Dean Hagerman Posted December 12, 2010 Share Posted December 12, 2010 Like others have said you are a great speaker Greg I enjoyed your presentation Excellet job Greg! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 12, 2010 Author Share Posted December 12, 2010 Like others have said you are a great speaker Greg I enjoyed your presentation Excellet job Greg! Thanks Dean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 13, 2010 Author Share Posted December 13, 2010 I'm glad you enjoyed it, Dave! Thanks-- great job, greg here's one from an old friend of yours you will recognize i know he would be very pleased...best b Thanks Beans. YOUR_MAIN monk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Well done, Greg. You're a relaxed speaker with a comfortable grasp of your subject matter, witty where applicable (great ending, btw!), and unflappable ("oh, you already knew the answer to that question!"). Either that or you were nervous as hell and hid it like a pro!! I've shown NSAM 263/273 to several people skeptical of any sort of "conspiracy" in JFK's murder, and they almost universally do at least a 90-degree turn, if not 180. But as convincing as it may seem, is it really a smoking gun? Are its apparent oddities as singularly striking as they seem to be, or is there more to it than meets the eye? I'll play devil's advocate here with some alternatives that aren't, I don't think, terribly far-fetched at all. First, the question of printing. Much is made over a leather-bound volume being prepared of the final(?) report on which NSAM 273 is purportedly based. I've never seen the original of this, and don't recall having read any lengthy account about what, exactly, this "leather-bound volume" contained. Can you possibly expound upon that? Are we looking at multiple copies of a thick tome, or one-to-a-dozen bindings, permanent or otherwise, of a less-than-100-page report prepared specifically for the president and his advisors (NSC, 5412, etc.)? The practice of preparing a leather-bound copy of official reports does not seem extraordinary, and we'll recall that LBJ was presented with a similar version of the Warren Report, as were a fairly large number of elected and other officials, possibly including the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence as well, at a presumably significant cost. From what I've read about different things in other contexts, this is a fairly common practice. (Sure, it's expensive, but it's not their money.) Likewise, depending upon the depth or scope of a report, it doesn't seem as if it's unusual within governmental operations for reports or assessments or what-have-you to be prepared in advance of its presentation. I think it's fair to say that none of us really expect any of the participants of the Honolulu conference to be the people who actually wrote the report, typing it up on the plane as they flew over the Pacific, nor do I think we really envision lower-level functionaries with enough rank to justify being on such a trip doing this either. More than likely, these being government activities (no such thing as an expense too large), advocates of different actions and policies prepared lengthy "position papers" in advance using information already at hand from favored sources, with the intention that their document be the one eventually accepted by the president or whatever authority it's intended for. So it's not necessarily unlikely that they left Washington with different versions of the "final report" already prepared for presentation, or that more than one "final report" would actually be presented as alternatives to the president. In Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), author David Rothkopf recounts meetings of the NSC during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations - which, according to Rothkopf, were conducted very differently between those and other administrations from Truman to Bush II - during which opposing viewpoints were presented as alternatives to the presidents they served. While he quotes only brief passages from those position papers, it's clear that the quotations are but excerpts, and not the complete report made to the group or to the president. That he quotes from reports that were not adopted as policy strongly suggests that those defeated motions survive in some form. Are there any such papers surviving from LBJ's early meetings, whether of the NSC as a formal whole or any informal subset or even individual advisors on an ad hoc basis, that suggest the process by which NSAM 273 came into being? Does any record exist beyond the final product, and if so, what does it reflect? Is there an extant position paper/report that more closely resembles NSAM 263's apparent objectives, possibly also prepared in advance and bound in leather for the president's consideration? If any of this is so, it doesn't particularly strike me as odd that the introductory language includes that "the President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge," written in the past tense about an event that would presumably occur in the future. This is akin to a "model order" often prepared by an attorney for a judge's signature, presuming that the judge will endorse exactly the position advocated by the writer that only needs to be signed to be put into effect. Interestingly, Rothkopf (pages 82-83, early in this 500-plus page book which does not concentrate by any means on that era) also recounts a meeting in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration during which the Cuba situation was discussed, and options for some form of action against Castro's regime, provided to him (Rothkopf) by General William Odom of the National Security Agency under Reagan and Zbigniew Brzezinski's military aide, worth reproducing at length here. As prelude, Rothkopf discusses that portion of JFK's debates with Nixon over confronting Castro's communism, with Kennedy calling for action that he knew from briefings to be under consideration, and Nixon constrained from discussing them due to his office and part in the planning. "It is one thing to call for action as a candidate," Rothkopf writes, "but quite another to be responsible for carrying it out as president." As a political corollary to the old adage of "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it," he quotes "be careful of what you call for — as you may actually have to end up doing it." Related Odom during a 2004 interview with the author: I once asked [General Andrew] Goodpaster [Eisenhower's principal aide covering foreign policy and national security matters and NSC staff secretary, who occupied the office next to the president's] if Eisenhower had still been in office in the spring of 1961, would we still have had the Bay of Pigs. He said, "Interesting you should bring that up...." [CIA Deputy Director of Plans] Richard Bissell initiated the planning, I guess in '59, and the idea, according to Goodpaster, was to create a Cuban military unit that could, after Fidel had been overthrown, enter Cuba and become the cored of a post-Fidel Cuban army. The objective for the plan was not to overthrow Fidel. Eisenhower approved this limited concept only for the contingency that Castro's regime collapsed or was overthrown by Cubans in Cuba [emphasis added]. The CIA-created force was not to invade Cuba. No invasion, no provocations. Eisenhower was briefed on it in the summer of '60. General Goodpaster, as Eisenhower's staff secretary, took the notes of the meeting with Bissell and his assistants. After they met, Goodpaster turned to Ike and said, "Mr. President, if you don't watch it, that plan will take legs of its own." Eisenhower snapped back, "Not wile I am president!" Goodpaster responded, "Yes, Mr. President. That's the problem. You won't be president much longer." Rothkopf, as I've noted, earlier related instances where opposing position papers were prepared for adoption by the president, and here he is describing a position advocated by the CIA that was in direct contravention to the policy intended by then-President Eisenhower which could "take legs of its own" if Eisenhower wasn't careful. We all know the substance of how that intended policy changed under Kennedy who, having called for action in his campaign, now ended up having to do it: the CIA's plan "took legs" and turned into disaster. The point being this: whatever Kennedy intended during his lifetime was not incumbent upon Johnson, as the new president, to act upon. What record there is, if any, of Johnson's position during Kennedy's NSC meetings, if any (the legal definition of what cabinet officers, etc., who made up the NSC has apparently evolved under each president, its legally-defined members having more or less of a role and influence as deemed necessary by successive presidents), I don't know; perhaps again, you can shed some light on that. Did Johnson actually participate in NSC proceedings during JFK's administration? Was he more "hawkish," leaning more toward direct intervention even while Kennedy was alive? Either way, is it a great surprise that any president, however he came to office, took his own counsel and made his own decisions irrespective of his predecessor's intentions, desires or policies? In sum, is the "reversal" of Kennedy's "policy" regarding Vietnam - presumably subject to change, even as the CIA sought to influence Ike in the summer of 1960 as his presidency drew to a close and after he'd apparently made "policy" regarding Cuba - any more noteworthy or, more to the point, indicative of high-level conspiracy than if Nixon had won the election and made a full-scale invasion of Cuba in opposition to Ike's policy and beyond JFK's ultimate, more limited action? The decisions of a president are his own, right or wrong, and not necessarily reflective of his pedecessor: was NSAM-273 merely the manifestation of LBJ's long-held position, or a complete turn-around for him as well? For the sake of saying so, the only National Security Action Memorandum that Rothkopf discusses in his book is NSAM-52, which also related to Vietnam's conflict and so is worth noting here as well. Rothkopf points out that, when Kennedy took office, there were fewer than 700 military advisors in Vietnam, and the focus of US policy up to that time had been to provide low-key assistance to the Diem government in Saigon. NSAM-52 initiated several "cautious moves" to increase the commitment of advisors to over 1000 and expand the aid available to Siagon. JFK "next," according to Rothkopf, "dispatched the deputy national security advisor Walt Rostow and General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. While their assessments of the deteriorating situation on the ground may have been correct, their assessments regarding the consequences of what they considered to be appropriate US responses were stunningly wrong. Taylor estimated that the United States would need to deploy no more than 8000 troops to Vietnam to assure the position of our allies in the South and stated flatly: "The risks of backing into a major Asian war by way of (South Vietnam) are present but are not impressive." In retrospect, of course, it is easy to wonder just what "impressive risks" might have been.... The output from the Taylor-Rostow mission contemplated expanding collaboration with the government in the South and expanding US operations in the region from covert intrusions into neighboring states or the Nort to bombing missions. The president's key advisors, Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy [emphasis added], largely embraced the mission's findings. Here began one of the most pernicious illnesses afflicting the policy process: groupthink. Although there were divisions within the group, momentum toward concensus started to build, and the collective agreement of the principles created more momentum, and so on. Kennedy's brillian young technocrats were especially vulnerable to the persuasive power of their own elegant logic. It made it hard to admit the possibility, let alone the desirability, of alternatives. Instead their youthful arrogance reinforced itself. I this, we find that McGeorge Bundy, the signatory to the draft NSAM-273, had apparently and ostensibly been opposed to the directions Kennedy was taking with regard to Vietnam even going back to the early days of JFK's administration, along with fellow influencers (and continued Johnson appointees, reflecting the "continuity" between administrations) Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, among potential others. Was the draft NSAM simply one of their many on-going and as-yet-unsuccessful attempts to dissuade JFK from what they perceived as a "wrong" course of action, a "model order" for him to sign if and when they were successful, and one which they succeeded in having adopted by the new president either as a reflection of his own long-standing opinions, or as a product of a fortuitous circumstance whereby they could say that "Jack would have signed this" and got the new president to heed their long-opposed counsel that Kennedy was too strong- (and "wrong-") minded to accede to? So part of the equation necessary to show intent and foreknowledge - to show that NSAM-263/273 is, in fact, a "smoking gun" of a coup d'etat - would seem to be the absence of any other "draft" memoranda also prepared for the president's (JFK's) signature, even though ultimately not signed by LBJ. Are there any such documents, or is draft -273 the only one ever prepared? Is there any record extant that provides further insight into the discussions taking place before the Honolulu conference, Vietnam jag, and JFK's assassination and the positions taken by JFK's - subsequently LBJ's - advisors? If not, is this the only instance where the earlier "working papers" of JFK's "inner circle" (whether sitting as the NSC or something else, formally or informally) no longer exist, or is the record of other and earlier discussions also barren? In and of itself, the disparity between the JFK-approved NSAM-263 and the Johnson-approved -273 does suggest foreknowledge of an impending change in the presidency and therefore a conspiracy to eliminate JFK as an "obstacle to foreign policy," and it is in such isolation that I can recall this ever being discussed in the research community. But has there been a tendency toward the "path of least resistence" to present these circumstances in isolation simply because it does suggest (if not actually "prove") conspiracy, and the whole record might not be so conducive to such an easy conclusion, or alternately, provide one that is counter to what may be just "popular mythology?" Sometimes it seems that we tend to think of Kennedy's "whiz kids" to be stolid "Kennedy loyalists" who were 100% "behind" JFK, who thought exactly the same way, and who sought only to ensure that Jack's great ideas and plans were implemented according to his wishes, when in fact they were men with their own ideas and ideologies, not necessarily diametrically opposed to JFK's, but certainly not always in complete accord with them. As we saw in the summer of 1960 example of the meeting between Eisenhower and Bissell, various factions - and we might well consider everyone part of "factions" that ebb and swell according to the occasion and discussions at hand - will continue to press their own agenda at every turn, even if only because situations change and the solutions they called for yesterday are not necessarily the solutions that will work next week. There is, as far as I can see at the moment (but can certainly be convinced otherwise), no reason to think that Kennedy's advisors were any different. Is there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 A bit more from Running the World (pp. 99-105) about "groupthink," LBJ's use of the NSC, and his (and JFK's) chief advisers. It is a glimpse into the modus operandi of those who drove NSAM-273: Johnson liked informality, a trait he carried to extremes by continuing discussions with key aides while he was in the bathroom - or, in one instance with Moyers, while he was actually having an enema. The most important difference between him and Kennedy managing his team, though, had to do with his introduction of a habit he had developed in the Senate, which was to host Tuesday lunches for his core team. According to Harold Saunders, NSC old hand and former assistant to the secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs: Lyndon Johnson wanted an NSC system that would force the bureaucratic elements out there, before recommendations came to the White House, to sort out their differences. I picture him as saying to Bob McNamara and Dean Rusk, Look you guys are smart. I know your departments have differences. But I'd like you two guys to sit down and you figure out and recommend to me what you would do if you were in my shoes. And then come on over to lunch on Tuesday and we'll sit down and each of you can say why you disagreed. And so, we'll take it apart there, but I want the bureaucracies' energies going into making up something that we can realistically do, not exacerbating the fights among them. These lunches - private, small, attended only by those Johnson really wanted to work with - in effect largely supplanted the NSC process although, of course, it [the NSC] continued to operate the president and play its formal role. These Tuesday sessions regularly included McNamara, who had become a primus inter pares [first among equals] in the cabinet. In the words of his successor, Clark Clifford, "In my years in Washington, only a handful of people below the presidential level have dominated the scene: George Marshall, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger all come to mind. But no one ever held the capital in greater sway than Robert S. McNamara did from 1961 until the end of 1967." ... [Throughout that period] he was the leader of the inner circle. Indeed, his leadership is what gave him, in the eyes of the public, the disproportionate share of the blame for the fiasco that was to become Vietnam. Influential in this dynamic was the fact that dealing with military leaders never came as easily to Johnson as it had to Eisenhower. Military men such as General Goodpaster, who served during the Johnson years in a senior capacity in Vietnam, naturally saw that as a weakness. Goodlpaster commented on how uncomfortable he was with the Johnson would snap at the brass - his own service chiefs - and that he would never invite them to the Tuesday lunches that were where the real war planning was taking place. McNamara drove the groupthink, both in the Tuesday lunches and via his frequent, often extraordinary conversations with the president (many of which are now available in transcript form). His counterpart at the top of the pyramid in the government was Secretary of State Rusk, an always thoughtful yet forceful and sometimes hawkish southerner whom Johnson also came to rely on. Indeed, for Johnson, dealing one-on-one with these two men was far preferable to big staff meetings, and later in his term he would actually cede power from the NSC back to State, through the institution of the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), chaired by the under secretary of state. However, in the era of Lyndon Johnson, larger than any institutional reforms, larger than the collective power and personalities and his team, larger than even the personality of his predecessor or his own great ambitions for himself and his country, would loom Vietnam. How it was dealt with was illustrated well by the events that triggered the ultimate escalation of the conflict to levels that even Kennedy, who had commented to those around him that he had anticipated escalation in his second term, wouldn't have imagined. In 1964 ... American military strength had doubled again from the end of 1962 and had reached over 22,000 troops. A series of war games in Washington, simulations conducted by the military but involving senior officials from the NSC and the administarations's foeign policy leadership, produced some very disconcerting results: it would, it turned out, be rather hard to win in Vietnam. Nonethless, there was no will to back down. Indeed, the president and his core advisors were looking for a way to mbilize public support for more aggressive efforts in Indochina.... Shortly after 4:00 a.m. on August 2, 1964, cables arriving at the Pentagon's National Military CommunicationsCenter from the Saigon station provided the trigger they were seeking: The destgroyer USS Maddox reported being approached by North Vietnamese attack boats and responding. Just over seven hours later Johnson met with Secretary Rusk, Under Secretary of State [George] Ball, Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance, and General Earle Wheeler. They were uncertain who authorized the attack on the Maddox, and so they decided to send a protest to Hanoi and expand the patrols in which the Maddox was engaged. General Maxwell Taylor, writing from the embassy in Saigon, protested that this response would be too timid and likely to embolden the North. Consequently, Johnson made a stronger statement, but within two days another attack was reporte on the Maddox. The reaction to the alleged attack was heightened in the context of intelligence warnings of hostile activities had been received earlier. Later, the veracity of the attack reports, which were initially alleged to consist of between nine and twenty-six torpedoes fired at the Maddox and another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, came into question. [All emphases added.] The account continues to describe actions taken by McNamara, who was by then only certain that something had happened, to keep the NSC up to date with what little he really knew. After advising the NSC to recommend a retailiatory air strike to the president, he, Risk, Bundy, Vance and DCI John McCone retired to lunch with Johnson at the White House, where the surviving record indicates that targets for the bombing were decided upon. Later that evening, at a second NSC meeting, McNamara continued to stress that attacks had occurred and were continuing to occur, relying in large part on a NSA intercept warning that was later found to refer to the earlier incident. Half an hour later, Johson, Rusk and Wheeler met with congressional leaders and proposed what would become the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing retailiation. Congessional leaders immediately supported the draft resolution, which had itself been drafted many weeks before the incidents it was itself repraising., according to Rothkopf. Ostensibly, the decision-making error was over few participants responding to the weight of developments given to "separate and not necessarily reliable intelligence flows." More to the point, "given that Johnson's team was looking for an incident to put the aready drafted resolution before Congress when one seemed to have occurred, a reasonable effort to nail down the facts as might have been done in other circumstances likely seemed counterproductive." "In short," he concludes, "groupthink can become powerful enough to drive leaders to twist events and intelligence to support conclusions they have already reached." To what extent might groupthink have motivated those same advisors to take advantage of the assassination of JFK to drive forward their agenda with a new president who almost certainly did not just begin to show the characteristics described on Air Force One at Love Field. Did the "whiz kids," seeing their opening, swoop in and press their advantage even though they had no foreknowledge of the events that would lead to this "coup?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 14, 2010 Author Share Posted December 14, 2010 (edited) Well done, Greg. You're a relaxed speaker with a comfortable grasp of your subject matter, witty where applicable (great ending, btw!), and unflappable ("oh, you already knew the answer to that question!"). Either that or you were nervous as hell and hid it like a pro!! I've shown NSAM 263/273 to several people skeptical of any sort of "conspiracy" in JFK's murder, and they almost universally do at least a 90-degree turn, if not 180. But as convincing as it may seem, is it really a smoking gun? Are its apparent oddities as singularly striking as they seem to be, or is there more to it than meets the eye? I'll play devil's advocate here with some alternatives that aren't, I don't think, terribly far-fetched at all. First, the question of printing. Much is made over a leather-bound volume being prepared of the final(?) report on which NSAM 273 is purportedly based. I've never seen the original of this, and don't recall having read any lengthy account about what, exactly, this "leather-bound volume" contained. Can you possibly expound upon that? Are we looking at multiple copies of a thick tome, or one-to-a-dozen bindings, permanent or otherwise, of a less-than-100-page report prepared specifically for the president and his advisors (NSC, 5412, etc.)? The practice of preparing a leather-bound copy of official reports does not seem extraordinary, and we'll recall that LBJ was presented with a similar version of the Warren Report, as were a fairly large number of elected and other officials, possibly including the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence as well, at a presumably significant cost. From what I've read about different things in other contexts, this is a fairly common practice. (Sure, it's expensive, but it's not their money.) Likewise, depending upon the depth or scope of a report, it doesn't seem as if it's unusual within governmental operations for reports or assessments or what-have-you to be prepared in advance of its presentation. I think it's fair to say that none of us really expect any of the participants of the Honolulu conference to be the people who actually wrote the report, typing it up on the plane as they flew over the Pacific, nor do I think we really envision lower-level functionaries with enough rank to justify being on such a trip doing this either. More than likely, these being government activities (no such thing as an expense too large), advocates of different actions and policies prepared lengthy "position papers" in advance using information already at hand from favored sources, with the intention that their document be the one eventually accepted by the president or whatever authority it's intended for. So it's not necessarily unlikely that they left Washington with different versions of the "final report" already prepared for presentation, or that more than one "final report" would actually be presented as alternatives to the president. In Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), author David Rothkopf recounts meetings of the NSC during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations - which, according to Rothkopf, were conducted very differently between those and other administrations from Truman to Bush II - during which opposing viewpoints were presented as alternatives to the presidents they served. While he quotes only brief passages from those position papers, it's clear that the quotations are but excerpts, and not the complete report made to the group or to the president. That he quotes from reports that were not adopted as policy strongly suggests that those defeated motions survive in some form. Are there any such papers surviving from LBJ's early meetings, whether of the NSC as a formal whole or any informal subset or even individual advisors on an ad hoc basis, that suggest the process by which NSAM 273 came into being? Does any record exist beyond the final product, and if so, what does it reflect? Is there an extant position paper/report that more closely resembles NSAM 263's apparent objectives, possibly also prepared in advance and bound in leather for the president's consideration? If any of this is so, it doesn't particularly strike me as odd that the introductory language includes that "the President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge," written in the past tense about an event that would presumably occur in the future. This is akin to a "model order" often prepared by an attorney for a judge's signature, presuming that the judge will endorse exactly the position advocated by the writer that only needs to be signed to be put into effect. Interestingly, Rothkopf (pages 82-83, early in this 500-plus page book which does not concentrate by any means on that era) also recounts a meeting in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration during which the Cuba situation was discussed, and options for some form of action against Castro's regime, provided to him (Rothkopf) by General William Odom of the National Security Agency under Reagan and Zbigniew Brzezinski's military aide, worth reproducing at length here. As prelude, Rothkopf discusses that portion of JFK's debates with Nixon over confronting Castro's communism, with Kennedy calling for action that he knew from briefings to be under consideration, and Nixon constrained from discussing them due to his office and part in the planning. "It is one thing to call for action as a candidate," Rothkopf writes, "but quite another to be responsible for carrying it out as president." As a political corollary to the old adage of "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it," he quotes "be careful of what you call for — as you may actually have to end up doing it." Related Odom during a 2004 interview with the author: I once asked [General Andrew] Goodpaster [Eisenhower's principal aide covering foreign policy and national security matters and NSC staff secretary, who occupied the office next to the president's] if Eisenhower had still been in office in the spring of 1961, would we still have had the Bay of Pigs. He said, "Interesting you should bring that up...." [CIA Deputy Director of Plans] Richard Bissell initiated the planning, I guess in '59, and the idea, according to Goodpaster, was to create a Cuban military unit that could, after Fidel had been overthrown, enter Cuba and become the cored of a post-Fidel Cuban army. The objective for the plan was not to overthrow Fidel. Eisenhower approved this limited concept only for the contingency that Castro's regime collapsed or was overthrown by Cubans in Cuba [emphasis added]. The CIA-created force was not to invade Cuba. No invasion, no provocations. Eisenhower was briefed on it in the summer of '60. General Goodpaster, as Eisenhower's staff secretary, took the notes of the meeting with Bissell and his assistants. After they met, Goodpaster turned to Ike and said, "Mr. President, if you don't watch it, that plan will take legs of its own." Eisenhower snapped back, "Not wile I am president!" Goodpaster responded, "Yes, Mr. President. That's the problem. You won't be president much longer." Rothkopf, as I've noted, earlier related instances where opposing position papers were prepared for adoption by the president, and here he is describing a position advocated by the CIA that was in direct contravention to the policy intended by then-President Eisenhower which could "take legs of its own" if Eisenhower wasn't careful. We all know the substance of how that intended policy changed under Kennedy who, having called for action in his campaign, now ended up having to do it: the CIA's plan "took legs" and turned into disaster. The point being this: whatever Kennedy intended during his lifetime was not incumbent upon Johnson, as the new president, to act upon. What record there is, if any, of Johnson's position during Kennedy's NSC meetings, if any (the legal definition of what cabinet officers, etc., who made up the NSC has apparently evolved under each president, its legally-defined members having more or less of a role and influence as deemed necessary by successive presidents), I don't know; perhaps again, you can shed some light on that. Did Johnson actually participate in NSC proceedings during JFK's administration? Was he more "hawkish," leaning more toward direct intervention even while Kennedy was alive? Either way, is it a great surprise that any president, however he came to office, took his own counsel and made his own decisions irrespective of his predecessor's intentions, desires or policies? In sum, is the "reversal" of Kennedy's "policy" regarding Vietnam - presumably subject to change, even as the CIA sought to influence Ike in the summer of 1960 as his presidency drew to a close and after he'd apparently made "policy" regarding Cuba - any more noteworthy or, more to the point, indicative of high-level conspiracy than if Nixon had won the election and made a full-scale invasion of Cuba in opposition to Ike's policy and beyond JFK's ultimate, more limited action? The decisions of a president are his own, right or wrong, and not necessarily reflective of his pedecessor: was NSAM-273 merely the manifestation of LBJ's long-held position, or a complete turn-around for him as well? For the sake of saying so, the only National Security Action Memorandum that Rothkopf discusses in his book is NSAM-52, which also related to Vietnam's conflict and so is worth noting here as well. Rothkopf points out that, when Kennedy took office, there were fewer than 700 military advisors in Vietnam, and the focus of US policy up to that time had been to provide low-key assistance to the Diem government in Saigon. NSAM-52 initiated several "cautious moves" to increase the commitment of advisors to over 1000 and expand the aid available to Siagon. JFK "next," according to Rothkopf, "dispatched the deputy national security advisor Walt Rostow and General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. While their assessments of the deteriorating situation on the ground may have been correct, their assessments regarding the consequences of what they considered to be appropriate US responses were stunningly wrong. Taylor estimated that the United States would need to deploy no more than 8000 troops to Vietnam to assure the position of our allies in the South and stated flatly: "The risks of backing into a major Asian war by way of (South Vietnam) are present but are not impressive." In retrospect, of course, it is easy to wonder just what "impressive risks" might have been.... The output from the Taylor-Rostow mission contemplated expanding collaboration with the government in the South and expanding US operations in the region from covert intrusions into neighboring states or the Nort to bombing missions. The president's key advisors, Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy [emphasis added], largely embraced the mission's findings. Here began one of the most pernicious illnesses afflicting the policy process: groupthink. Although there were divisions within the group, momentum toward concensus started to build, and the collective agreement of the principles created more momentum, and so on. Kennedy's brillian young technocrats were especially vulnerable to the persuasive power of their own elegant logic. It made it hard to admit the possibility, let alone the desirability, of alternatives. Instead their youthful arrogance reinforced itself. I this, we find that McGeorge Bundy, the signatory to the draft NSAM-273, had apparently and ostensibly been opposed to the directions Kennedy was taking with regard to Vietnam even going back to the early days of JFK's administration, along with fellow influencers (and continued Johnson appointees, reflecting the "continuity" between administrations) Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, among potential others. Was the draft NSAM simply one of their many on-going and as-yet-unsuccessful attempts to dissuade JFK from what they perceived as a "wrong" course of action, a "model order" for him to sign if and when they were successful, and one which they succeeded in having adopted by the new president either as a reflection of his own long-standing opinions, or as a product of a fortuitous circumstance whereby they could say that "Jack would have signed this" and got the new president to heed their long-opposed counsel that Kennedy was too strong- (and "wrong-") minded to accede to? So part of the equation necessary to show intent and foreknowledge - to show that NSAM-263/273 is, in fact, a "smoking gun" of a coup d'etat - would seem to be the absence of any other "draft" memoranda also prepared for the president's (JFK's) signature, even though ultimately not signed by LBJ. Are there any such documents, or is draft -273 the only one ever prepared? Is there any record extant that provides further insight into the discussions taking place before the Honolulu conference, Vietnam jag, and JFK's assassination and the positions taken by JFK's - subsequently LBJ's - advisors? If not, is this the only instance where the earlier "working papers" of JFK's "inner circle" (whether sitting as the NSC or something else, formally or informally) no longer exist, or is the record of other and earlier discussions also barren? In and of itself, the disparity between the JFK-approved NSAM-263 and the Johnson-approved -273 does suggest foreknowledge of an impending change in the presidency and therefore a conspiracy to eliminate JFK as an "obstacle to foreign policy," and it is in such isolation that I can recall this ever being discussed in the research community. But has there been a tendency toward the "path of least resistence" to present these circumstances in isolation simply because it does suggest (if not actually "prove") conspiracy, and the whole record might not be so conducive to such an easy conclusion, or alternately, provide one that is counter to what may be just "popular mythology?" Sometimes it seems that we tend to think of Kennedy's "whiz kids" to be stolid "Kennedy loyalists" who were 100% "behind" JFK, who thought exactly the same way, and who sought only to ensure that Jack's great ideas and plans were implemented according to his wishes, when in fact they were men with their own ideas and ideologies, not necessarily diametrically opposed to JFK's, but certainly not always in complete accord with them. As we saw in the summer of 1960 example of the meeting between Eisenhower and Bissell, various factions - and we might well consider everyone part of "factions" that ebb and swell according to the occasion and discussions at hand - will continue to press their own agenda at every turn, even if only because situations change and the solutions they called for yesterday are not necessarily the solutions that will work next week. There is, as far as I can see at the moment (but can certainly be convinced otherwise), no reason to think that Kennedy's advisors were any different. Is there? Hi Duke, I only have time for an abbreviated answer this morning. I think you made a typo when you said the McNamara - Taylor Report was the basis of 273. It wasn't. 263 was based on that report. The McNamara - Taylor Report has NOTHING to do with the Honolulu Conference, per se. In other words, the McNamara-Taylor Report was delivered to Kennedy on October 2nd, 1963. The Honolulu Conference took place about 6 weeks later on November 20-21, 1963. According to the "official record" the report was ostensibly written on the airplane from Honolulu to Washington. However, Colonel L Fletcher Prouty was there in Washington working directly under Krulak's supervision during this time. Prouty's account is exactly what I was conveying in my presentation. I have no cause to disbelieve Prouty's account. The idea that this was done on the way home seems quite a stretch, but may have gone unnoticed if we didn't have Prouty's account. With his account, we scrutinize the official story and the illusion emerges for what it is. According to WIKI: ======================================= "Drafting the report After a one-day stopover in Honolulu to prepare their report, McNamara and Taylor arrived back in Washington on October 2. The report was written hurriedly on the plane trip back to Washington. Forrestal described the report as a 'mishmash of everything.' During the 27 hour flight, Bundy managed only to get two hours of sleep between his writing and later opined that 'neither their draftsmanship nor judgment is likely to be at its best under such working conditions.' They promptly met with the President and the National Security Council. Their report concluded that the 'military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress.' On the other hand, it warned that the serious political tensions in Saigon due to the Buddhist crisis and the increasing unpopularity of Diem and Nhu as a result of their anti-Buddhist activities could stoke the dissent of some ARVN officers and erode what they believed was favourable military progress. Taylor and Maxwell reported to having seen no evidence of a successful coup being prepared, and felt that American pressure would probably only further harden the Ngo family's attitudes. Nevertheless, 'unless such pressures are exerted, they [Diem-Nhu] are almost certain to continue past patterns of behavior.'" ======================================= Below find the entire McNamara-Taylor Report: 167. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor) and the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) to the President [1] Washington, October 2, 1963. SUBJECT Report of McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam Your memorandum of 21 September 1963 [2] directed that General Taylor and Secretary McNamara proceed to South Vietnam to appraise the military and para-military effort to defeat the Viet Cong and to consider, in consultation with Ambassador Lodge, related political and social questions. You further directed that, if the prognosis in our judgment was not hopeful, we should present our views of what action must be taken by the South Vietnam Government and what steps our Government should take to lead the Vietnamese to that action. Accompanied by representatives of the State Department, CIA, and your Staff, we have conducted an intensive program of visits to key operational areas, supplemented by discussions with U.S. officials in all major U.S. Agencies as well as officials of the GVN and third countries. We have also discussed our findings in detail with Ambassador Lodge, and with General Harkins and Admiral Felt. The following report is concurred in by the Staff Members of the mission as individuals, subject to the exceptions noted. I. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Conclusions. 1. The military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress. 2. There are serious political tensions in Saigon (and perhaps elsewhere in South Vietnam) where the Diem-Nhu government is becoming increasingly unpopular. 3. There is no solid evidence of the possibility of a successful coup, although assassination of Diem or Nhu is always a possibility. 4. Although some, and perhaps an increasing number, of GVN military officers are becoming hostile to the government, they are more hostile to the Viet Cong than to the government and at least for the near future they will continue to perform their military duties. 5. Further repressive actions by Diem and Nhu could change the present favorable military trends. On the other hand, a return to more moderate methods of control and administration, unlikely though it may be, would substantially mitigate the political crisis. 6. It is not clear that pressures exerted by the U.S. will move Diem and Nhu toward moderation. Indeed, pressures may increase their obduracy. But unless such pressures are exerted, they are almost certain to continue past patterns of behavior. B. Recommendations. We recommend that: 1. General Harkins review with Diem the military changes necessary to complete the military campaign in the Northern and Central areas (I, II, and III Corps) by the end of 1964, and in the Delta (IV Corps) by the end of 1965. This review would consider the need for such changes as: a. A further shift of military emphasis and strength to the Delta (IV Corps). b. An increase in the military tempo in all corps areas, so that all combat troops are in the field an average of 20 days out of 30 and static missions are ended. c. Emphasis on "clear and hold operations" instead of terrain sweeps which have little permanent value. d. The expansion of personnel in combat units to full authorized strength. e. The training and arming of hamlet militia to an accelerated rate, especially in the Delta. f. A consolidation of the strategic hamlet program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected, and until civic action programs can be introduced. 2. A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time. 3. In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. This action should be explained in low key as an initial step in a long-term program to replace U.S. personnel with trained Vietnamese without impairment of the war effort. 4. The following actions be taken to impress upon Diem our disapproval of his political program. a. Continue to withhold commitment of funds in the commodity import program, but avoid a formal announcement. The potential significance of the withholding of commitments for the 1964 military budget should be brought home to the top military officers in working level contacts between USOM and MACV and the Joint General Staff; up to now we have stated $95 million may be used by the Vietnamese as a planning level for the commodity import program for 1964. Henceforth we could make clear that this is uncertain both because of lack of final appropriation action by the Congress and because of executive policy. b. Suspend approval of the pending AID loans for the Saigon- Cholon Waterworks and Saigon Electric Power Project. We should state clearly that we are doing so as a matter of policy. c. Advise Diem that MAP and CIA support for designated units, now under Colonel Tung's control (mostly held in or near the Saigon area for political reasons) will be cut off unless these units are promptly assigned to the full authority of the Joint General Staff and transferred to the field. d. Maintain the present purely "correct" relations with the top GVN, and specifically between the Ambassador and Diem. Contact between General Harkins and Diem and Defense Secretary Thuan on military matters should not, however, be suspended, as this remains an important channel of advice. USOM and USIA should also seek to maintain contacts where these are needed to push forward programs in support of the effort in the field, while taking care not to cut across the basic picture of U.S. disapproval and uncertainty of U.S. aid intentions. We should work with the Diem government but not support it.[3] As we pursue these courses of action, the situation must be closely watched to see what steps Diem is taking to reduce repressive practices and to improve the effectiveness of the military effort. We should set no fixed criteria, but recognize that we would have to decide in 2-4 months whether to move to more drastic action or try to carry on with Diem even if he had not taken significant steps. 5. At this time, no initiative should be taken to encourage actively a change in government. Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears. 6. The following statement be approved as current U.S. policy toward South Vietnam and constitute the substance of the government position to be presented both in Congressional testimony and in public statements. a. The security of South Vietnam remains vital to United States security. For this reason, we adhere to the overriding objective of denying this country to Communism and of suppressing the Viet Cong insurgency as promptly as possible. (By suppressing the insurgency we mean reducing it to proportions manageable by the national security forces of the GVN, unassisted by the presence of U.S. military forces.) We believe the U.S. part of the task can be completed by the end of 1965, the terminal date which we are taking as the time objective of our counterinsurgency programs. b. The military program in Vietnam has made progress and is sound in principle. c. The political situation in Vietnam remains deeply serious. It has not yet significantly affected the military effort, but could do so at some time in the future. If the result is a GVN ineffective in the conduct of the war, the U.S. will review its attitude toward support for the government. Although we are deeply concerned by repressive practices, effective performance in the conduct of the war should be the determining factor in our relations with the GVN. d. The U.S. has expressed its disapproval of certain actions of the Diem-Nhu regime and will do so again if required. Our policy is to seek to bring about the abandonment of repression because of its effect on the popular will to resist. Our means consist of expressions of disapproval and the withholding of support from GVN activities that are not clearly contributing to the war effort. We will use these means as required to assure an effective military program. [Here follow Sections II, "Military Situation and Trends," III, "Economic Situation and Trends," IV, "Political Situation and Trends," and V, "Effect on Political Tension."] VI. OVERALL EVALUATION From the above analysis it is clear that the situation requires a constant effort by the U.S. to obtain a reduction of political tensions and improved performance by the Vietnamese Government. We cannot say with assurance whether the effort against the Viet Cong will ultimately fail in the absence of major political improvements. However, it does seem clear that after another period of repressive action progress may be reduced and indeed reversed. Although the present momentum might conceivably continue to carry the effort forward even if Diem remains in power and political tensions continue, any significant slowing in the rate of progress would surely have a serious effect on U.S. popular support for the U.S. effort. VII. U.S. LEVERAGES TO OBTAIN DESIRED CHANGES IN THE DIEM REGIME A. Conduct of U.S. Representatives. U.S. personnel in Saigon might adopt an attitude of coolness toward their Vietnamese counterparts, maintaining only those contacts and communications which are necessary for the actual conduct of operations in the field. To some extent this is the attitude already adopted by the Ambassador himself, but it could be extended to the civilian and military agencies located in Saigon. The effect of such action would be largely psychological. B. Economic Leverage. Together, USOM's Commodity Import Program (CIP) and the PL 480 program account for between 60 and 70 percent of imports into Vietnam. The commitment of funds under the CIP has already been suspended. CIP deliveries result in the generation of piastres, most of which go to the support of the defense budget. It is estimated that CIP pipelines will remain relatively large for some five or six months, and within this time period there would not be a serious material effect. Even within this period, however, the flow of piastres to support the defense budget will gradually begin to decline and the GVN will be forced to draw down its foreign exchange reserves or curtail its military expenditures. Within the domestic economy the existing large pipelines would mean that there would be no material reason for inflation to begin in the short term period. However, the psychological effect of growing realization that the CIP program has been suspended might be substantial in 2-4 months. Saigon has a large number of speculative traders, and although there is considerable police effort to control prices, this might not be able to contain a general trend of speculation and hoarding. Once inflation did develop, it could have a serious effect on the GVN budget and the conduct of the war. Apart from CIP, two major AID projects are up for final approval--the Saigon-Cholon Waterworks ($9 million) and the Saigon Electric Power Project ($4 million). Suspension of these projects would be a possible means of demonstrating to Congress and the world that we disapprove of GVN policies and are not providing additional aid not directly essential to the war effort. C. Paramilitary and Other Assistance. (1) USOM assistance to the Combat Police and USOM and USIS assistance to the Director General of Information and the ARVN PsyWar Program could be suspended. These projects involve a relatively small amount of local currency but their suspension, particularly in the case of USIS, might adversely affect programs which the U.S. wishes to see progress. (2) However, there would be merit in a gesture aimed at Colonel Tung, the Special Forces Commander, whose forces in or near Saigon played a conspicuous part in the pagoda affair and are a continuing support for Diem. Colonel Tung commands a mixed complex of forces, some of which are supported by MAP and others presently through CIA. All of those now in or near Saigon were trained either for combat missions or for special operations into North Vietnam and Laos. Purely on grounds of their not being used for their proper missions, the U.S. could inform Diem that we would cut off MAP and CIA support unless they were placed directly under Joint General Staff and were committed to field operations. The practical effect of the cut-off would probably be small. The equipment cannot be taken out of the hands of the units, and the pay provided to some units could be made up from the GVN budget. Psychologically, however, the significance of the gesture might be greater. At the least it would remove one target of press criticism of the U.S., and would probably also be welcomed by the high military officers in Vietnam, and certainly by the disaffected groups in Saigon. At the same time, support should continue, but through General Harkins rather than CIA, for border surveillance and other similar field operations that are contributing to the war effort. We have weighed this cut-off action carefully. It runs a risk that Colonel Tung would refuse to carry out external operations against the Lao corridor and North Vietnam. It might also limit CIA's access to the military. However, U.S. liaison with high military officers could probably be fully maintained through the U.S. military advisors. On balance, we conclude that these possible disadvantages are outweighed by the gains implicit in this action. (3) Consideration has been given both by USOM and the military (principally the JCS in Washington) to the possibility of redirecting economic and military assistance in such a fashion as to bypass the central government in Saigon. Military studies have shown the technical feasibility, though with great difficulty and cost, of supplying the war effort in the countryside over lines of communications which do not involve Saigon, and it is assumed that the same conclusions would apply to USOM deliveries to the filed under the rural strategic hamlet program. However, there is a consensus among U.S. agencies in Saigon that such an effort is not practical in the face of determined opposition by the GVN unless, of course, a situation had developed where the central government was no longer in control of some areas of the country. Nor is it at all clear that such diversion would operate to build up the position of the military or to cut down Nhu's position. D. Propaganda. Although the capability of USIS to support the United States campaign of pressure against the regime would be small, the Ambassador believes consideration must be given to the content and timing of the United States pronouncements outside the country. He has already suggested the use of the Voice of America in stimulating, in its broadcasts to Vietnamese, discussions of democratic political philosophies. This medium could be used to exploit a wide range of ascending political pressure. In addition, a phased program of United States official pronouncements could be developed for use in conjunction with the other leverages as they are applied. We must recognize the possibility that such actions may incite Diem to strong countermeasures. E. The Leverage of Conditioning Our Military Aid on Satisfactory Progress. Coupled with all the above there is the implicit leverage embodied in our constantly making it plain to Diem and other that the long term continuation of military aid is conditioned upon the Vietnamese Government demonstrating a satisfactory level of progress toward defeat of the insurgency. F. Conclusions. A program of limited pressures, such as the CIP suspension, will not have large material effects on the GVN or the war effort, at least for 2-4 months. The psychological effects could be greater, and there is some evidence that the suspension is already causing concern to Diem. However, the effect of pressures that can be carried out over an extended period without detriment to the war effort is probably limited with respect to the possibility of Diem making necessary changes. We have not analyzed with care what the effect might be of a far more intensive level of pressure such as cessation of MAP deliveries or long continued suspension of the commodity import program. If the Diem government should fail to make major improvements, serious consideration would have to be given to this possible course of action, but we believe its effect on the war effort would be so serious--in psychological if not in immediate material terms--that it should not be undertaken at the present time. VIII. COUP POSSIBILITIES A. Prospects of a Spontaneous Coup. The prospects of an early spontaneous replacement of the Diem Regime are not high. The two principal sources of such an attempt, the senior military officers and the students, have both been neutralized by a combination of their own inability and the regime's effective countermeasures of control. The student organizations have been emasculated. The students themselves have displayed more emotion than determination and they are apparently being handled with sufficient police sophistication to avoid an explosion. The generals appear to have little stomach for the difficult job of secretly arranging the necessary coalescence of force to upset the Regime. Diem/Nhu are keenly aware of the capability of the generals to take over the country, utilizing the tremendous power now vested in the military forces. They, therefore, concentrate their manipulative talent on the general officers, by transfers, and by controls over key units and their locations. They are aware that these actions may reduce efficiency, but they tolerate it rather than risk the prospect that they be overthrown and their social revolution frustrated. They have established a praetorian guard to guarantee considerable bloodshed if any attack is made. The generals have seen slim hope of surmounting these difficulties without prohibitive risk to themselves, the unity of the Army and the Establishment itself. Despite these unfavorable prospects for action in the short term, new factors could quickly arise, such as the death of Diem or an unpredictable and even irrational attack launched by a junior officer group, which would call urgently for U.S. support or counteraction. In such a case, the best alternative would appear to be the support of constitutional continuity in the person of the Vice President, behind whom arrangements could be developed for a more permanent replacement after a transitional period. B. Prospects for Improvement under an Alternative Government. The prospects that a replacement regime would be an improvement appear to be about 50-50.[4] Initially, only a strongly authoritarian regime would be able to pull the government together and maintain order. In view of the pre-eminent role of the military in Vietnam today, it is probable that this role would be filled by a military officer, perhaps taking power after the selective process of a junta dispute. Such an authoritarian military regime, perhaps after an initial period of euphoria at the departure of Diem/Nhu, would be apt to entail a resumption of the repression at least of Diem, the corruption of the Vietnamese Establishment before Diem, and an emphasis on conventional military rather than social, economic and political considerations, with at least an equivalent degree of xenophobic nationalism. These features must be weighed, however, against the possible results of growing dominance or succession by Nhu, which would continue and even magnify the present dissension, unhappiness and unrest. C. Possible U.S. Actions. Obviously, clear and explicit U.S. support could make a great difference to the chances of a coup. However, at the present time we lack a clear picture of what acceptable individuals might be brought to the point of action, or what kind of government might emerge. We therefore need an intensive clandestine effort, under the Ambassador's direction, to establish necessary contacts to allow the U.S. to continuously appraise coup prospects. If and when we have a better picture, the choice will still remain difficult whether we would prefer to take our chances on a spontaneous coup (assuming some action by Diem and Nhu would trigger it) or to risk U.S. prestige and having the U.S. hand show with a coup group which appeared likely to be a better alternative government. Any regime that was identified from the outset as a U.S. "puppet" would have disadvantages both within South Vietnam and in significant areas of the world, including other underdeveloped nations where the U.S. has a major role. In any case, whether or not it proves to be wise to promote a coup at a later time, we must be ready for the possibility of a spontaneous coup, and this too requires clandestine contacts on an intensive basis. IX. ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE POLICIES Broadly speaking, we believe there are three alternative policies the U.S. could pursue to achieve its political and military objectives: 1. Return to avowed support of the Diem regime and attempt to obtain the necessary improvements through persuasion from a posture of "reconciliation." This would not mean any expression of approval of the repressive actions of the regime, but simply that we would go back in practice to business as usual. 2. Follow a policy of selective pressures: "purely correct" relationships at the top official level, continuing to withhold further actions in the commodity import program, and making clear our disapproval of the regime. A further element in this policy is letting the present impression stand that the U.S. would not be averse to a change of Government--although we would not take any immediate actions to initiate a coup. 3. Start immediately to promote a coup by high ranking military officers. This policy might involve more extended suspensions of aid and sharp denunciations of the regime's actions so timed as to fit with coup prospects and planning. Our analysis of these alternatives is as follows: 1. Reconciliation. We believe that this course of action would be ineffective from the standpoint of events in South Vietnam alone, and would also greatly increase our difficulties in justifying the present U.S. support effort both to the Congress and generally to significant third nations. We are most unlikely, after recent events, to get Diem to make the necessary changes; on the contrary, he would almost certainly regard our reconciliation as an evidence that the U.S. would sit still for just about anything he did. The result would probably be not only a continuation of the destructive elements in the Regime's policies but a return to larger scale repressions as and when Diem and Nhu thought they were necessary. The result would probably be sharp deterioration in the military situation in a fairly short period. 2. Selective Pressures. We have examined numerous possibilities of applying pressures to Diem in order to incline him to the direction of our policies. The most powerful instrument at our disposal is the control of military and economic aid but any consideration of its use reveals the double-edged nature of its effects. Any long-term reduction of aid cannot but have an eventual adverse effect on the military campaign since both the military and the economic programs have been consciously designed and justified in terms of their contribution to the war effort. Hence, immediate reductions must be selected carefully and be left in effect only for short periods. We believe that the present level of pressures is causing, and will cause, Diem some concern, while at the same time not significantly impairing the military effort. We are not hopeful that this level (or indeed any level) of pressure will actually induce Diem to remove Nhu from the picture completely. However, there is a better chance that Diem will at least be deterred from resuming large scale oppressions. At the same time, there are various factors that set a time limit to pursuing this course of action in its present form. Within 2-4 months we have to make critical decisions with the GVN about its 1964 budget and our economic support level. In addition, there is a significant and growing possibility that even the present limited actions in the economic field--more for psychological than for economic reasons--would start a wave of speculation and inflation that would be difficult to control or bring back into proper shape. As to when we would reverse our present course, the resumption of the full program of economic and military aid should be tied to the actions of the Diem government. As a foundation for the development of our long-term economic and military aid programs, we believe it may be possible to develop specific military objectives to be achieved on an agreed schedule. The extent to which such objectives are met, in conjunction with an evaluation of the regime's political performance, would determine the level of aid for the following period. 3. Organizing a Coup. For the reasons stated earlier, we believe this course of action should not be undertaken at the present time. On balance we consider that the most promising course of action to adopt at this time is an application of selective short-term pressures, principally economic, and the conditioning of long-term aid on the satisfactory performance by the Diem government in meeting military and political objectives which in the aggregate equate to the requirements of final victory. The specific actions recommended in Section I of this report are consistent with this policy. Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Secretary of Defense [5] _______ 1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Vietnam Country Series, Memos and Miscellaneous. Top Secret. Also printed in United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, Book 12, pp. 554-573. 2. Document 142. 3. Mr. Colby believes that the official "correct" relationship should be supplemented by selected and restricted unofficial and personal relationships with individuals in the GVN, approved by the Ambassador, where persuasion could be fruitful without derogation of the official U.S. posture. [Footnote in the source text.] 4. Mr. Sullivan (State) believes that a replacement regime which does not suffer from the overriding danger of Nhu's ambition to establish a totalitarian state (the control of which he might easily lose to the Communists in the course of his flirtations) would be inevitably better than the current regime even if the former did have the deficiencies described. [Footnote in the source text.] 5. The source text bears no signatures. Edited December 14, 2010 by Greg Burnham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David G. Healy Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Part One: Part Two: EXCELLENT Monk! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 Part One: Part Two: EXCELLENT Monk! David Thanks David! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Thanks for all of that: you're right, I often tend to somehow meld the "stopover in Honolulu" and the Honolulu conference together! The first was on the way back from VN, and weren't there cabinet officials on the way TO VN after the other? (One can only juggle so many facts, I suppose!) According to the "official record" the report was ostensibly written on the airplane from Honolulu to Washington. However, Colonel L Fletcher Prouty was there in Washington working directly under Krulak's supervision during this time. Prouty's account is exactly what I was conveying in my presentation. I have no cause to disbelieve Prouty's account. The idea that this was done on the way home seems quite a stretch, but may have gone unnoticed if we didn't have Prouty's account. With his account, we scrutinize the official story and the illusion emerges for what it is.According to WIKI: ======================================= "Drafting the report After a one-day stopover in Honolulu to prepare their report, McNamara and Taylor arrived back in Washington on October 2. The report was written hurriedly on the plane trip back to Washington. Forrestal described the report as a 'mishmash of everything.' During the 27 hour flight, Bundy managed only to get two hours of sleep between his writing and later opined that 'neither their draftsmanship nor judgment is likely to be at its best under such working conditions.' They promptly met with the President and the National Security Council. Their report concluded that the 'military campaign has made great progress and continues to progress.' On the other hand, it warned that the serious political tensions in Saigon due to the Buddhist crisis and the increasing unpopularity of Diem and Nhu as a result of their anti-Buddhist activities could stoke the dissent of some ARVN officers and erode what they believed was favourable military progress. Taylor and Maxwell reported to having seen no evidence of a successful coup being prepared, and felt that American pressure would probably only further harden the Ngo family's attitudes. Nevertheless, 'unless such pressures are exerted, they [Diem-Nhu] are almost certain to continue past patterns of behavior.'" Another researcher and I met with Fletch a number of years ago in northern Virginia. As I recall, our general impression was that it was tough to nail him down, essentially leaving him as a "second-hand" source. He was, of course, "only" a colonel, which amid a ship-pot full of generals doesn't amount to a lot. Consequently, since he wasn't among the "brass," per se, it's tough to find anything that would cite his presence other than a blanket reference to "various aides," all unnamed, at a meeting, and thus ultimately impossible to independently corroborate what he was actually a part of. Wiki, of course, is also a problem since it's user-driven. What does it say about Oswald, or James Files, or any other controversial person or event other than what some individual contributes? Surfing for more or different perspectives and/or accounts of the events leading up to NSAM-273, it is interesting to note in an essay by Peter Dale Scott on History Matters an account of a meeting at the State Department on August 31, 1963, including minutes taken by General Krulak: Mr. Kattenburg stated…it was the belief of Ambassador Lodge that, if we undertake to live with this repressive regime… we are going to be thrown out of the country in six months. He stated that at this juncture it would be better for us to make a decision to get out honorably… Secretary Rusk commented that Kattenburg's recital was largely speculative; that it would be far better for us to start on the firm basis of two things—that we will not pull out of Vietnam until the war is won, and that we will not run a coup. Mr. McNamara expressed agreement with this view. Mr. Rusk…then asked the Vice President if he had any contribution to make. The Vice President stated that he agreed with Secretary Rusk's conclusions completely; that he had great reservations himself with respect to a coup, particularly so because he had never really seen a genuine alternative to Diem. He stated that from both a practical and a political viewpoint, it would be a disaster to pull out; that we should stop playing cops and robbers and…once again go about winning the war. [Cite: Pentagon Papers (NYT/Bantam), pp. 204-205; USG ed., V.B.4. pp. 541-543; Gravel ed., II:742-743, emphasis added.] At this meeting (which the President did not attend) the only opposition to this powerful Rusk-McNamara-Johnson consensus was expressed by two more junior State Department officials with OSS and CIA backgrounds: Paul Kattenburg (whom Rusk interrupted at one heated point) and Roger Hilsman. [emphasis added] If this is so, then LBJ was already of a mind about what to do with regard to Vietnam, and the changes from NSAM-263 to -273, while significant, can be attributed to the already-established opinion of the man even before he became president, and his reversal of Kennedy's earlier policy (and plans for a "political" rather than "military" solution), while counter to the stance he took publicly toward "continuing" JFK's policies, did not carry through to his "TOP SECRET" decisions that would not be for public consumption. One president changing, even reversing, the policies of his predecessor is not unheard of and well within the purview of the new president, especially when this one - LBJ - was already on record as disagreeing with his boss, albeit privately and not publicly. I'm just not sure that these changes mean as much as they're sometimes construed to make, especially when gleaned from secondary sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 I think one of the points being missed is that the introductory language of this draft is NOT intended as an account of what had occurred up to the point of writing it, but what was expected to have occurred up to the point of its being signed. A draft is, by definition, a "preliminary form of any writing, subject to revision." It is no different than a "model order" that attorneys present to a judge, which they write before they've even made their argument, in the hope or expectation that the judge will concur. This is, in other words, a preliminary version of what the writers hoped or expected would be what was finally issued. There is nothing either unusual or suspicious about that. As unpopular a notion as it may be, I think it is incorrect to consider the contents of NSAM-263 to have been "policy" (that NSAM-273 "reversed") for several reasons. As Greg noted in his introductions, ... Consider the simplicity of NSAM 263 -- JFK, after reviewing the McNamara-Taylor Report, approved only the recommendation to WITHDRAW. Done deal. Are we really to believe that just over a month later, the central object of the US would shift from total withdrawal to total commitment? Yet, Bundy's NSAM 273 draft directs that the central object of assisting the South Vietnamese so that they will "win their contest against...the Communist conspiracy" be given precedence over all other considerations! There's only one looming problem with this scenario. No such "central object" as described by Bundy existed on November 21, 1963 as such a plan was in direct opposition to the then Commander-in-Chief's (JFK) standing order to his military to withdraw. Once again, relying on the official record serves to confirm these conclusions. There was no such "standing order ... to withdraw," and that conclusion can only be construed if one wishes to incorrectly consider the National Security Council to be the policy arm of the president. It is not; it is merely an advisory body, and no president is under any compulsion to follow its "lead." All that it can direct are things which the president might need to reach his own decisions, which are not necessarily those recommended by the NSC. The NSC is also not the president's "mouthpiece" for enacting or announcing his policies. That JFK did not "order" any such "withdrawal" is implicit in NSAM-263's directive to not announce such a "decision." Underscoring the perception that a National Security Action Memorandum is not a policy statement is the fact that there are also National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM) and National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM). One might reasonably expect that before a "decision" memorandum is generated, there might be "study" memoranda circulated - "look at these things and get back to us" - as well as "action" memoranda - "do these things in furtherance of the things we're doing or considering." An "action" is not a "decision" any more than a "study" is; nothing emanating from the National Security Council - once again, an advisory body - should be construed as "policy," such statements coming directly from the White House or "the Office of the President," and not from a "committee," however lofty. (Some might consider that splitting hairs, but it is no more so than criticizing the opening paragraph of NSAM-273 as being "deceptive" about having disussed issues with the president in advance of there having even been an opportunity to have done that.) In support of that perception (of a committee "ordering" anything), consider the Nixon-era NSDM-242, a document that redefined the then-US policy of mutually assured destruction to a more "selective and flexible" set of targeting instructions known as "strategic sufficiency." NSDM-242 - a "decision" memorandum - was prepared by the NSC in the fall of 1973, but was not put into practice until the newly-appointed SecDef James Schlesinger announced in January 1974 that he was implementing a "change in targeting strategy" to "develop alternatives to initiating a suicidal strike against the cities of the other side." Nixon only signed NSDM-242 a week after Schlesinger's public announcement. Only when it was signed by the president did it become "policy." NSAMs-263 and -273 were not signed by the president (and by definition, needn't have been to take the "actions" contemplated by them), were not "decision" documents, and thus can only be considered policies that the president was then considering. NSAM-273 is also not "suspect" inasmuch as there is more than sufficient record to show that, despite the directions Kennedy had indicated he wished to take, his advisors continued to argue against them, as well they might since that was effectively their job: to provide their advice to the president, even that counter to his intentions, at least up to the point when he had made a firm decision. Peter Dale Scott noted that Secretary of State Dean Rusk, SecDef McNamara and national security advisor McGeorge Bundy were strong proponents of escalation, a position they had taken vociferously during an August meeting of the NSC that did not in that instance include the president, but did include VP Johnson (it is not unusual, btw, for the president not to attend meetings of his advisors: Ike attended very few on the notion that his presence when "decisions" were made might constrain his subsequent actions). In that meeting, Johnson strongly sided with the Rusk-Bundy-McNamara axis. (See - The Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War at History Matters.) It should be no surprise, then, given the lack of presidential signature or any form of "decision" document, these men drafted - drafted - a document that contravened an earlier "action" memo which was not, after all, a "decision" memo, no was it signed as final by the president. Nor, for that matter, was NSAM-273, although LBJ - also not surprisingly - took and continued to take steps that complied with and went well beyond that which NSAM-273 envisioned. As a matter of fact, it was "adopted" during a 45-minute briefing to the new president in the days immediately following the assassination that was not even an official meeting of the NSC. According to PDS, citing Chester Cooper (a White House aide to Bundy), Lyndon Johnson's first National Security Council meeting was not convened until Thursday, December 5. If this is so, Scott writes, then "references to a National Security Council meeting of November 26 are wrong, naive deductions from NSAM-273's misleading title" (ibid). If my interpretations are correct (based as they are on my own relative naivete, however gleaned from writings unrelated to the JFK assassination), then these national security memoranda are far from "policy statements" but rather are directives by the NSC from or in support of the president, who is looking to the NSC for advice on matters he is considering, not as "orders to comply" with decisions he has already made. (The draft) NSAM-273 is just as likely yet another of many attempts by Bundy, Rusk, McNamara, et al., to sway JFK to following their long-advocated counsel rather than his own, based ostensibly on "new information" or "further concurrence" obtained at Honolulu, which JFK may have rejected out of hand (and hence it would not be NSAM-anything). Instead, it was "rushed through" by its advocates taking advantage of a new and sympathetic president during a 45-minute briefing (could they even have agreed on the final changes to this document in that time, much less covered anything else?) just 48 hours after he had so suddenly attained office. It was (it should be noted) outside the normal venue of a formal NSC meeting wherein some opposition and reminder of "JFK's wishes" (as if they really mattered any more than Bush's did when Obama took office) might well be expectd ... and since that was the public "face" LBJ put on his administration, those arguments might well have dissuaded LBJ, at least temporarily, from doing other than "steering the course" "set" (or at least preferred) by his predecessor. It is just as likely, that is, that the draft (or its timing) indicate foreknowledge of JFK's assassination ... and perhaps equally baseless. Maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 Duke, I haven't the time to argue these points beyond a few short lines. 1) The early implication that Fletcher Prouty was somehow "out-of-the-loop" in your first reply is absurd. He was the Chief of Special Operations which means he was all over it...perhaps even more so than many of the Generals! 2) The implication that his account was "second hand" knowledge is absurd. Prouty personally handed the leather bound "McNamara-Taylor Report" to the pilot and instructed that pilot as to how he was to brief McNamara & Taylor! 3) FYI: I spoke with Peter Dale Scott (and communicated through email) months ago when I sent my paper to him upon its completion. Other than a few minor items, he indicated that he essentially agreed with all I had written. Now, during my presentation, I acknowledge his good work. We may have differences, but we don't dismiss each other's conclusions at all. 4) A "National Security Action Memorandum" has 2 key concepts in it. The first is National Security, which TRUMPS all other considerations. The second is ACTION. It is not like "passing a note" in class. Not only might it delineate policy, it is a directive intended to implement that policy: ACTION. Finally, my intent was to get people thinking about these issues again because I believe they remain important. Thanks for thinking... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 17, 2010 Share Posted December 17, 2010 ... my intent was to get people thinking about these issues again because I believe they remain important. Thanks for thinking... Now please stop? (grin) I haven't the time to argue these points beyond a few short lines.1) The early implication that Fletcher Prouty was somehow "out-of-the-loop" in your first reply is absurd. He was the Chief of Special Operations which means he was all over it...perhaps even more so than many of the Generals! 2) The implication that his account was "second hand" knowledge is absurd. Prouty personally handed the leather bound "McNamara-Taylor Report" to the pilot and instructed that pilot as to how he was to brief McNamara & Taylor! 3) FYI: I spoke with Peter Dale Scott (and communicated through email) months ago when I sent my paper to him upon its completion. Other than a few minor items, he indicated that he essentially agreed with all I had written. Now, during my presentation, I acknowledge his good work. We may have differences, but we don't dismiss each other's conclusions at all. 4) A "National Security Action Memorandum" has 2 key concepts in it. The first is National Security, which TRUMPS all other considerations. The second is ACTION. It is not like "passing a note" in class. Not only might it delineate policy, it is a directive intended to implement that policy: ACTION. My main point can be summed up in the notion that foreknowledge of the signatories to NSAM-273 (in draft or adopted form) is not the ONLY conclusion one can reach, and is indeed the one least supported by the available evidence, which includes the on-going opposition to Kennedy's "policy" of withdrawal by almost all "senior" NSC officials (Bundy, McNamara, Rusk, et al.) and the then-Vice President LBJ. It is every bit as likely - and probably more likely - that these men took advantage of Kennedy's "absence" and Johnson's new (and sole) authority to enact a policy that all of them had been advocating all along. They were no longer compelled to support the deceased president's inclinations, and very clearly did not. There is nothing "absurd" about questioning Fletch Prouty's bona fides since the only evidence of them is his own assertions. That is not to say that he lied about what he did, but merely to say that "why would I lie" is about the only "proof" that he ever offered that they were factual. The fact that a "mere" colonel - almost a non-entity at the Pentagon level, much less the national security level - is not mentioned on the official record is not proof of his veracity or, to be more generous, his accuracy. There are no sacred cows, are there? (Silly me: of course there are! Isn't "Oswald did it alone and unaided" one of them to some people? It's just not right to question what we want to believe!) It's my experience that it's generally fairly easy to find evidence to support a notion, or rather, easy to ignore evidence that doesn't when you've found enough that does. Most of us have this tendency, I think, and some of us don't act against it. Peter, for example, notes that "it is of course possible that NSAM 273 had already been censored before it was submitted to some or all of the authors of the Pentagon Papers," yet he doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the draft NSAM-273 that was made on November 21 was likewise "censored" (read: "destroyed"), and in any event superceded by the version which was presented to LBJ on November 24 and ratified by him? Why in the world would we think that we have the one-and-only true and uncensored version of the "draft" that was actually made on November 21, when those at the Pentagon who made a study for and on behalf of Robert McNamara might not have had it? Your emphasis on the concept of "ACTION" seems a little misplaced, especially in light of the Honolulu Conference's objectives. You make it sound as if what Kennedy had been contemplating and hinting at was a "directive" that everyone in government had to take immediate steps to implement: "everybody get on board and DO THESE THINGS ... NOW!" If that is indeed the case, why - again in Peter Dale Scott's own words - would Kennedy demand "a 'full-scale review' of U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia" to be made in "an extraordinary all-agency Honolulu Conference of some 45 to 60 senior Administration officials" when he'd already made up his mind?? When POTUS has "made up his mind," then that seems to be the time for a "directive" for "ACTION," and not the time to "demand" a "full-scale review," wouldn't you think? This even despite the claim that "on November 20, two days before the assassination, the Honolulu Conference secretly 'agreed that the Accelerated Plan (speed-up of force withdrawal by six months directed by McNamara in October) should be maintained.'" If that is so - it was done "secretly," after all - if everyone agreed that JFK's "planned withdrawal" was the right course for the country, then how in the world did Mac Bundy get away with drafting something so at odds with such a determination and nobody said a word about those changes, or raised a furor in the press, or even mentioned it in a footnote years later in their memoirs? Shoot, if these guys had "foreknowledge" of the assassination, why did they bother to "secretly agree" to anything at all? And after having reached that "secret agreement," yet drafting a memorandum in direct contravention of it, what the heck were they gonna do if Kennedy had survived the weekend unscathed? It would seem at least that they'd have drafted a memo more in keeping with the "policies" "decided upon" by JFK in NSAM-263 in case they'd need it, wouldn't you? Even the best laid plans and all that, y'know? Or were they also somehow prescient of the coup's success as well? And FWIW, a command to "action" is only to "do certain things" in support of an objective; it does not imply full-scale mobilization to implement all phases of it. Likewise - and I could be mistaken here, I'm only 52 - I don't think that "national security" became the mantra, the "be-all and end-all" that it is today that "TRUMPS all other considerations," until the Nixon era. I guess that what I'm ultimately saying is that, as long as we stick to the facts that are presented, it's easy to draw a conclusion of foreknowledge and a coup. But if we try (without making an intense and in-depth study of it) to reconcile it with other evidence, it's not quite as convincing a conclusion, and clearly isn't the only one that there is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David G. Healy Posted December 17, 2010 Share Posted December 17, 2010 ... my intent was to get people thinking about these issues again because I believe they remain important. Thanks for thinking... Now please stop? (grin) I haven't the time to argue these points beyond a few short lines.1) The early implication that Fletcher Prouty was somehow "out-of-the-loop" in your first reply is absurd. He was the Chief of Special Operations which means he was all over it...perhaps even more so than many of the Generals! 2) The implication that his account was "second hand" knowledge is absurd. Prouty personally handed the leather bound "McNamara-Taylor Report" to the pilot and instructed that pilot as to how he was to brief McNamara & Taylor! 3) FYI: I spoke with Peter Dale Scott (and communicated through email) months ago when I sent my paper to him upon its completion. Other than a few minor items, he indicated that he essentially agreed with all I had written. Now, during my presentation, I acknowledge his good work. We may have differences, but we don't dismiss each other's conclusions at all. 4) A "National Security Action Memorandum" has 2 key concepts in it. The first is National Security, which TRUMPS all other considerations. The second is ACTION. It is not like "passing a note" in class. Not only might it delineate policy, it is a directive intended to implement that policy: ACTION. My main point can be summed up in the notion that foreknowledge of the signatories to NSAM-273 (in draft or adopted form) is not the ONLY conclusion one can reach, and is indeed the one least supported by the available evidence, which includes the on-going opposition to Kennedy's "policy" of withdrawal by almost all "senior" NSC officials (Bundy, McNamara, Rusk, et al.) and the then-Vice President LBJ. It is every bit as likely - and probably more likely - that these men took advantage of Kennedy's "absence" and Johnson's new (and sole) authority to enact a policy that all of them had been advocating all along. They were no longer compelled to support the deceased president's inclinations, and very clearly did not. There is nothing "absurd" about questioning Fletch Prouty's bona fides since the only evidence of them is his own assertions. That is not to say that he lied about what he did, but merely to say that "why would I lie" is about the only "proof" that he ever offered that they were factual. The fact that a "mere" colonel - almost a non-entity at the Pentagon level, much less the national security level - is not mentioned on the official record is not proof of his veracity or, to be more generous, his accuracy. There are no sacred cows, are there? (Silly me: of course there are! Isn't "Oswald did it alone and unaided" one of them to some people? It's just not right to question what we want to believe!) It's my experience that it's generally fairly easy to find evidence to support a notion, or rather, easy to ignore evidence that doesn't when you've found enough that does. Most of us have this tendency, I think, and some of us don't act against it. Peter, for example, notes that "it is of course possible that NSAM 273 had already been censored before it was submitted to some or all of the authors of the Pentagon Papers," yet he doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the draft NSAM-273 that was made on November 21 was likewise "censored" (read: "destroyed"), and in any event superceded by the version which was presented to LBJ on November 24 and ratified by him? Why in the world would we think that we have the one-and-only true and uncensored version of the "draft" that was actually made on November 21, when those at the Pentagon who made a study for and on behalf of Robert McNamara might not have had it? Your emphasis on the concept of "ACTION" seems a little misplaced, especially in light of the Honolulu Conference's objectives. You make it sound as if what Kennedy had been contemplating and hinting at was a "directive" that everyone in government had to take immediate steps to implement: "everybody get on board and DO THESE THINGS ... NOW!" If that is indeed the case, why - again in Peter Dale Scott's own words - would Kennedy demand "a 'full-scale review' of U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia" to be made in "an extraordinary all-agency Honolulu Conference of some 45 to 60 senior Administration officials" when he'd already made up his mind?? When POTUS has "made up his mind," then that seems to be the time for a "directive" for "ACTION," and not the time to "demand" a "full-scale review," wouldn't you think? This even despite the claim that "on November 20, two days before the assassination, the Honolulu Conference secretly 'agreed that the Accelerated Plan (speed-up of force withdrawal by six months directed by McNamara in October) should be maintained.'" If that is so - it was done "secretly," after all - if everyone agreed that JFK's "planned withdrawal" was the right course for the country, then how in the world did Mac Bundy get away with drafting something so at odds with such a determination and nobody said a word about those changes, or raised a furor in the press, or even mentioned it in a footnote years later in their memoirs? Shoot, if these guys had "foreknowledge" of the assassination, why did they bother to "secretly agree" to anything at all? And after having reached that "secret agreement," yet drafting a memorandum in direct contravention of it, what the heck were they gonna do if Kennedy had survived the weekend unscathed? It would seem at least that they'd have drafted a memo more in keeping with the "policies" "decided upon" by JFK in NSAM-263 in case they'd need it, wouldn't you? Even the best laid plans and all that, y'know? Or were they also somehow prescient of the coup's success as well? And FWIW, a command to "action" is only to "do certain things" in support of an objective; it does not imply full-scale mobilization to implement all phases of it. Likewise - and I could be mistaken here, I'm only 52 - I don't think that "national security" became the mantra, the "be-all and end-all" that it is today that "TRUMPS all other considerations," until the Nixon era. I guess that what I'm ultimately saying is that, as long as we stick to the facts that are presented, it's easy to draw a conclusion of foreknowledge and a coup. But if we try (without making an intense and in-depth study of it) to reconcile it with other evidence, it's not quite as convincing a conclusion, and clearly isn't the only one that there is. also EXCELLENT, Duke! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Burnham Posted December 17, 2010 Author Share Posted December 17, 2010 (edited) Duke: My main point can be summed up in the notion that foreknowledge of the signatories to NSAM-273 (in draft or adopted form) is not the ONLY conclusion one can reach... Greg: Correct. There are, literally, hundreds of thousands, millions, indeed an UNLIMITED number of conclusions that one could reach about this or any other subject. The test of the conclusions' viability must be measured using the tools of logic, critical thinking, likelihoods, analysis of available evidence, a healthy working knowledge of the subject matter, among other things--and all within a sound contextual back-drop. Duke (cont.) ... and is indeed the one least supported by the available evidence, which includes the on-going opposition to Kennedy's "policy" of withdrawal by almost all "senior" NSC officials (Bundy, McNamara, Rusk, et al.) and the then-Vice President LBJ. Greg: This last assertion is completely unsupported and is, in fact, counter-intuitive to the conclusion you have reached. IF we agree that NSAM 263 called for the withdrawal of the first 1,000 troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963, the withdrawal of all US "troops" by the end of 1964, and the withdrawal of the bulk of all remaining US Personnel (CIA and advisors) by the end of 1965...THEN we can talk further about this portion. However, if you reject that premise out-of-hand, you are in good company with John McAdams and those of his ilk. Assuming, however, that you agree that NSAM 263 called for withdrawal...THEN it follows that the items to be discussed in Honolulu should have been consistent with that policy. We have NO evidence indicating that JFK had ordered the conference attendees to "reconsider" the existing (NSAM 263) withdrawal policy. If you have evidence of such, please provide it. Indeed, the Joint STATE / DEFENSE Department Cable of November 13th (nearly 2 weeks AFTER the assassination of DIEM) directed the agenda of the meeting. As for military (Item 2) -- the participants were instructed to discuss: "(2) MILITARY, INCLUDING REPORT ON PROGRESS IN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF TASKS ASSIGNED AS A RESULT OF THE MCNAMARA-TAYLOR MISSION, AND OUTLINING PLANS FOR CONTROL OF INFILTRATION AND SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE DELTA CAMPAIGN." If you recall, the ONLY portion of the McNamara-Taylor Report that was approved by JFK was the section recommending WITHDRAWAL. The military was instructed to REPORT on progress of accomplishing tasks related to WITHDRAWAL from Vietnam. Duke: It is every bit as likely - and probably more likely - that these men took advantage of Kennedy's "absence" and Johnson's new (and sole) authority to enact a policy that all of them had been advocating all along. They were no longer compelled to support the deceased president's inclinations, and very clearly did not. Greg: Yes, but at the time that the DRAFT of NSAM 273 was written, the President (JFK) was NOT "absent"--he was alive and well--and he was still the Commander-in-Chief! My presentation was NOT about the final version of 273--it was ONLY about the draft. Therein lies the "smoking gun" -- Duke: There is nothing "absurd" about questioning Fletch Prouty's bona fides since the only evidence of them is his own assertions. That is not to say that he lied about what he did, but merely to say that "why would I lie" is about the only "proof" that he ever offered that they were factual. The fact that a "mere" colonel - almost a non-entity at the Pentagon level, much less the national security level - is not mentioned on the official record is not proof of his veracity or, to be more generous, his accuracy. There are no sacred cows, are there? (Silly me: of course there are! Isn't "Oswald did it alone and unaided" one of them to some people? It's just not right to question what we want to believe!) It's my experience that it's generally fairly easy to find evidence to support a notion, or rather, easy to ignore evidence that doesn't when you've found enough that does. Most of us have this tendency, I think, and some of us don't act against it. Greg: Now we have an interesting situation. If you concede that Colonel Prouty was more than likely truthful and accurate, then your assertion (that he was "out-of-the-loop" and/or his info was "second-hand") was, in fact, absurd. The only circumstance that makes your assertion rational denies one or both of the foregoing. Namely, it would mean that Prouty was lying, grossly mistaken to a degree rendering him incompetent, psychopathic, or one of several alternately disturbing scenarios. I doubt any would argue he was incompetent or a psychopath. So, Duke, which is it? Was he a xxxx or truthful? It cannot be both. I knew him well. I have no cause to disbelieve his account. Duke, I don't make my mind up in advance of examining evidence. And, besides that, why would I (or anyone, not just me) "want to believe" this particular scenario? My research is conducted from a position of "WANTING TO KNOW" what happened. It does not emerge from a presupposed position of "find evidence to support what I already believe" happened, as that would be counter-productive and self delusional. I am unmarried to any theories and always open to new ideas provided the evidence upon which they are based has merit. Duke: Peter, for example, notes that "it is of course possible that NSAM 273 had already been censored before it was submitted to some or all of the authors of the Pentagon Papers," yet he doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the draft NSAM-273 that was made on November 21 was likewise "censored" (read: "destroyed"), and in any event superceded by the version which was presented to LBJ on November 24 and ratified by him? Greg: You'd have to ask Peter that question. Duke: Why in the world would we think that we have the one-and-only true and uncensored version of the "draft" that was actually made on November 21, when those at the Pentagon who made a study for and on behalf of Robert McNamara might not have had it? Greg: I have no idea what you are talking about here? But, if I try to follow your drift, let me say that there were SEVERAL rough drafts of the document between the 22nd and the 26th--some with handwritten notes in the margin-- yet only ONE has surfaced from the 21st. Duke: Your emphasis on the concept of "ACTION" seems a little misplaced, especially in light of the Honolulu Conference's objectives. You make it sound as if what Kennedy had been contemplating and hinting at was a "directive" that everyone in government had to take immediate steps to implement: "everybody get on board and DO THESE THINGS ... NOW!" [emphasis added] Greg: Kennedy was NOT merely "contemplating and hinting at" withdrawal, Duke! Why the subterfuge? You know better than that! "Withdrawal" was incorporated by direct reference in a National Security Action Memorandum (263). First, have you even READ the Joint STATE / DEFENSE Department Cable of November 13th? The MILITARY OBJECTIVES to be covered in Honolulu dealt with IMPLEMENTATION OF TASKS assigned as a result of NSAM 263 (including the ONLY portion of the McNamara - Taylor Report JFK approved: WITHDRAWAL). Duke: If that is indeed the case, why - again in Peter Dale Scott's own words - would Kennedy demand "a 'full-scale review' of U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia" to be made in "an extraordinary all-agency Honolulu Conference of some 45 to 60 senior Administration officials" when he'd already made up his mind?? Greg: You'll need to ask Peter. However, again, the "agenda" for the conference as laid out in the cable stipulates the MILITARY was to report on the accomplishment of tasks assigned as a result of the portion of the McNamara-Taylor Mission Report APPROVED by JFK and formalized in NSAM 263: WITHDRAWAL. Duke: When POTUS has "made up his mind," then that seems to be the time for a "directive" for "ACTION," and not the time to "demand" a "full-scale review," wouldn't you think? Greg: Splitting hairs will not help. The CABLE lays out the agenda for the military's discussions in Honolulu, namely, accomplishment of tasks related to WITHDRAWAL. Duke: This even despite the claim that "on November 20, two days before the assassination, the Honolulu Conference secretly 'agreed that the Accelerated Plan (speed-up of force withdrawal by six months directed by McNamara in October) should be maintained.'" If that is so - it was done "secretly," after all - if everyone agreed that JFK's "planned withdrawal" was the right course for the country, then how in the world did Mac Bundy get away with drafting something so at odds with such a determination and nobody said a word about those changes, or raised a furor in the press, or even mentioned it in a footnote years later in their memoirs? Greg: Other than the unsupported assertion that implies...if it had happened, "Someone Would Have Talked" -- Duke, that last part you wrote, is, in my opinion, the BEST questions you have asked so far. Great questions. Like I said in my presentation, there is NO documentation that I could find to substantiate the claim that the new "central object" (Total Commitment) emerged as a result of the discussions conducted in Honolulu! In fact, the first paragraph states that: "It remains the central object..." -- Yet, as I said before, no such "Central Object" of winning the contest existed on November 21st, therefore it could not "remain" either. Duke: Shoot, if these guys had "foreknowledge" of the assassination, why did they bother to "secretly agree" to anything at all? And after having reached that "secret agreement," yet drafting a memorandum in direct contravention of it, what the heck were they gonna do if Kennedy had survived the weekend unscathed? It would seem at least that they'd have drafted a memo more in keeping with the "policies" "decided upon" by JFK in NSAM-263 in case they'd need it, wouldn't you? Even the best laid plans and all that, y'know? Or were they also somehow prescient of the coup's success as well? Greg: To quote Man X: "Kings are killed, Mr Garrison. It's a story as old as the crucifixion..." [paraphrased] Duke: And FWIW, a command to "action" is only to "do certain things" in support of an objective; it does not imply full-scale mobilization to implement all phases of it. Likewise - and I could be mistaken here, I'm only 52 - I don't think that "national security" became the mantra, the "be-all and end-all" that it is today that "TRUMPS all other considerations," until the Nixon era. Greg: That is incorrect. In the United States, National Security issues and documents have always TRUMPED all other considerations. The main difference is that it (National Security) is abusively cited today more often than it perhaps was in previous decades. Duke: I guess that what I'm ultimately saying is that, as long as we stick to the facts that are presented, it's easy to draw a conclusion of foreknowledge and a coup. But if we try (without making an intense and in-depth study of it) to reconcile it with other evidence, it's not quite as convincing a conclusion, and clearly isn't the only one that there is. Greg: Thanks for thinking... Edited December 18, 2010 by Greg Burnham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Lane Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 (edited) You'll forgive me, I hope, if I'm having difficulty reconciling things like ... why would I (or anyone, not just me) "want to believe" this particular scenario? My research is conducted from a position of "WANTING TO KNOW" what happened. It does not emerge from a presupposed position of "find evidence to support what I already believe" happened, as that would be counter-productive and self delusional. I am unmarried to any theories and always open to new ideas ..." ... with other things like: ... IF we agree that NSAM 263 called for the withdrawal of the first 1,000 troops from Vietnam by the end of 1963, the withdrawal of all US "troops" by the end of 1964, and the withdrawal of the bulk of all remaining US Personnel (CIA and advisors) by the end of 1965...THEN we can talk further about this portion. However, if you reject that premise out-of-hand, you are in good company with John McAdams and those of his ilk. ... which suggests to me a predisposition toward only discussing things with people whose ideas generally agree with your own. I have no idea what position, if any, McAdams or any of his "ilk" (sort of reminds me of the difference between "aroma" and "odor" when applied to one's wife's cooking, doesn't it you?) has on this question and I really don't care, but I certainly don't think that anyone's "politics" in this matter has anything to do with the validity or veracity of their arguments: you're not "right" about this topic just because I happen to think there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, and they're not wrong just because they think Oswald did it. In point of fact, I don't know whether I ultimately agree with you or not about this "smoking gun" business, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm inclined to think that your argument's not quite as strong as it seems at face value. For example, regarding NSAM-263: ... 8. Vietnam. Everyone is bracing for Madame Nhu's visit. Forrestal remarked Madame Nhu has great attractive powers; even Hilsman is weakening and agrees some of the things she says make sense. On Vietnam in general, Bundy commented that he was surprised that some people were taking as "Pollyanna-ish" the "McNamara-Taylor" statement that we could pull out of Vietnam in two years.' He said what struck him was that two years was really a long time, considering that by then the war would have lasted four years-or longer than most wars in US history. General Clifton said the President undoubtedly would be asked about it Wednesday at his press conference. (The conference was news to all assembled.) The general line will be that in two years the Vietnamese will be able to finish the job without US military forces on the scene-a position considered reasonable by everyone around the table. Bundy also asked Forrestal to draw together the recent materials on Vietnam and issue an appropriate NSAM. He said that the New York Times had the only version of what was decided at a recent NSC meeting, and while he did not mind communicating with various agencies through the Times, General Taylor had suggested the need for something more official. ... (Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol IV, Vietnam: August - December 1963, page 387 et seq., at HistoryMatters.com; emphases added) The emphasis upon NSAM-263 being JFK's hard-and-fast, unequivocal and resolute "policy" rings a little hollow when one finds that it was "an appropriate NSAM" that was "drawn together" from "recent materials on Vietnam" in response to a "suggestion" that there would be "something more official" to support a "general line" that was "considered reasonable by everyone around the table" to use to respond to reporters' questions at an upcoming press conference that nobody at that table even knew about. (The "Wednesday" referred to was Wednesday, October 9, 1963, two days before the issuance of NSAM-263 on October 11: it seems Forrestal was a tad behind the eight-ball getting that done.) I'm not making this stuff up, I haven't been holding it in abeyance, and nobody's been "feeding" it to me: other than what I've attributed to the book Running the World, all the stuff I've posted on this thread I'd found only in the past few days. While I grant that it's all probably "only the stuff 'they' want us to know," and certainly not "all there is to know," it fairly well demolishes the notion that these NSAMs were things that fully and accurately record exactly what JFK had firmly decided upon as if he'd spent his nights penning them himself, laboring over each word and nuance so history and his generals would get it absolutely right ... or that NSAM-273 was penned by fiendishly clever conspirators with "foreknowledge" of the impending assassination, waiting with bated breath to spring their little subterfuge of a lengthy war on an unsuspecting (or collaborating, depending on one's point of view) new president and the nation before Kennedy had even pushed up his first daisy. That's all I've got time for right now. I'm about ready to put this on the "sensational" shelf along with the famous "there's no earthquakes in Texas" commentary from Infamous Grave Sites, but just not quite yet I don't think. Splitting hairs will not help. I know. I was thinking the same thing. (Yeah: thanks for thinking!) Edit: time of WH staff meeting Edited December 19, 2010 by Duke Lane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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