JFK's Foreign Policy: A Motive for Murder

[James DiEugenio]

I don't know if this was ever posted here.

Its a talk I did at the Wecht Conference for the 50th.

It was largely based on the new evidence about JFK's foreign policy. These new discoveries turn JFK from a moderate liberal into a revolutionary. I think its all very relevant to Talbot's book. And complementary to it. Because as I outline here, almost every one of Kennedy's reforms to Dulles/Nixon/Ike was reversed after his murder by CIA and LBJ to what it was bedore he was inaugurated.

Which is why I titled it what I did.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lQdDe7mOGym3fRrRjRydbJvR0URaL5Dd0n6eqKyX00o/edit#slide=id.p4

[Richard Gilbride]

This is a fabulous tutorial, Jim.

I had little or no idea about Operation Vulture, nor JFK's 1954 response- "How will the new Dulles policy and its threat of atomic retaliation fare in an area of guerilla warfare... No amount of American military assistance can confront an enemy which is everywhere and nowhere and has the sympathy and support of the people..."

Was this on the Senate floor, or in a newspaper interview?

Have recently reached that part, on the Dulles Imperium, in the new David Talbot book. My opinion of Eisenhower has gone from good to mediocre, to see him so suggestible to the "crackpot realism" of John Foster Dulles- advocating nukes be used at Dien Bien Phu, and during other crises.

John Hersey's Hiroshima came out in 1946- it occupied a whole issue of the New Yorker- and you won't find a better eyewitness account of the utter devastation wrought by atomic weaponry. Dulles apparently ignored that issue.

Hersey is a personal favorite of mine, when I was living on Martha's Vineyard during the 90's he referred a novel I wrote about Northern Ireland to Alfred Knopf. Of course it didn't get published, but that was one heck of a nice gesture, and I made a pilgrimage to his tombstone to thank him.

Hiroshima's most unforgettable image for me was the shadow of a house painter up on his ladder vaporized against concrete.

[Jon G. Tidd]

If JFK had been a batter and I'd been an umpire in early November 1963, I'd have had the count at 1 - 2.

The 1 would be for his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The two strikes would be for the BOP and the Diem assassination, both of which he could have prevented.

JFK was a terrific speech-maker. His words inspired many, but his actions did not always match his words. On the date of his death, he may well have been evolving in terms of his actions. Firmness of action was still lacking in his foreign policy. Maybe that's just my perception; but I cannot but believe he and RFK let the Diem assassination go forward on the basis that it was the best of two bad choices.

[Cliff Varnell]

If JFK had been a batter and I'd been an umpire in early November 1963, I'd have had the count at 1 - 2.

The 1 would be for his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The two strikes would be for the BOP and the Diem assassination, both of which he could have prevented.

JFK was a terrific speech-maker. His words inspired many, but his actions did not always match his words. On the date of his death, he may well have been evolving in terms of his actions. Firmness of action was still lacking in his foreign policy. Maybe that's just my perception; but I cannot but believe he and RFK let the Diem assassination go forward on the basis that it was the best of two bad choices.

Are you sure you want to pin the Diem assassination on JFK?

He had to take responsibility for the coup itself, that's true -- he was hustled by Averell Harriman.

But I don't think JFK ordered the murder of Diem as part of the coup.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Cliff,

I've paid attention to JFK's tapes relative to Diem's assassination.

RFK opines that if the assassination leads to a good result, the U.S. should support it.

[Cliff Varnell]

Cliff,

I've paid attention to JFK's tapes relative to Diem's assassination.

RFK opines that if the assassination leads to a good result, the U.S. should support it.

Do the tapes relate to the overthrow of Diem -- or the murder of Diem following the coup?

Please cite a quote of RFK pushing the murder of Diem.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Cliff,

The tapes do not mention the possibility of Diem's murder.

If JFK and RFK did not grasp that a coup would involve Diem's murder, they were either too naive or too uninformed about South Vietnamese presidential politics. I'm inclined to think JFK was willing to let the chips fall where they may and hope for something better than the Diem regime. What the U.S. got de facto as a result of the coup and Diem's murder was ownership of the situation in South Viet Nam. Any U.S. president who could not or did not foresee that outcome would be, IMO, incompetent.

Footnote: I view JFK, I believe, realistically. He was a gifted speaker, a shrewd politician of his time, a leader who preferred not to take risky public acts, a man of ideas. By many accounts, he held his cards close to his vest and only really trusted (in the political realm) his brother RFK. While he preferred not to take risky public acts, he apparently had no such reservation in his private life, which I believe was a liability. His murder, IMO, is the most important unsolved crime in the history of the USA.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[Paul Brancato]

Jon - I refer you to the text of a speech by Barry Keane on the very next post. I feel the way he does, and don't agree with the your last post that he was basically naive and 'more style than substance', to use Mr. Keane's words.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Paul Brancato,

U.S. presidents fall into one of two categories on foreign policy: [a] those who seek to force an outcome, {b] those who seek to force a process.

JFK, in my opinion, knew this distinction. IMO, he didn't like it. But he didn't have much choice, he perceived.

Obama is like JFK in that Obama is about process. But unlike Obama, JFK was concerned centrally about outcome. Outcome meant a lot in the early 1960s.

[James DiEugenio]

Jon:

Anyone who can read that powerpoint, which is largely based on new material by Muelhenbeck and Rakove, and somehow fall back on the Bay of Pigs and the Diem assassination is very much close minded.

If you want to ignore all these things about the Middle East and Africa and the non aligned movement in Indonesia, Congo, Algeria, Egypt etc. that is your decision. Fine.

But to then blame JFK for the Bay of Pigs and the Diem assassination, I mean please. Are these the same sources you use for what you call our impending victory in Vietnam?

As myself, Greg Burnham, Larry Hancock and others have shown, Allen Dulles and Dick Bissell lied their heads off about Operation Zapata to JFK. Because they knew he was predisposed against the project. And when Kennedy saw it was a disaster he refused to commit American troops to salvage it. (You probably think he should have. So that Cuba could then become an American colony.) He then fired the top level of the CIA, started a RIF of about 20 per cent, and sent RFK as an ombudsman over the Agency. Again, if you want to ignore all of this, fine. Its your decision.

The best two treatments of the Diem case are in John Newman's book JFK and Vietnam and the Douglass book JFK and the Unspeakable. In the former--which I still consider the best book on the subject--take a look at pgs. 345-351. Those six pages are the best summary of how the Saturday Night Special cable was sent to Saigon. Its quite clear that this was prepared and plotted for by the State Department cabal that Maxwell Taylor referred to--including HIlsman, Forrestal and Harriman. That they waited for the proper moment when the principals were out of town and struck on a weekend, knowing that the cable would not get a proper airing. They then lied to JFK by telling him that McCone had signed off on the memo. This is how the whole thing started.

This is why Kennedy was enraged when he returned and said, "This xxxx has got to stop!" As Douglass notes, Forrerstal volunteered to resign over his role in the plot. Kennedy shouted, "You are not worth firing. You owe me something now!"

As Douglass further illuminates, Lodge was in on the plot. For he showed the cable to the generals first. In direct contradiction to his instructions. As Lodge further noted in an interview for PBS, Kennedy then sent him a cancellation cable. But, it was too late, the plotting had already started. BTW, even Conein admitted he was getting conflicted messages from the White House and the State Department. And Lodge made sure he got the head of the CIA station out first, since he knew Conein would cooperate with him.

Douglass is very good on showing how the actual killings happened. Again, this was in direct contradiction to what JFK had ordered. Which is why at this time, Kennedy had tried to close down all cable traffic going to Saigon. But Lodge had snookered Diem into thinking that he was speaking for the White House, which he was not. Therefore upon their escape from the palace, the brothers kept in communication with Lodge. Telling him where they were. Lodge would relay this to Conein who was in contact with the generals. That is why it played out as it did.

Kennedy, again, could not believe what had happened. He recalled Lodge to Washington for the express purpose of firing him. But, before that, he told Forrestal there was going to be a massive review of the whole Vietnam mess--including how the cable was sent. But Dallas happened before Lodge returned.

When he did return LBJ, of course, did not fire him. Thus began the reversal of JFK's NSAM 263.

One last point. Lodge was not Kennedy's choice, as lousy commentators (I won't even call him an historian) like Halberstam have proffered. JFK wanted to send ace diplomat Edmund Gullion as ambassador. Who was someone, as you probably do not know, he had a personal relationship with and whose views were in line with his own. Rusk vetoed this. That is how he got Lodge.

Needless to say, if Gullion had been sent, none of this would have ever happened.

Its bad enough to cherry pick two incidents out of three years of a highly complex and comprehensive foreign policy, leaving everything else on the cutting room floor. But then to tell only half the story about those two events? Well, to me, that is not good history.

Edited November 24, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[David G. Healy]

Doesn't take a genius to tell ya, there's a film script here! A big one!

Edited November 24, 2015 by David G. Healy

[Cliff Varnell]

Jon:

Anyone who can read that powerpoint, which is largely based on new material by Muelhenbeck and Rakove, and somehow fall back on the Bay of Pigs and the Diem assassination is very much close minded.

If you want to ignore all these things about the Middle East and Africa and the non aligned movement in Indonesia, Congo, Algeria, Egypt etc. that is your decision. Fine.

But to then blame JFK for the Bay of Pigs and the Diem assassination, I mean please. Are these the same sources you use for what you call our impending victory in Vietnam?

As myself, Greg Burnham, Larry Hancock and others have shown, Allen Dulles and Dick Bissell lied their heads off about Operation Zapata to JFK. Because they knew he was predisposed against the project. And when Kennedy saw it was a disaster he refused to commit American troops to salvage it.

This is factually incorrect.

Kennedy and his national security staff had ruled out direct American action a month before BOP D-Day.

<quote on, emphasis added>

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962 Cuba, 1961-1962 64. Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy^SourceSource: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, General, 1/61-4/61. Top Secret.

Washington, March 15, 1961.

• SUBJECT
• Meeting on Cuba, 4:00 PM, March 15, 1961

CIA will present a revised plan for the Cuban operation.¹See Documents 65 and 66. They have done a remarkable job of reframing the landing plan so as to make it unspectacular and quiet, and plausibly Cuban in its essentials.

The one major problem which remains is the air battle. I think there is unanimous agreement that at some stage the Castro Air Force must be removed. It is a very sketchy force, in very poor shape at the present, and Colonel Hawkins (Bissell's military brain) thinks it can be removed by six to eight simultaneous sorties of B-26s. These will be undertaken by Cuban pilots in planes with Cuban Air Force markings. This is the only really noisy enterprise that remains.

My own belief is that this air battle has to come sooner or later, and that the longer we put it off, the harder it will be. Castro's Air Force is currently his Achilles' heel, but he is making drastic efforts to strengthen it with Russian planes and Russian-trained pilots.

Even the revised landing plan depends strongly upon prompt action against Castro's air. The question in my mind is whether we cannot solve this problem by having the air strike come some little time before the invasion. A group of patriotic airplanes flying from Nicaraguan bases might knock out Castro's Air Force in a single day without anyone knowing (for some time) where they came from, and with nothing to prove that it was not an interior rebellion by the Cuban Air Force, which has been of very doubtful loyalty in the past; the pilots will in fact be members of the Cuban Air Force who went into the opposition some time ago. Then the invasion could come as a separate enterprise, and neither the air strike nor the quiet landing of patriots would in itself give Castro anything to take to the United Nations.

I have been a skeptic about Bissell's operation, but now I think we are on the edge of a good answer. I also think that Bissell and Hawkins have done an honorable job of meeting the proper criticisms and cautions of the Department of State

McGeorge Bundy

#65

According to summary notes prepared by General Gray, CIA officials returned to the White House on March 15, 1961, to present a revised plan for the operation against Cuba; see Document 64. The President's appointment book indicates that the meeting took place from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. The meeting was attended by Vice President Johnson, McNamara, Rusk, Mann, Berle, Dulles, Bissell, McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy, and Gray. (Kennedy Library, President's Appointment Book) Although not listed in the appointment book, it is likely that at least one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, probably General Lemnitzer or Admiral Burke, also attended. According to Gray's notes on the meeting:

#66

“At meeting with the President, CIA presented revised concepts for the landing at Zapata wherein there would be air drops at first light with the landing at night and all of the ships away from the objective area by dawn. The President decided to go ahead with the Zapata planning; to see what we could do about increasing support to the guerrillas inside the country; to interrogate one member of the force to determine what he knows; and he reserved the right to call off the plan even up to 24 hours prior to the landing.” (Summary notes prepared on May 9, 1961, by General Gray; Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, Subjects, Taylor Report)

On March 17 Admiral Burke provided the JCS with additional details about the discussion of the revised Zapata plan. According to Burke, the President wanted to know what the consequences would be if the operation failed. He asked Burke how he viewed the operation's chance of success. Burke indicated that he had given the President a probability figure of about 50 percent. President Kennedy also inquired what would happen if it developed after the invasion that the Cuban exile force were pinned down and being slaughtered on the beach. If they were to be re-embarked, the President wanted to know where they could be taken. According to Burke's account of the meeting: “It was decided they would not be re-embarked because there was no place to go. Once they were landed they were there.” In the course of the discussion, it was emphasized that the plan was dependent on a general uprising in Cuba, and that the entire operation would fail without such an uprising. (Review of Record of Proceedings Related to Cuban Situation, May 5; Naval Historical Center, Area Files, Bumpy Road Materials)

<quote off>

"Once they were landed they were there."

Allen Dulles could not have tried to maneuver Kennedy into military action because there was no contingency planning for it and no one to directly advocate for it since Dulles was in Puerto Rico on D-Day-1 & D-Day.

Jim, you have claimed that Kennedy may have fired Dulles on the spot if the DCI had proposed US military intervention.

And yet you claim that Dulles used his deputy Cabell -- who didn't have direct access and had to go thru Dean Rusk -- to attempt to convince JFK of a course of action which had already been explicitly ruled out.

Your (and Talbot's and others') take on this is incoherent.

(You probably think he should have. So that Cuba could then become an American colony.) He then fired the top level of the CIA, started a RIF of about 20 per cent, and sent RFK as an ombudsman over the Agency. Again, if you want to ignore all of this, fine. Its your decision.

The best two treatments of the Diem case are in John Newman's book JFK and Vietnam and the Douglass book JFK and the Unspeakable. In the former--which I still consider the best book on the subject--take a look at pgs. 345-351. Those six pages are the best summary of how the Saturday Night Special cable was sent to Saigon. Its quite clear that this was prepared and plotted for by the State Department cabal that Maxwell Taylor referred to--including HIlsman, Forrestal and Harriman.

Yes, but not in that order.

According to Kennedy himself it was Harriman who led the charge.

http://millercenter.org/presidentialclassroom/exhibits/jfks-memoir-dictation-on-the-assassination-of-diem

That they waited for the proper moment when the principals were out of town and struck on a weekend, knowing that the cable would not get a proper airing. They then lied to JFK by telling him that McCone had signed off on the memo. This is how the whole thing started.

Don't forget the role of George Ball.

This is why Kennedy was enraged when he returned and said, "This xxxx has got to stop!" As Douglass notes, Forrerstal volunteered to resign over his role in the plot. Kennedy shouted, "You are not worth firing. You owe me something now!"

As Douglass further illuminates, Lodge was in on the plot. For he showed the cable to the generals first. In direct contradiction to his instructions. As Lodge further noted in an interview for PBS, Kennedy then sent him a cancellation cable.

On what date? Just curious...

But, it was too late, the plotting had already started. BTW, even Conein admitted he was getting conflicted messages from the White House and the State Department. And Lodge made sure he got the head of the CIA station out first, since he knew Conein would cooperate with him.

Douglass is very good on showing how the actual killings happened. Again, this was in direct contradiction to what JFK had ordered. Which is why at this time, Kennedy had tried to close down all cable traffic going to Saigon. But Lodge had snookered Diem into thinking that he was speaking for the White House, which he was not. Therefore upon their escape from the palace, the brothers kept in communication with Lodge. Telling him where they were. Lodge would relay this to Conein who was in contact with the generals. That is why it played out as it did.

Kennedy, again, could not believe what had happened. He recalled Lodge to Washington for the express purpose of firing him. But, before that, he told Forrestal there was going to be a massive review of the whole Vietnam mess--including how the cable was sent. But Dallas happened before Lodge returned.

When he did return LBJ, of course, did not fire him. Thus began the reversal of JFK's NSAM 263.

One last point. Lodge was not Kennedy's choice, as lousy commentators (I won't even call him an historian) like Halberstam have proffered. JFK wanted to send ace diplomat Edmund Gullion as ambassador. Who was someone, as you probably do not know, he had a personal relationship with and whose views were in line with his own. Rusk vetoed this. That is how he got Lodge.

This should set off all kind of red flags about for whom Rusk worked.

Check out Rusk's action leading up to the BOP, for instance...

Needless to say, if Gullion had been sent, none of this would have ever happened.

Its bad enough to cherry pick two incidents out of three years of a highly complex and comprehensive foreign policy, leaving everything else on the cutting room floor. But then to tell only half the story about those two events? Well, to me, that is not good history.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Jon G. Tidd]

In a military unit, say an army division, the commanding officer of which is a two-star general, if something goes wrong -- for example, if a company that's part of the division goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of unarmed civilians -- the question of what went wrong starts at the top with the commanding officer.

Yes, the usual procedure is to push responsibility as far down the chain of command as possible. In the case of My Lai, that meant hanging Lt. Calley and letting Captain Medina off the hook. Colin Powell, a field grade officer in the Americal Division, sealed the deal against Calley. For Calley, being a low-life infantry officer, that meant being a sacrificial cow was pro forma.

JFK was the commander of all military forces. What those forces did, he did.

JFK didn't dodge responsibility for BOP. Nor for Diem's assassination.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[James DiEugenio]

Jon:

The White House is not a military unit.

You don't get court martialed and placed in the brig, or worse, for not following orders.

There are many instances where these kinds of things happened, e.g. with Nixon and the Moorer/Radford affair.

I would say that there were more instances of it happening here because of Kennedy's reformist agenda, which was not just Vietnam, but in several places throughout the world. Including favoring Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic.

BTW, after the Bay of Pigs, not only were the top three at CIA moved out, later on so were Burke and Lemnitzer.

As per the D Day Air Raids, in Destiny Betrayed, second edition, I spent a lot of time on this issue. And in fact one whole chapter on Operation Zapata.

I came to the conclusion, from various sources, including both Kennedy and the CIA, that the air raids were to be launched when an air strip was secured on the island. This is one of the reasons why the ultimate landing site was chosen.

Talbot does a nice job in showing just how reformist Kennedy was and how heated the Dulles vs. Kennedy duel was. By April of 1961, just three months after he was inaugurated, Dulles and the CIA had gone against JFK in Congo, the attempted Paris coup against DeGaulle, and Operation Zapata. Really, Kennedy had no recourse but to fire him.

Let me add this: as I was reading Talbot's chapter on the attempted coup against DeGaulle, I wrote down in the margin of my notes, all in caps: "SUPERB". It is the best rendition I have ever read of that episode. And there really is no second place. He then tops this with an amazing interview by DeGaulle in which he himself says that Kennedy was killed as a result of a plot and Oswald was a patsy.

Edited November 25, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

As per the D Day Air Raids, in Destiny Betrayed, second edition, I spent a lot of time on this issue. And in fact one whole chapter on Operation Zapata.

I came to the conclusion, from various sources, including both Kennedy and the CIA, that the air raids were to be launched when an air strip was secured on the island. This is one of the reasons why the ultimate landing site was chosen.

D-Day air raids by American forces?

There was contingency planning under Ike for such -- but under Kennedy?

Do tell...