LBJ and McNamara

[rug]

[denem]

1. The worst decision LBJ ever made. McNamara wanted to leave,

LBJ wanted continuity.

[Octafish]

24. Kennedy was trying to leave. LBJ, McNamara, Harriman and Lodge sided with War Inc.

Here's what we now know:

Papers reveal JFK efforts on Vietnam

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff
Boston Globe June 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Newly uncovered documents from both American and Polish archives show that President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union secretly sought ways to find a diplomatic settlement to the war in Vietnam, starting three years before the United States sent combat troops.

SNIP...

Records show that McNamara and the military brass quickly criticized the proposal. An April 14 Pentagon memo to Kennedy said that ''a reversal of US policy could have disastrous effects, not only upon our relationship with South Vietnam, but with the rest of our Asian and other allies as well."

SNIP...

At the urging of Nehru, Galbraith met with the Polish foreign minister, Adam Rapacki, in New Delhi on Jan. 21, 1963, where Galbraith expressed Kennedy's likely interest in a Polish proposal for a cease-fire and new elections in South Vietnam. There is no evidence of further discussions between the two diplomats. Rapacki returned to Warsaw a day later. Galbraith wrote in his memoirs that it was not followed up.

But the newly released Polish documents, obtained by George Washington University researcher Malgorzata Gnoinska, show that Galbraith's message was sent to Moscow, where it was taken seriously.

A lengthy February memo from the Soviet politburo reported on the Galbraith-Rapacki discussions. It concluded that Kennedy and ''part of the administration . . . did not want Vietnam to turn into a second Korea" and appeared interested in a diplomatic settlement akin to one reached in 1962 about Laos, Vietnam's neighbor.

CONTINUED...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/06/papers_reveal_jfk_efforts_on_vietnam/

A Democratic Party stalwart, governor of New York, advisor and ambassador, Harriman also was Prescott Bush's business partner in the run-up to World War II.

[denem]

28. Sorry. McNamara wanted to leave the Administration,

LBJ wanted continuity keeping the him Secretary of Defense.

[PoliticAverse]

2. "We were behaving like war criminals"

Robert McNamara in _The Fog of War_ : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8653788864462752804#

[Octafish]

3. Those two lied America into war with their phony Gulf of Tonkin casus belli.

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

[Pavulon]

5. I believe Diem would disagree.

if he were not killed in a coup we ran. Every sitting president uses methods disliked by most to accomplish goals.

Even the ones people really love.

[Puregonzo1188]

7. "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."

--Noam Chomsky.

[Pavulon]

9. Yep. but noam was not incinerated in the cuban missile crisis, so he

can spare the ball busting. There is a reality out there that has to be addressed. We tried ignoring it between the two european wars and that did not work.

[apocalypsehow]

13. And again we agree. n/t.

[Puregonzo1188]

20. Would the Cuban Missile Crisis have happened if the US hadn't invaded Cuba

or been actively involved in violent acts that continue until this day?

[apocalypsehow]

8. I remember how shocked I was when I learned in college that the President who ordered Agent Orange

to be widely used in Vietnam was...President John F. Kennedy.

Spot-on reply, and exactly right. :thumbsup:

[Pavulon]

10. To be clear I am NOT attacking kennedy. He was a great man

but all these men are faced with decisions that have very bad outcomes. Obama has the same bad choices to make to get us out of Afghanistan.

Staying focused on that goal is important. (to me at least)

[apocalypsehow]

11. Me either - I still admire him immensely. It was the dictates of the Cold War that drove many unwise

actions by all of our Commanders-in-Chiefs post-1948, Republican and Democratic.

I agree with you entirely.

[Puregonzo1188]

18. And what drove them before 1948? In addition to the Spanish American War and World War I

there's a pretty long list of interventions and occupations. How many people realize that we occupied on we occupied Haiti from 1914-34 or Nicaragua from 1912-33?

And those are two among just countless interventions.

[Octafish]

21. Former Bush business partner Averell Harriman directed coup against Diem, over Kennedy's orders.

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

Kennedy, the record shows, had ordered no harm come to Diem. Harriman contramanded that order, much to the benefit of Wall Street and all the connected sleaze who still haunt us to this very day.

[Pavulon]

22. Umm, that is not supported by the LOC or historians

who write on the topic. There would be a number of things Kennedy signed off on that most people would not have liked. The scope is much broader than just Diem.

[Octafish]

23. As with Iraq in 2002, mainstream media in '63 lied like rugs regarding the run-up to war in Vietnam.

An important reporter from 1963 got "the treatment" for telling the truth about the situation:

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

So, umm. I'll go with Starnes, Galbraith and Trento, thank you.

[Puregonzo1188]

4. What's the context of this picture?

[apocalypsehow]

6. Johnson & McNamara were largely mired in a war of JFK's making. See sig line. n/t.

[coalition_unwilling]

12. With all due respect, Johnson and McNamara made their own war. The Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution (that authorized the deployment of U.S. combat forces) was passed after LBJ had won re-election in November of 1964 (a full year after JFK's assassination).

Or am I missing something here?

[Pavulon]

15. Stage was set before then. A bright and shining lie

is a great book and covers some of the early days of the war. There are other books but this one stands out.

[coalition_unwilling]

25. I've read it and agree that it is awesome. Opinions among pro

historians are mixed as to what JFK might have intended after his re-election. I believe the current consensus is that JFK had made no firm decision about what to do (whether to escalate or de-escalate) after November of 1964 and simply wanted to keep his options open until then.

[apocalypsehow]

17. We'll simply have to agree to disagree, respectfully: Vietnam was JFK's war, for all sorts of

reasons that could potentially occupy us here for days, if not weeks.

We'll simply have to agree to disagree. Thanks.

[Puregonzo1188]

19. Vietnam was the US's war from Truman through Nixon.

That's a lot of Presidents, of both parties.

[coalition_unwilling]

26. Yes, that is true. In 1945, Ho Chi Minh quoted from the U.S.Declaration

of Independence in a speech he gave to the masses upon his triumphal entry into Hanoi. Wow, did we screw up or what?

[Puregonzo1188]

14. And he was mired in Eisenhower's warmaking.

Eisenhower helped install a puppet in the South as opposed to allowing for unified elections to go forth, as he knew Ho Chi Minh would have won. And it was Truman who first sent US military aid to the French trying to recolonize Indochina, despite the fact that Ho Chi Minh had initially appealed to the US, not the USSR, for recognition. Many in the OSI, precursor to the CIA, told Truman to do so as Ho was more a nationalist than a communist, we could work with him. We didn't go that route. Interestingly enough, the USSR didn't recognize them either--not until the after the Chinese did.


There's more continuity in US foreign policy than discontinuity.

[Pavulon]

16. Correct. That was a massive error and could have made an ally

as they hated the french and loved us (then), and saved millions of lives (literally millions).

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Eisenhower didn't want to get all caught up in a new iteration of

"Who lost China?" that had so be-deviled Truman's 2nd term. That's no excuse, of course.