election. I Just don't think it was in the cards. Of course, his assassination was terribly tragic and left part of the social fabric of this country in tatters.
I don't think RFK appealed to a broad enough section of the country to win election. As it was, Hubert Humphrey (who was more status quo) ended up with the democratic nomination for President in 1968. He narrowly lost the race to Richard Nixon by less than one percent of the vote. Nixon's victory margin would have been even greater, except for the presence of third party candidate, George Wallace in the race. Wallace picked up a great number of conservative votes that would have gone to Nixon.
There is this notion that if John Kennedy had lived the USA would have gone to heaven and died. Its just not true. Its what happens when someone dies prematurely. The many "what ifs" about their life slowly are turned into legends. I wish people could keep their heads on straight about JFK. He was neither the huge heroic figure some on the left imagine him to be or the evil drug addict, sexual deviant the right makes him out to be. The truth, with all its complexities is somewhere in the middle.
I agree. I think thing's wouldn't have been that much different if JFK had lived. When somebody dies prematurely, a mythology builds up around what the person could have been. It's funny to see how liberals embrace it, when he accelerated our Vietnam involvement and had a tepid approach to civil rights. He wasn't even that liberal, and was surely the most conservative of the Kennedy brothers.
I don't disagree that one can conjure up some scenario by which the USA could have "won" the Vietnam War. However, much of the blame that people attempt to attach to LBJ or other politicians for its failure is misplaced. If I were to provide a short analysis of what went wrong in Vietnam it would be along these lines:
1. Americans had no concept of the lengths that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese were willing to go to resist the Americans. In short, we grossly underestimated our enemy. This was not limited to LBJ. I would say virtually everyone in the country couldn't imagine this being a serious war that would take substantial time and resources.
2. Domestic problems in South Vietnam and ambivalence among much of the population kept them from being an effective ally in the conflict.
3. The fact that Vietnam bordered a nuclear super power, China, kept us from pursuing a more aggressive strategy.
4. The American people (and rightly so) would not indefinitely sustain something like the Vietnam Conflict which took place half way around the world and had few genuine implications for our national security.
5. LBJ had a well founded, but mistaken belief that he could fight the Vietnam War the way the Korean War was fought. In other words, he didn't have to destroy North Vietnam. He simply had to put enough pressure on them that they would agree to a "Korea-type settlement" and split up the country.
None of these factors would have changed if JFK was President. Please don't carry on the tired line that the reason we lost Vietnam was because of "communist subversion" in our own country. It has about as much credibility as the German belief following World War I that the reason they lost was because they were "stabbed in the back" by communists and certain ethnic groups.
We gave up on the war because we finally realized anything that could be accomplished wasn't worth the commitment that had to be made.
What's actually amazing is that the war went on as long as it did, considering how peripheral Vietnam was to our national security.
The big difference with Korea was the sea. Because Korea was a peninsula with a relatively short border, the South Koreans were able to prevent infiltration by the communists. That option was never available to the Vietnamese in the south. The communists were well established in the south -- like a viper in their bosom -- and they were subject to infiltration not only along the DMZ (which was very short) but all along their borders with Laos and Cambodia. If they had only been required to defend the DMZ, the south would have easily won the war.
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