Vietnam Declassified: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon

[Andrew Prutsok]

On Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning, Tom Brokaw narrated a story on Bobby’s presidential campaign. Of course, he mentioned Bobby opposed Vietnam, which, Brokaw said was ironic because it was “Jack’s War.”

[Larry Hancock]

Having personally heard RFK speak during his presidential campaign I can certainly say that by that point in time he and everyone else never called it anything other than "Johnson's war"....guess you had to be there.

[James DiEugenio]

That is really funny Andrew and shows what an MSM clown Brokaw was and is.

See, if you read my PP, I mention the Galbraith memo that JFK used to parry the guys who wanted American direct intervention in the war during the November debates in 1961.

Well, when JFK got the Galbraith memo, he postponed the showdown meeting, and showed it to RFK.

During that meeting, on November 11th, in newly discovered notes not in the Newman book, whenever someone like Rusk tries to push for combat troops, RFK steps forward and says, "There will be no combat troops in Vietnam."  Clearly that was his function as designed by JFK.

So, when in 1967, RFK said that there would have been no Vietnam War if JFK had lived, that is what he was referring to.  Direct experience.

BTW, how can you conduct a war if you have no combat troops in theater? 

[W. Niederhut]

          So, we can add Tom Brokaw (and NBC) to the list of U.S. mainstream media anchors, along with Dan Rather at CBS and Jim Lehrer at PBS, who have perpetuated the prevailing mythology about JFK and Vietnam.  Terrific.

[James DiEugenio]

Brokaw is really pretty bad on JFK all the way around.

Consider the following:

1. In 2013, he hired the Peter Jennings and Sy Hersh buddy Gus Russo as his consultant on Brokaw's 2013 worthless special.  During that special Russo got Richard Reeves, one of the worst biographers of JFK there is, to say the following:  NSAM 263 did not mean any advisors were coming home, it only referred to things like cooks and custodians. ()

I mean really.   

2. Brokaw is also the guy who, when his old pal John Barbour called him to be on that show to talk about Jim Garrison,  Brokaw said, "No Garrison John."    

 Censorship of the first order.

3. Back in 1993 or 1994, when Brokaw had Marina on with Larry Howard, he actually tried to nail LHO as the assassin by saying, "Well, its his rifle."

In other words, Brokaw did not even know it was the wrong rifle in evidence before he uttered that erroneous phrase.

 

This is why the MSM is such a sick and dying animal.

Edited December 29, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

Jim,

     In the cases of Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Jim Lehrer, do you have a sense that these news anchors actually believe the Warren Commission narrative, as opposed to being told by their corporate bosses (e.g., Don Hewitt, et.al.) that they have to promote the WCR?

    For many years, I tended to trust Dan Rather, as a conscientious "liberal."  In fact, I stopped watching corporate television news altogether, in disgust, after Dan Rather was fired over the forged Dubya Bush National Guard letter.

    I have also trusted Jim Lehrer, for the most part.

[James DiEugenio]

Interesting question.  It is inherently speculative but based upon what Rather told Tanenbaum around the time of JFK, I would have to say that I do not think they believe it.

I also base that on the article I did about Roger Feinman and how he got fired at CBS.  He showed how the 1967 four part special was begun as a real attempt to get to the facts of the case and how that was tilted by the top level management.  As per Rather, he told Tanenbaum off camera that "We really blew it on the JFK case."

But see, once that decision was made, there really was no turning back.  There is even a declassified memo from the NY Times  where an FBI source says that they now consider the WR wrong but they will abide by its main conclusions anyway.

Talk about a schizoid nightmare.