Michael Griffith

And you keep ignoring the clear evidence that the war was entirely winnable, as was proved by Operation Linebacker II in 1972, when we brought North Vietnam to the verge of collapse in less than two weeks by finally doing most of the things that the JCS and CINCPAC had been recommending since 1965. Are you aware that we now know from North Vietnamese sources the devastating, crushing effects of Linebacker II and that Hanoi was panicked, desperate, and on the verge of collapse? I am not the least bit surprised that LBJ and some other senior Democrats harbored the erroneous belief that the war was unwinnable. LBJ and McNamara were the ones who imposed the disastrous, nonsensical restrictions that prevented a swift military victory in Vietnam. Again, look what happened when Nixon lifted most of those restrictions with Linebacker II. If LBJ and McNamara had been in charge of the Korean War, and if there had been an anti-war movement in the 1950s identical to the one of the 1960s and 1970s, and if our news media had lied about the Korean War the way they lied about the Vietnam War, we would have lost the Korean War. There would be no South Korea, and the people in the southern part of Korea would be suffering under the same type of repressive communist rule that the people of Vietnam and North Korea now suffer under. It is truly sad to see liberals minimizing the brutality of Vietnam's communist government on the grounds that, gee, the government has allowed some American fast-food chains and other Western businesses to operate in the country. Well, shucks, by that warped, immoral reasoning, Putin's pre-2021 Russia wasn't all that bad because Russia allowed American fast-food chains to operate in the country. Ditto for China's brutal regime--it must not really be all that bad because there are lots of American fast-food restaurants in China. Have you or any of your fellow Vietnam War critics here bothered to read or watch anything that presents the other side of the story? I've read the Hastings, Karnow, Halberstam, Sheehan, and Valentine books on the war, among others. How many pro-Vietnam War books have you read? Have you even bothered to watch the two-part AIM documentary Television's Vietnam, which I've linked in previous replies? How about the video of Selverstone's 2016 presentation? Anything? If you cared enough to at least read one or two of the better scholarly books that defend the Vietnam War, you would learn about the vast wealth of material from North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese sources that utterly destroys the liberal version of the war.

Let's just put it this way: Anyone who denies that JFK would be unwelcome in today's Democratic Party needs to name a single prominent Democrat who would support the following: -- JFK's tax cut proposal included a provision to cut the top marginal tax rate 91% to 65%, a staggering reduction of 28%. Name me one current prominent Democrat would who support such a thing. -- In 1962, JFK used an investment tax credit and an increase in depreciation allowances to give corporations a 10% reduction in their income taxes. Name me a current Democrat who would support such a thing, other than Manchin and perhaps Sinema. -- JFK repeatedly made the argument that lower tax rates would not lead to less federal revenue but to more federal revenue. Liberal Democrats have ridiculed this idea for years. If you think JFK never would have said this, read his December 1962 speech to the Economic Club of New York when he was making the case for his proposed tax cut bill: American Rhetoric: John F. Kennedy - Address to the Economic Club of New York -- JFK said he was willing to support certain kinds of federal loans, scholarships, and/or grants to private religious colleges. Such an idea has been taboo among liberal Democrats for a very long time. In fact, some liberals have even attempted to deny Pell Grant money to religious colleges that do not allow same-sex couples to live together in campus dorms or that teach that homosexuality is morally wrong. -- JFK, through RFK, was willing to publicly call out labor unions that were under Mafia influence or control. The Teamsters union, led by Jimmy Hoffa, was furious with JFK and RFK. As a senator, one of JFK's main efforts was a campaign against “the cancer of labor racketeering.” He criticized union leaders who engaged in "extortion, shakedowns, and bribery.” Please, name me one liberal Democrat who will go within 100 feet of the issue of labor union corruption. Give me a name. -- JFK initiated one of the largest and most rapid peacetime defense buildups in American history. He more than doubled the acquisition rate of Polaris submarines, doubled the production capacity for Minuteman missiles, increased by 50% the number of bombers standing ready on 15-minute alert, doubled the number of combat divisions in the Army's strategic reserve, increased U.S. air power by a staggering 12 wings (each wing has three or four squadrons, and each squadron has around 18 to 24 planes), and increased the U.S. Navy's size by a whopping 70 ships--all in barely two years. Name me one current Democrat who would support such an enormous peacetime military expansion. -- JFK appointed many centrists to the federal courts. One of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade was a JFK nominee (Justice Byron White). He appointed such centrists/moderate conservatives as Griffen Bell, Paul Hays, Irving Kaufman, and J. Spencer Bell. I'd bet good money that if judges identical to these men were nominated today, they would have a very hard time getting confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate. -- JFK called abortion "repugnant." In the early 1960s, abortion was not a big issue, but population control was. When JFK was asked about this, he replied, "“Now, on the question of limiting population: As you know the Japanese have been doing it very vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans.” As any politically aware person knows, the vast majority of Democrats in Congress would angrily condemn such a comment if a Republican (or Joe Manchin) made it. -- JFK was a budget hawk. His budget deficits were lower than Eisenhower's 1959 budget deficit. None other than Ted Sorenson, his close aide and speech writer, said, “Kennedy was a fiscal conservative. Most of us and the press and historians have, for one reason or another, treated Kennedy as being much more liberal than he so regarded himself at the time… In fiscal matters, he was extremely conservative, very cautious about the size of the budget.” Needless to say, liberal Democrats have blocked every effort to pass a federal balanced budget amendment. Name me a single current liberal Democrat who is even remotely as hawkish on the budget as JFK was. -- JFK ended Ike's disgraceful embargo on arms sales to Israel and sold Israel surface-to-air missiles. He sold the Hawk missile system to Israel. There are still some traditional liberal Democrats who would applaud this policy, but the anti-Israeli (and anti-Semitic) AOC-Ilhan Omar-Rashida Tlaib wing of the party would condemn it. I could go on for another page or two. Again, JFK would be aghast at how far left the Democratic Party has lurched. If he were alive right now, he would either be a Joe Manchin Democrat or a Larry Hogan/John Kasich Republican. Most liberal Democrats would view him with suspicion, if not hostility.

You haven't proven me wrong on defense spending and unions. I did not say JFK's defense buildup was the biggest in our history--I said it was one of the biggest, which it in fact was. Rarely in our history have we added so many new divisions, submarines, etc., in such a short period of time. Spending alone does not tell the whole story, because JFK forced the Pentagon to be spend money more wisely, which enabled large savings on some programs that were then invested in weapons and troops. As for unions, you keep ignoring my points and repeating general claims. In two major strikes, JFK supported arbitration instead of intervening on the side of the unions, and when asked about the strikes in news conferences, he was very even-handed in his answers. It is a matter of record that some union leaders were very upset with JFK's war on organized crime and over Bobby's going public with Mafia influence in the unions. You do realize that Jimmy Hoffa was a labor leader, right? "There were no troops in Vietnam on the day Kennedy was killed. There were only advisors." I'm sorry, but this is a downright silly argument. Most of those "advisors" were Special Forces troops, who were far better trained than regular troops and were heavily armed. Also, it has been known for at least 58 years that those "advisors" often times took part in combat operations with ARVN forces against the communists. Anyone who has done any serious reading on the Vietnam War knows this. Even some ultra-leftist authors have acknowledged this documented fact. Bobby's 1967 statement does not say JFK would have "NEVER" sent in combat troops. He said JFK "was determined" not to do so. Bobby said the same thing in his April 1964 interview, and then he went on to explain that if South Vietnam were on the verge of collapse, sending in ground troops was not absolutely off the table with JFK. He also specified that JFK would have at least provided air support. Again, you would have a solid case if you limited your argument to saying that JFK was determined to avoid sending in ground troops, and that he was in the process of withdrawing some of the U.S. forces that were already there. But when you jump from that point and then claim that JFK would have completely withdrawn and completely disengaged from South Vietnam, you are going well beyond what the evidence supports.

Are you really denying that the current communist regime in Vietnam is a brutal tyranny, just because they let some citizens take classes in business and finance and allow some Western companies, such as Ben & Jerry's and Bank of America, to operate in the country? You might want to read the Human Rights Watch report on Vietnam, part of which I quoted in my reply. Let's read it again: Vietnam’s human rights record remains dire in all areas. The Communist Party maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association, and religion, are restricted. Rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault, and imprisonment. Farmers lose land to development projects without adequate compensation, and workers are not allowed to form independent unions. The police use torture and beatings to extract confessions. The criminal justice system lacks independence. (Vietnam | Country Page | World | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)) No, I am not confusing what happened in South Vietnam with what happened in Cambodia. Are you not aware that the communists executed over 50,000 South Vietnamese and sent hundreds of thousands of others to reeducation camps? What exactly have you read about the Vietnam War? If you are unaware of the brutality that the North Vietnamese government inflicted on the South Vietnamese after the war, your reading on the subject has been woefully one-sided and insufficient. Your comments about the alleged error in backing the French and about the Geneva Accords are another indication that your reading on Vietnam has been very one-sided. Are you seriously suggesting that we should have backed the Soviet-Chinese-backed Vietnamese communists instead of the French? And it was North Vietnam who most egregiously violated the Geneva Accords, not the U.S. or South Vietnam. You might want to read JFK's pre-1960 comments about Vietnam and the Geneva Accords, for starters. This isn't even a close call. Here is one of JFK's speeches on the situation in Vietnam following the Geneva Accords: Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the Conference on Vietnam Luncheon in the Hotel Willard, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1956 | JFK Library I notice you didn't address my points about the Tet Offensive and the Easter Offensive and what we now know from North Vietnamese archival sources. These two events alone destroy the myth that the war was unwinnable. If Nixon had not been under such tremendous pressure from Congress, the media, and the anti-war movement to limit Operation Linebacker II's duration, and if the operation had continued for another few weeks, the communist government in the North would have collapsed or surrendered. With Linebacker II (aka the Christmas Bombings), Nixon took most of the actions that our senior military leaders had been suggesting since 1965, and in less than two weeks we brought North Vietnam to the verge of collapse, and that's why they hastily agreed to resume negotiations, which led to the Paris Peace Accords. Linebacker II proved to any rational person that the war most certainly was winnable. We know from North Vietnamese archives that Hanoi's leaders were panicked and desperate and considering capitulation after just eight or nine days of Linebacker II.

Alright, so it's obvious that you are a diehard, very partisan liberal who has read very few non-liberal sources. And that's fine. When it comes to the JFK case, we agree about 80% of the time, as far as I can tell, and that's really all I care about when it comes to JFK. JFK's defense buildup was in fact one of the biggest in American history, a point that JFK himself made on a few occasions. JFK increased defense spending by $8 billion in his first defense budget (Sorenson, Kennedy, pp. 417-418). Kennedy: * More than doubled the acquisition rate of Polaris submarines. * Doubled the production capacity for Minuteman missiles. * Increased by fifty percent the number of manned bombers standing ready on fifteen-minute alert. * Doubled the number of ready combat divisions in the Army's strategic reserve. * Expanded U.S. tactical air power by nearly a dozen wings. * Increased the active naval fleet by more than seventy vessels. JFK was "extremely friendly to labor unions"? Well, many labor leaders certainly didn't think so. JFK was definitely pro-labor, pro-working class, but his relationship with unions varied greatly. Many union leaders angrily condemned RFK's prosecution of labor leaders and his public comments about Mafia influence in labor unions. Joe Manchin doesn't like Obamacare? Well, when the Republicans tried to undo it early in Trump's presidency, Manchin voted with the Democrats to preserve it. It's a good thing he did so, because the Republicans only needed one more vote to undo Obamacare. Manchin also voted for the two-year extension of the Obamacare subsidy boost. I'm not sure what your point is about JFK being a nationalist. I didn't say he wasn't. He was most certainly a nationalist, where many liberals today spit on America's heritage and view themselves as citizens of the world.

I thought this thread would be a debate about the claim that JFK would have totally withdrawn and disengaged from South Vietnam, even if it meant a communist victory. But I see there are numerous replies on the Vietnam War itself. Rather than answer each reply individually, I will answer to them in this response. -- The authors of the replies don’t appear to have read or viewed any of the sources that I recommended/linked. They especially appear to be unaware of the important revelations from North Vietnamese archives, revelations that liberal books on the war continue to ignore. Dr. Mark Moyar, among other scholars, discusses these important disclosures at length in his books on the war. -- By no humane, rational standard can the communist takeover of South Vietnam (SV) be viewed as anything but a terrible tragedy. North Vietnam’s (NV’s) brutality and oppression against SV’s population is profusely documented. Even today, communist Vietnam is a repressive, brutal regime. Just because Vietnam, like Russia and China, has allowed some Western businesses to operate within its borders does not change the facts about the state’s oppression and violence. The following comes from the latest Human Rights Watch report on Vietnam: Vietnam’s human rights record remains dire in all areas. The Communist Party maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association, and religion, are restricted. Rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault, and imprisonment. Farmers lose land to development projects without adequate compensation, and workers are not allowed to form independent unions. The police use torture and beatings to extract confessions. The criminal justice system lacks independence. (Vietnam | Country Page | World | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)) I find it troubling that some here seem to think that handing over 18 million South Vietnamese to communist tyranny was the right thing to do. For all its flaws and corruption, SV’s government was vastly better than NV’s brutal regime. -- For all intents and purposes, we had the Vietnam War won after NV’s disastrous Tet Offensive in 1968. The communists suffered horrendous, devastating losses. Even a modest follow-up campaign against NV would have led to a communist collapse, but no such campaign was launched. Why not? Because our news media and the anti-war movement did NV an enormous favor and falsely painted the Tet Offensive as an American defeat and as evidence that the war was hopeless. -- One major reason that NV’s forces suffered such horrible losses in the Tet Offensive was that they believed that once they attacked, a large portion of the South’s population would join them. Instead, the vast majority of South Vietnamese remained loyal to the Thieu government, and SV’s army fought well. -- The My Lai massacre, where 340-500 civilians were murdered, was a one-off event. Even Hugh Thompson, the brave chopper pilot who landed and intervened to stop the massacre, years later said that My Lai was the exception and not the rule. On balance, American soldiers fought honorably. In contrast, the North Vietnamese routinely committed atrocities, the worst being at Hue in 1968, where they murdered over 3,000 civilians. Our news media said next to nothing about Hue, and the anti-war movement seemed unconcerned about it; some anti-war activists even claimed the Hue Massacre was a myth created by the U.S. Army. Hue Massacre | Freedom For Vietnam (wordpress.com) -- I would like to see the two statements where Nixon allegedly said the Vietnam War was unwinnable. I suspect these are hearsay comments attributed to Nixon by others. In every single firsthand statement, written or spoken, that Nixon himself made on the subject, he ardently rejected the view that the war was unwinnable. In fact, he repeatedly made the point that if Congressional Democrats and the anti-war movement had not acted as agents for NV and had not smeared the war effort, the war most certainly could have been won. -- NV’s 1972 Easter Offensive proved that SV’s army, with American air and logistical support, could hold its own and even defeat NV’s forces. The SV army did virtually all of the ground fighting. If we had just made it clear that we were willing to keep providing SV with air and logistical support for as along as needed, SV would still be a free nation today. But, incredibly, the Democratic-controlled Congress voted to markedly reduce our aid to SV and then passed the Case-Church Amendment, which assured NV that the U.S. would not provide air or logistical support if the North invaded. When NV launched its next major offensive, in violation of the Paris Peace Accords, Congress refused to authorize any American air or logistical support for SV, even though NV was receiving huge amounts of weapons and ammo from the Soviet Union. -- We could have defeated NV in a matter of months if we had used the full force of our air and sea power. This would not have required nukes. Many Americans still are unaware of the obscene, absurd restrictions that were placed on U.S. forces during most of the Vietnam War, restrictions that were unheard of in WW II and the Korean War. Admiral Sharp discusses these insane restrictions in detail in his book Strategy for Defeat. When Nixon lifted most of those restrictions, lo and behold, this did not start World War III. Nixon was on the verge of bringing NV to its knees with Operation Linebacker II, as we now know from North Vietnamese archives. That’s why NV agreed to resume negotiations. Another few weeks of bombing would have toppled the communist government or caused it to surrender. -- Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War is a biased, incomplete left-wing attack on the war. If you’ve watched this documentary and have any interest in doing balanced research, you should watch AIM’s two-part documentary Television’s Vietnam: Television's Vietnam: The Real Story (1984) - YouTube (part 1) Television's Vietnam: The Impact of Media (1985) - YouTube (part 2) -- Every attack on the Vietnam War can be made with equal or stronger effect against the Korean War. Yet, would anyone in their right mind say it’s too bad that North Korea didn’t win? Look at the stark differences between North Korea and South Korea. South Vietnam could have been another South Korea, if we had just continued to provide air and logistical support.

We'll just have to agree to disagree about Bobby's motives for saying what he said. I don't think he was posturing. I would note that even when Bobby turned against LBJ's handling of the war, he never once said that JFK intended to withdraw all troops, much less that he intended to completely disengage from South Vietnam. I think it is a very big deal that JFK did not want to introduce ground troops (aka combat troops). I think JFK would have handled the Vietnam War much more competently than LBJ did. However, I think Arthur Schlesinger put it best when he said "it is impossible to say with assurance" what JFK would have done about Vietnam. This is one reason it is problematic and discrediting when conspiracy theorists insist that JFK absolutely, positively would have completely withdrawn and disengaged from Vietnam no matter what. Aside from a handful of second-hand anecdotes given many years after the fact, there is simply no evidence for such a position.

You are misinterpreting the Hawaii SecDef conference. Did you watch Selverstone's 2016 video? I again point to Bobby's comments in his April 1964 oral interview. If anyone knew what JFK was thinking on Vietnam, it was Bobby. Bobby said JFK was determined to win the war, and that JFK never considered a complete pullout. Bobby also said JFK would have provided air strikes, and he indicated JFK may have approved large-scale escalation if South Vietnam were facing collapse. Abandoning 18 million people to communist tyranny would not have been a noble act. Even today, Vietnam is a repressive, totalitarian regime. Yes, Vietnam, like Russia and China, has allowed some Western businesses to operate in the country, but Vietnam is still a brutal dictatorship. Go read the last several Human Rights Watch reports on Vietnam. This is from the current Human Rights Watch assessment of Vietnam: Vietnam’s human rights record remains dire in all areas. The Communist Party maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association, and religion, are restricted. Rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault, and imprisonment. Farmers lose land to development projects without adequate compensation, and workers are not allowed to form independent unions. The police use torture and beatings to extract confessions. The criminal justice system lacks independence. (Vietnam | Country Page | World | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)

I take it you don't read conservative journals and don't hang around many conservatives. Go look at articles on the Vietnam War published in conservative publications over the last, say, 10 years. You'll see that the overwhelming majority argue that the war was an honorable effort that was undone when the Democratic-controlled Congress slashed our aid to South Vietnam soon after the Paris Peace Accords and forbade the president from ordering U.S. military forces into and/or over South Vietnam without Congressional approval. Ronald Reagan talked about this. So did George W. Bush. So did John McCain. So has Ted Cruz. You might check out the Vietnam Veterans for Factual History website: https://www.vvfh.org/ Here's a 2017 Townhall article on the group: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2017/11/08/vietnam-vets-group-demands-pbs-documentary-correct-inaccuracies-n2406540

Why would Oswald have lied about not bringing curtain rods to work when he would have known that surely the curtain rods would eventually be found in the TSBD, if he had in fact brought them into the building? If Oswald did bring curtain rods to work, why would he have denied this, given the evidence that suggests that his room in the rooming house did need a new curtain rod? (No, I don't believe the landlady's story that Dallas police officers bent the curtain rod when they searched his room after he was arrested. Why would they have done that? It makes no sense.) Either way, unless Frazier and his sister had terrible eyesight and were horrible judges of length, the bag that Oswald was brought to work was far too small to have carried a disassembled Carcano.

I don't know about Kissinger, but Nixon never said the war was unwinnable. This was one of the many baseless claims made in Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary. Nixon repeatedly said the war was winnable. The Vietnam War - Errors and Omissions - Episode Eight » (nixonfoundation.org)

I think it is important that we distinguish between escalation to the point of introducing ground troops and a complete, precipitous withdrawal regardless of the consequences. Those are two very different issues. I agree that JFK was strongly against putting in ground troops, although RFK indicated in April 1964 that JFK may have opted to do this if South Vietnam were on the verge of collapse. But, yes, JFK strongly wanted to avoid sending in ground troops. I acknowledge this. However, this in no way means that JFK would have withdrawn all U.S. forces regardless of the situation on the ground and regardless of the consequences. I think Stone and other conspiracy theorists would be on much stronger ground if they focused on JFK's opposition to sending in ground troops and did not insist that JFK would have completely pulled out of South Vietnam even if it meant losing South Vietnam to the communists.

You need to read Stoll's book. JFK pushed for slashing the tax rate for wealthy Americans in the top tax bracket. He gave us one of the biggest increases in defense spending in our history. He was no rubber stamp for labor unions--in fact, he recognized that some labor unions were Mafia-dominated, and his brother RFK investigated and prosecuted many labor leaders with Mafia ties. He was for free trade but not if it meant putting American businesses at an unfair disadvantage, and he did not shy away from retaliating against unfair trade practices. He nominated several center-right judges for the federal judiciary--one of the dissenters in Roe v. Wade was a Kennedy nominee. He opposed proposals for a four-day work week. He supported allowing certain tax credits/taxpayer funding for private religious schools. He kept federal spending in check and worked hard toward achieving a balanced budget. He allowed farmers to vote on whether to continue with federal price supports and controls or to have those controls lifted, and he respected their decision when they chose the latter, even though he thought it was a bad idea. And notice what JFK said: If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." Such views are not popular in today's Democratic Party. Some Democrats would label JFK's statement as "reactionary," "extreme," etc., if a Republican or Joe Manchin were to make it. If JFK were alive today, he would definitely not qualify as a liberal Democrat. He would be viewed as a centrist who was much closer to Joe Machin than to Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris. Finally, JFK's nomination by the New-York-state-level Liberal Party proves little. The Liberal Party was a fusion party, very similar to the New-York-state-level Conservative Party. If you were the Democratic Party's choice in New York, you were virtually guaranteed of also getting the Liberal Party's nomination.

For those who might be interested in more information on "the other side of the story" on the Vietnam War, here is website on the subject: https://sites.google.com/view/vietnamwartruth/home Among other items, you'll find videos of lectures by Dr. Moyar, Dr. Sorley, and Phillip Jennings.

Oliver Stone’s mostly solid documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed and its shorter version JFK Revisited claim that JFK would have withdrawn all U.S. troops from South Vietnam in 1965 even if this caused South Vietnam to fall to the communists. Stone made a similar claim in his 1991 movie JFK. This claim was one of the major errors identified in the film by numerous historians, yet Stone doubled-down on the claim in his two recent documentaries. Another problem with the claim is that, as voiced by most conspiracy theorists, it usually includes the liberal argument that the Vietnam War was wrong and unwinnable and never should have been fought, a position that most conservatives reject as wrong and unpatriotic. I think Dr. Marc Selverstone’s upcoming book The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam, using new material and overlooked evidence, will demonstrate—and demonstrate convincingly—that the 1,000-man withdrawal was not the beginning of a complete pullout but part of a strategy to pressure Diem to make reforms in order to prosecute the war more effectively. Yes, certainly, JFK intended to eventually bring home all or nearly all U.S. troops from South Vietnam, but he had no intention of doing so until he was confident that South Vietnam was safe and secure. Dr. Selverstone, a professor of presidential studies and chairman of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia, has been working on this book for many years. His video below on JFK’s Vietnam policy was done in 2016, and he has spent the last six years doing further research on the subject for his upcoming book. The Vietnam War has been a research interest of mine for over 20 years. I’ve read several liberal books on the Vietnam War, but I have yet to meet a liberal who has read a single scholarly book that defends the war. I’m sure there are liberals who have done so—I just haven’t met any of them. If you want to read the other side of the story on the Vietnam War, I recommend the following books: Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect (1978), by Admiral U.S.G Sharp, who was the commander of all U.S. Navy forces in the Vietnam War. Among other things, Admiral Sharp documents the absolutely absurd restrictions that LBJ and McNamara imposed on the use of U.S. air power. Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History (1998), by B.G. Burkett. Not only corrects the record about the war but debunks common myths about Vietnam veterans. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam (2007), Dr. Lewis Sorley. One of the most careful, thorough studies on the war ever published. By the way, Dr. Sorley is extremely critical of General Westmoreland. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (2006) and Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 (2022), by Dr. Mark Moyar. Dr. Moyar’s research includes new material from North Vietnamese archives that provides fascinating insights into how North Vietnam’s leaders viewed the war at important stages. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam (2007), by Dr. Mark Moyar. This remains a much-needed correction to Doug Valentine’s severely irresponsible and misleading book The Phoenix Program: America’s Use of Terror in Vietnam. If you want to take an hour to watch a documentary that challenges the liberal view of the war, here’s a good one to watch: Television's Vietnam: The Impact of Media (1985) - YouTube Here’s the video that features Dr. Selverstone talking about JFK’s Vietnam policy in 2016: JFK and the Vietnam Escalation [10/13/2016] - YouTube

I realize "cowardly" is a strong word, but I couldn't think of a better term to describe the way most Kennedy family and friends and fellows Dems responded to the cover-up. I also realize that many of them were not so much cowardly as they were disinterested or selfish.

I'm of two minds about the mail order documents. On the one hand, such a limited amount of handwriting could have been forged, and I find it hard to believe that anyone would have been so supremely stupid as to leave a paper trail that would enable authorities to trace the rifle and pistol straight back to him, when he could have much more easily bought a rifle and pistol at a local gun store and left no paper trail. On the other hand, I think Lamar Waldron makes a plausible case that Oswald could have been told to do this by his handlers and could have been led to believe that he was aiding the then-ongoing Senate hearings into mail-order weapons. After all, Oswald at that point would have never dreamed that the mail-order documents would be used to frame him for JFK's death.

What Dulles was saying was, "I'm the only god around here. That little Kennedy was just a wannabe who needed to be put in his place."

It's nice to see a WC critic who is under 40 and who is writing about the case. That's encouraging.

PTSD? Have you listened to that oral interview? Bobby doesn't sound like he's in any kind of PTSD daze. He sounds entirely lucid and engaged. I would take Bobby's April 1964 statements over statements made many years later by McNamara, O'Donnell, Powers, Morse, etc. Moreover, even in 1968 when Bobby turned against the war and advocated a complete withdrawal, he never claimed that JFK planned on a complete withdrawal or complete disengagement. I also repeat the point that Schlesinger and Sorenson said nothing about any intent for a complete withdrawal, much less a complete disengagement, in their 1965 memoirs. It is a significant mistake to infer that because JFK was willing to withdraw 1,000 troops in late 1963, he therefore intended to withdraw all troops and was unwilling to take any major actions to prevent South Vietnam from falling to the communists. I think the evidence is clear, and most scholars agree with this, that JFK was determined to do all he could to save South Vietnam but that he did not want to introduce combat troops, that he had every intention of providing South Vietnam with all the weapons and supplies they needed, and possibly air support, even if he eventually decided to withdraw all American troops. However, in his 1964 oral interview, Bobby allowed that JFK may have decided to introduce combat troops if South Vietnam had been on the verge of collapse.

Oswald denied that he brought curtain rods to work that day. He said he only brought his lunch to work, and that he brought it in a paper bag. He said sometimes he brought his lunch in larger paper bags and sometimes in smaller ones. When told that Frazier had said he'd brought curtain rods to work that day, Oswald replied that Frazier was mistaken. Marina said she believed that the bag Oswald took to work that day had his lunch in it. For many years, I used to carry my lunch to work in the large brown grocery bags that I would get from grocery stores.

Where are all the up-and-coming WC critics that we'd be expecting to see entering the research community? I know there are some, but I'd hope there'd be more. I'll be around for another 20 years or so, but as I look around, it seems to me that most other prominent conspiracy theorists are at least in their late 60s, and many are in their 70s or 80s. Who will be the leading opponents of the lone-gunman myth in 10 years or 15 years? Will they be badly outnumbered by WC apologists?

My approach is that I will not trash a book unless its central thesis is erroneous and unless it contains more invalid arguments than valid arguments. This is why I have not trashed Mortal Error. Even though the book's central thesis is wrong, the book contains a lot more valid information than anything written by Posner, Bugliosi, Belin, Moore, etc. I believe Shaw's The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is a worthwhile book that contains important information on Kilgallen and her death. I don't agree with Shaw's belief that the Mafia was the main, if not the only, group behind Dorothy's death, but that's okay. There are parts of Janney's book that I find weak, but, on balance, I think it is an important work of scholarship that contains some revealing, important information. I'm talking about the third edition. I have not read the first and second editions.

Here is a balanced review of Janney's Mary's Mosaic that addresses the initial harsh reviews and notes the improvements that Janney made to his case in the second and third editions of his book: Review of Peter Janney’s “Mary’s Mosaic” – Lit by Imagination (wordpress.com) And I, for one, think that the case against the man prosecuted for Meyer's murder, Ray Crump, smells to high heaven, and I'm surprised that two of the harsh reviews argue that Crump was guilty. There were very good reasons that the jury acquitted Crump. If I'd been on that jury, I would have voted for acquittal hands down.

I notice Rolling Stone gave it a very bad (and very unfair) review. This Is Where Oliver Stone Got His Loony JFK Conspiracies From – Rolling Stone What is going on when a liberal journal such as Rolling Stone trashes a superb documentary that presents solid evidence of a JFK assassination conspiracy? Rolling Stone's pathetic review is what I would expect from National Review, RedState, Sean Hannity, etc. (And I say this as a fan of NR, RS, and Hannity--well, the majority of the time.)