It is easy to overlook all of the ways that JFK was in conflict with the Pemanent Military Industrial bureacrecy by 1963.
Especially with all of the work done on the "''left media''" to make him seem like "just another Cold War Hawk" as GURU CHOMSKY endlessly bashed him,
There are so many huge and fundemental differences JFK had with ruling elites over both foreign and domestic policy.
Here is one that is lesser-known: a fundemental disagreement over Indonesia policy.
INDONESIA? WHO THE HECK CARES??????
Well consider this: After Kennedy was murdered by the National Security State which still rules this country today, there was a GENOCIDE IN INDONESIA IN which up to 1.25 million people were killed. The CIA was directly involved in providing names to the Indonesian military while this happened.
NOW READ THIS ABOUT JFK AND PRESIDENT SUKARNO WHO WAS THE GUY THE CIA FLIPPED ON IN 1965 BEFORE THEIR BLOODBATH!
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JFK's murder kept him from being the one to make critical decision in Washington that would decide the fate of not only Vietnam but also Indonesia.
As we have seen, when he left for Texas, Kennedy had said he was willing to accept an invitation from President Sukarno to visit Indonesia in the spring of 1964. Such a turn of events, sought strongly by Sukarno, would have signaled in a dramatic way Kennedy's support for independent third world nations. As one analyst pointed out, Sukarno was "the most outspoken proponent of Third World neutralism in the Cold War" Sukarno had himself
coined the term "Third World" at the first Conference of Non-Aligned Nations that he hosted at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955.
Kennedy's support for Sukarno was another sign of how out of step he was with his national security state. Sukarno was a close ally in the Non-Aligned Movement with Ghana's president Kwame Nkrumah, a leading African nationalist whom Kennedy was also helping--to the dismay of advisers opposed to Nkrumah, including even Robert Kennedy. When JFK challenged the National Security COuncil in November 1961 by announcing he had decided to lend Kwame Nkrumah the money for his Volta Dam project in Ghana, he added, "The Attorney General has not yet spoken, but I can feel the hot breath of his disapproval on the back of my neck( note 899, Chapter 6)
However, regardless of who opposed him in his support fro Nkrumah, the president was determined "to dramatize the new American attitude toward non-alignment thoughout Africa" (note 900) Suakarno's invitation to him to vist Indonesia gave JFK the further oppostunity to support hte leader of the nonaligned bloc in Southeast Asia.
A presidential visit to Sukarno would have been a major setback to the corporate leaders with a heavy stake in third world resources, particularly in oil-and mineral-rich Indonesia, where they accused Sukarno of having gone Communist by ekpropriating their holdings. Yet Sukarno had recieved a warm welvvome from Kennedy at the WHite House. In his invitation to JFK to visit Indonesia, Sukarno promised him in return "the grandest reception anyone ever received here" (note 901) In visiting Indonesia, Kennedy would cross a threshold by demonstrating publicly hs long-held support of third world nationalism. In terms of the policies he was forging in Indonesia, Ghana, and the Congo, with their adverse impact on multinational corporations, the presidnet was being seen increasingly as a class traitor and a Cold War heretic
(note 902 Chapter 6)
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Immediately after the assassination Johnson surprised former Kennedy staffers by refusing to sign a document that would have enabled further US economic aid to the Sukarno government:
As Kennedy aide Roger Hilsman observed, 'Since everyone down the
line had known that President Kennedy would have signed the deter-
mination routinely, we were all surprised when President Johnson
refused (note 903)
When Johnson repeated his refusal to sign into law the necessary
presidential support for aid to Indonesia at a National Security Council
meeting on January 7, 1964 (904) it became clear that Sukarno no
longer had a friend in the White House. Its new occupant was in fact
hostile to Sukarno and the independent nationalist policies he espoused.
In the months following Johnson's accession to the presidency, the U.S.
government cut off economic aid to Indonesia. (note 905, Chapter 6)
However a significant exception to the end of U.S. funding was military
aid to the Indonesian Army, under the rising control of Major General
Haji Mohammad Suharto (note 906) With the covert support of the US
military, Suharto was preparing to overthrow Sukarno ( JFK and the Unspeakable:Why He Died and Why It Matters, pp. 376-377)
Sukarno had been targetted earlier by the CIA in 1957-58. Now Kennedy was
planning on visiting someone whom the CIA saw as the a communist leader of a nation of 170 million people. The CIA also believed-- using the same monolithic anti-communist logic that lead to disaster in Vietnam, where Kennedy wanted to end US military involvement-- that the Nonaligned movement was just a front for communists.
One has to wonder how the outcome of Indonesia in 1965 would have been different had Johnson not replaced Kennedy.
This very stark contrast between JFK and LBJ's policies in Indonesia is matched by equally stark contrasts between their plans for South America.
