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COPA 2010 Presentation Online


Greg Burnham

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Oh, sorry, I lied, but only briefly:

... 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.

Probably more propaganda, but here we go:

... 2. At the outset, let me state plainly that the central purpose of my Government in all of its relations with your country is that the Communists should be defeated in their brazen effort to capture your country by force and fraud of all varieties. What we do and do not do, whether it seems right or wrong to our friends, is always animated by this central purpose. In all that it does in its relations with your country, the United States Government gives absolute priority to the defeat of the Communists.

(ibid., page 231; emphases added)

The "hairs" are "as a result of the Honolulu discussions," and "purpose" rather than "object." Oh: and also not penned by JFK.

I've got a date; gotta go. This time I mean it.

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Guest James H. Fetzer

I remembered your presentation last evening and had the pleasure

of viewing it. You did an excellent job and made many important

points about 263 as opposed to (the draft of) 273, including, of

course, that peculiar paragraph which only makes sense under the

assumption that LBJ had dictated it to reassure or call for calm

from the military post-assassination. Duke observes that it was

prepared for signature, but the point you have made is that the

signature for which it was prepared cannot have been that of JFK!

I especially liked your point about the "leather bound" copy of

263 and that JFK only approved the portion that he had himself

dictated! I liked the way you fielded the questions about McBundy

and Cabot Lodge. I have no doubt that they were both profoundly

involved in getting Jack into trouble: McBundy in relation to the

Bay of Pigs, and Cabot Lodge in relation to Vietnam. It was very

nicely done and I have no doubt that even "old hands" would have

benefited from it. These NSAMs were clearly worth another review.

Oh, sorry, I lied, but only briefly:

... 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.

Probably more propaganda, but here we go:

... 2. At the outset, let me state plainly that the central purpose of my Government in all of its relations with your country is that the Communists should be defeated in their brazen effort to capture your country by force and fraud of all varieties. What we do and do not do, whether it seems right or wrong to our friends, is always animated by this central purpose. In all that it does in its relations with your country, the United States Government gives absolute priority to the defeat of the Communists.

(ibid., page 231; emphases added)

The "hairs" are "as a result of the Honolulu discussions," and "purpose" rather than "object." Oh: and also not penned by JFK.

I've got a date; gotta go. This time I mean it.

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Guest James H. Fetzer

For clarity and to be precise, what was "leather bound" was the McNamara &

Taylor Report. It was many more pages longer than NSAM 263, which was the

'"product" of JFK's having approved only one section of that entire McNamara

& Taylor Repor--namely, the portion that contained the recommendation to

withdraw the bulk of all US "personnel" (not just military) from Vietnam by the

end of 1965. So JFK only approved the part of their report he had introduced.

I appreciate that Monk kindly noted the ambiguity of my previous post here.

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I remembered your presentation last evening and had the pleasure

of viewing it. You did an excellent job and made many important

points about 263 as opposed to (the draft of) 273, including, of

course, that peculiar paragraph which only makes sense under the

assumption that LBJ had dictated it to reassure or call for calm

from the military post-assassination. Duke observes that it was

prepared for signature, but the point you have made is that the

signature for which it was prepared cannot have been that of JFK!

I especially liked your point about the "leather bound" copy of

263 and that JFK only approved the portion that he had himself

dictated! I liked the way you fielded the questions about McBundy

and Cabot Lodge. I have no doubt that they were both profoundly

involved in getting Jack into trouble: McBundy in relation to the

Bay of Pigs, and Cabot Lodge in relation to Vietnam. It was very

nicely done and I have no doubt that even "old hands" would have

benefited from it. These NSAMs were clearly worth another review.

Thanks Jim.

You raise an interesting point about this "peculiar" (as you so aptly

referred to it) paragraph.

Paragraph 4 from NSAM 273 DRAFT:

It is of the highest importance that the United States

Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public

recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President

expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic

steps to insure that they and their subordinates go out of their way

to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government

both here and in the field.

If, on November 20th and 21st, the concerns raised in this paragraph

were as dire as they appear to be, it is highly unlikely that JFK would

have even gone to Texas (or anywhere outside Washington) at that time!

It appears clear that this paragraph could not have been the result of

any discussions conducted at the Honolulu Conference. In other words,

minus the context of the pending assassination, this portion has, literally,

no meaning at all.

Edited by Greg Burnham
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An earthquake in Texas.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I think I finally agree with you Tony! You are wasting your time if you are attempting to convince me that you are more astute on this subject than was Fletcher Prouty.

You are wasting your time if you believe that "double-think and double-speak" will cause me to abandon critical thinking.

You are wasting time if you really believe that the evidence demonstrating that JFK was committed to withdrawal is insufficient to bring into question the content of the DRAFT of NSAM 273.

Indeed, if it weren't a violation of forum policy, I might suggest that you are a waste of my time. However, you are using precisely the same strategy as JFK was using. He was declaring victory (when clearly none was in sight) prior to withdrawing.

Oh. Okay. I'm finally catching on. These guys will believe what they want to believe, decide what is "evidence" and what isn't, tout the things that support their beliefs and dismiss those that don't, and deride those who don't agree with their special insights. There really are monsters under the bed, whether anyone else can see them or not, cuz they've seen 'em themselves. QED.

The line "if it weren't a violation of forum policy" takes the cake, too. Wow. Pretty slick how Monk did that, violated it without violating it, eh?

Gosh, I wish I had that kind of audacity!

First we've got Monk telling us that "there is nothing ambiguous" about 263, that it's "JFK's firm policy," and that Bundy is clearly a traitor for drafting something that's so antithetical to it while JFK was still alive, showing that he somehow "knew" there would be another president in office by the time anyone read his draft. The plot was unfolding right there in the Oval Office!

Then when something earlier and just as antithetical is brought to the fore, it's dismissed out of hand like it doesn't exist because "JFK was against unilateral American involvement in Indochina from before the days of the French defeat," and "there is no evidence that his personal position on the matter changed once he became president." There are even a couple of quotes to support it.

So how does this square with the idea of NSAMs being so incredibly important, "clear indicators" of "presidential policy" that it's supposedly a "serious crime" to circumvent or subvert, that NSAM-111 - very clearly antithetical to NSAM-263 - is somehow NOT as clear an indicator of presidential policy?

Oh, they're important alright. Just not NSAM-111. It wasn't. It's not "evidence that his personal position on the matter changed once he became president" precisely because it is evidence that he changed his personal position on the matter once he became president.

But, really, that's because "he was politically astute enough to realize the difference between his 'public position' and his actual position," the former apparently being elucidated in a **TOP SECRET** NSAM and in all of his public utterances, and the latter being shared, sotto voce, with his closest compatriots (excluding, of course, his brother Bobby, who was his closest confidant in everything except this, the one thing so important it "got him killed;" on that, JFK misled his brother, didn't tell him what was really on his mind so that Bobby believed, after JFK's death, that Jack wasn't going to pull out, despite there being "no evidence" that he'd changed his mind from the '50s and clearly "always intended" to). A wily one, that Jack!

So, NSAM-111 not being "evidence that his personal position on the matter changed," what was it if not the same "unambiguous" statement of policy that Monk tells us NSAM-263 was, and all NSAMs are? "A 'National Security Action Memorandum' has 2 key concepts in it," he pointed out to me on the Education Forum. "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."

OK. I got it. I've been instructed.

I pulled a bunch of NSAMs off of the JFK Library site and pointed out a few that were literally nothing more than reminders, things that are almost "like 'passing a note' in class," or at the very least, not something we'd consider in the stratum of something that "TRUMPS all other considerations" as anything to do with "national security" surely does. Along with that came the four-page NSAM-111 that apparently doesn't fit that bill and isn't, apparently, what a NSAM "is," isn't "policy" even despite its clear and detailed language and instuctions. More like a long note passed in class.

We know that because "there is no evidence that (JFK's) personal position on the matter changed," and if this is and does, then, well, it's not and didn't. There's not an important distinction here, folks, so just move along, move along, there's nothing more to see.

JFK's "personal position" is actually addressed in NSAM-263, which was an "order" because, as I'd pointed out, it was written at the "suggestion" of the JCS chair, relayed via JFK's military aide, to have "something more official" on which to base government activities than the New York Times article that appeared on October 3 "announcing" the withdrawal to take place and the media's inevitable questions that might be asked - but weren't - at a forthcoming news conference that nobody on the NSC staff even knew about. Bundy told his aide Michael Forrestal to "gather together recent materials on Vietnam" and to "issue an appropriate NSAM" to support a "general line" that "was considered reeasonable by everyone at the table."

Wow, that's pretty official. JFK's "unambiguous policy." Sort of restores one's faith in government "policy," doesn't it?

And has anyone even noticed that NSAM-263 excluded approval of the items covered in the McNamara-Taylor report sections I B (4) and (5), discussion about which former was deferred for "three days" at the October 2 meeting, was discussed and approved at the October 5 meeting that NSAM-263 explicitly references and bases its "orders" on? Forrestal, who was present at the October 5 "off the record" meeting and authored the "Memorandum for the Files" of it, who was at the staff meeting on OCtober 7, must've forgotten about all about that in the interim of authoring that "appropriate NSAM" on October 11.

(In Forrestal's Memorandum of the October 5 meeting, all of the political provisions of subsection (4), actions "to impress upon Diem our disapproval of his political program," are discussed at length, yet in the end, Forrestal notes that subsection (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" - is what he writes were "approved and that appropriate instructions implementing the recommendation in this section be transmitted via CAS channels.")

That JFK: he really was some sort of genius, wasn't he, in clarifying his "unambiguous policy?" Wow. I wonder when he was going to clarify his October 5 approval of subsection (4) - and maybe (5) - if not in NSAM-263 on October 11, his "unambiguous policy" on Vietnam that's just so filled with ambiguity?

OK, I'm confusing the issue here. It's not about any of that stuff. "The only issue, or bone of contention, which should concern us," Richard Gilbride jumps in to say, "is whether 263 and 273 are similar such ACTION instructions and policy outlines."

Y'know, golly gee, he's right: it is an important question! Did NSAM-263 reflect JFK's real policy in one page, countermanding his "other" policy that was in the same sort of National-Security-that-TRUMPS-every-other-consideration ACTION-meaning-directive-intended-to-implement-my-policy-action Memorandum that's not "evidence that he changed his personal position" but rather something that those in government would have been "politically astute enough" to realize "the difference between his 'public position' and his actual position" that somebody took enough time to delineate in four detailed pages of a National Security ACTION Memorandum.

So are they? Yes or no? Richard?

"NSAMs 55 and 57, and 271, which are the other NSAMs I'm personally familiar with," he declares, "are presidential ACTION instructions and policy outlines."

Oh. OK. That clears that up. And?

No other shoe falls. That's it. There's nothing more. NSAMs 55, 57 and 271 are "presidential ACTION instructions and policy outlines," three out of 271 (actually 272). Does that mean 263 must be an ACTION memo? No response. There is nothing at all behind that curtain, folks, so move along now ....

BUT WAIT! WAIT! He's not done! Gather 'round, folks, something really important is about to happen here! Shhh ...!

Monk's "nay-sayers are ignoring an additional piece of contextual evidence," the speaker intones. "Nothing," he says, "nothing has been posted by them in regard to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's memo 'It's Over' published in his recent memoirs and also on-line at Vanity Fair!" Nothing! How can they ignore this recent evidence? Unreal!

(A voice is heard from the crowd: Phil Dragoo yells "I referenced that powerful Moynihan memo, too! Back on November 4th!" Wow, those nay-sayers really are ignorant, aren't they! TELL US! TELL US!! What did Moynihan say?!?)

"In Vanity Fair! Wherein he recounts (on the night of November 22nd, he whispers) that:"

(Pregnant pause.)

"Quote: he says, 'We went directly to the President's office which was torn apart with new carpets being put down in his office and the cabinet room... McGEORGE BUNDY appeared. ICY...'"

The room is silent.

Icy! "Is this not consistent with the demeanor of a guilty man - a participant in the coup d'etat- shunning inquisitive intruders?"

Oh.

My.

Gawd.

Could it be? The smoking gun?

In the stunned silence hanging over the audience like a thick fog rolling in from the sea, a small voice comes over the PA. "He left out the part about Bundy then calling Secretary McNamara." Oh my. "And Moynihan's impression that the new carpet made it seem 'as if a new President were to take office.'" Even more intriguing and indicative!

The crowd hangs on tautly, awaiting more. They're not disappointed: "And that Chuck Daly was there, too! And Ralph Dungan came in, smoking a pipe, 'quizzical.'" A pause. "Moynihan says 'As if ... unconcerned! And then Sorenson, too! And the troika called Secretary McNamara!"

Is there no end to the treachery?!? Do we need more proof than JFK's own personal friend telling us this? And right after that sly dog Bundy wrote that draft! At last! EVIDENCE!

But wait, there's still more.

And one really wonders how they missed it.

Cuz, yup, in the same book, if they'd looked just a little farther, just before the passage above (in which we also learn that Moynihan retired and watched tv with the pipe-smoking, "quizzical" and "unconcerned" Ralph Dungan!), we find that Moynihan had also penned his resignation.

It read:

Dear Mr. President,

As you assume the awesome responsibilities that have devolved upon you, I would like to offer my resignation as Assistant Secretary of Labor in order that you might in this respect, as in others, have the fullest freedom to organize the government in the best interests of the Administration and the Nation as you perceive them. I do so with the utmost assurance of my complete support and continued prayers.

He was very clearly writing to LBJ, not to his just-departed dear friend Jack Kennedy. The letter was dated ... November 21, 1963.

Moynihan was part of the plot, too. JFK's own very dear friend. Oh.

My.

Gawd.

How did they miss that?

(Oh. The publisher said it was an "incorrect" date, that's how! Not having been part of the plot themselves - a rarity for publishers in those days! - they clearly didn't recognize the evidence even as it stared them in the face! It was "a mistake!" It slipped by our sleuths because it wasn't in Vanity Fair.)

So let's forget about all this mumbo-jumbo, all this "double-think and double-speak," about what NSAMs were, what they meant, what JFK's "true" intentions were or weren't, who wrote what, why, and all of that meaningless talk about stuff that's not evidence of anything anyway (except about how artful JFK really was?), and let's move on to the critical thinking, the really profound examination of "the demeanor of a guilty man - a participant in the coup d'etat - shunning inquisitive intruders."

That's where the meat is, that's where the answers will be found, not lollygaggin' around 'mid the muck and the mire of those meaningless NSAMS that "TRUMP all other considerations" except, of course, what we should've been looking at all along. Uh, at least since November, that is. In a book. That'll be out soon. Excerpts on Vanity Fair, film at eleven.

(Gosh, I'm still amazed that I'd missed it! But at least I can save on the cost of the October 5 tape now that it's been shown to me!)

Like Tony had said in order to elicit that "waste of my time" "critical thinking" response, I'm done with this "debate" as well, at least there, tho' not, as Monk would have it, by "using precisely the same strategy as JFK was using ... declaring victory (when clearly none was in sight) prior to withdrawing," but rather by recognizing what Nixon ultimately did: there's nothing to be gained from fighting an enemy who "owns" the ground and doesn't want to let it go even in the face of superior armament.

The NVN at least had a defensible point there.

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But, really, that's because "he was politically astute enough to realize the difference between his 'public position' and his actual position," the former apparently being elucidated in a **TOP SECRET** NSAM and in all of his public utterances, and the latter being shared, sotto voce, with his closest compatriots (excluding, of course, his brother Bobby, who was his closest confidant in everything except this, the one thing so important it "got him killed;" on that, JFK misled his brother, didn't tell him what was really on his mind so that Bobby believed, after JFK's death, that Jack wasn't going to pull out, despite there being "no evidence" that he'd changed his mind from the '50s and clearly "always intended" to). A wily one, that Jack!

Gareth Porter's Perils of Dominance, pgs 165-6:

KENNEDY'S TROOP WITHDRAWAL PLAN

Historians have generally remained skeptical of the idea that Kennedy pursued a firm policy of phasing out U.S. troops from South Vietnam. That rejection has rested on four grounds: the absence of any internal documentation of such a policy, at least until October 2, 1963; a record of public statements that seems to contradict it; Kennedy's alleged rejection of the idea of peace negotiations on South Vietnam; and the denial by Robert F. Kennedy in an oral history interview that the president had seriously considered withdrawal.

The fact, documented above, that Kennedy secretly tried to initiate diplomatic contacts with the North Vietnamese to begin peace talks addresses one of these objections. And Robert F. Kennedy's denial should not be regarded as disposing of the matter, because the oral history interview in question was given in April of 1964, after the situation in South Vietnam had gone into a serious spiral, the Kennedy withdrawal policy had been repudiated by Johnson, and the mood of the country still leaned toward preventing the loss of South Vietnam. Furthermore, Robert Kennedy was weighing whether to make a bid to become Lyndon Johnson's vice presidential running mate or to run for a Senate seat in New York. He was determined to protect his brother's reputation for anti-Communism -- and his own -- which he feared would be tarnished by an admission that John F. Kennedy had promoted a policy of withdrawal from Vietnam, regardless of the outcome.

Kennedy's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, observed in a later interview that Kennedy had never mentioned a phase-out of U.S. troop from South Vietnam in any of their "hundreds" of conversations on Vietnam. Similarly, McGeorge Bundy could not recall any involvement by Kennedy in the withdrawal issue before October 1963. Furthermore, Kennedy repeatedly emphasized in public statements in 1963 the necessity to say the course in South Vietnam. The absence of reference by the president in the records of meetings with advisers to his intention to pursue a particular policy and a series of public statements that appear to contradict it would normally be sufficient to rule out the thesis that a president was pursuing such a policy.

In the case of Kennedy's policy toward withdrawal from South Vietnam, however, both of these indicators must be examined more closely. Kennedy was extremely cautious about revealing positions that he knew were at odds with the national security bureaucracy, and he had come to believe that revealing his intentions on withdrawal from Vietnam to the public or even to his own National Security Council was too risky. Kennedy had reason to believe that neither Rusk nor Bundy would have been sympathetic to a complete military withdrawal by 1965. Furthermore, Kennedy's decision to handle the withdrawal plan outside the normal policy channels was in line with his exclusion of Rusk and Bundy from the policy of negotiating Laotian neutrality, which both Bundy and Rusk had opposed and which Kennedy had handled directly with [W. Averell] Harriman. As in the case of Laos, Kennedy hoped to minimize the possibility that the withdrawal policy would be undermined by opposition from high-ranking officials.

Furthermore, Kennedy feared that being associated by the media and the public with the withdrawal plan would risk a serious political campaign against him if the war in South Vietnam were then to go sour...Kennedy was determined, therefore, to shift public responsibility for the withdrawal policy to McNamara and the JCS.

And JFK thus used CJCS Maxwell Taylor and SecDef Robert McNamara as stalking horses for a withdrawal policy that had little support within his Administration, a policy Kennedy played close to his vest.

The "national security bureaucracy" was also a player in the SE Asia game, as was W. Averell Harriman.

Ellen J. Hammer's A Death in November: America in Vietnam 1963, pgs 177-80 (emphasis in the original):

Washington, August 24, 1963

A handful of men in the State Department and the White House had been awaiting an opportunity to encourage the Vietnamese army to move against the [Diem] government. They intended to exploit the latest crisis [massive raids on Buddhist pagodas August 21] in Saigon to the full. "Averell [Harriman] and Roger [Hilsman] now agree that we must move before the situation in Saigon freezes," Michael Forrestal of the White House staff wrote in a memorandum to President Kennedy.

..."Harriman, Hilsman and I favor taking...action now," Forrestal informed the president. Kennedy was at his Hyannis Port residence in Massachusetts for the weekend. The three men had drafted a cable of their own to [uS Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot] Lodge. The substance, according to Forrestal, had been generally agreed to by [commander in chief of Pacific Command (CINCPAC)] Admiral [Harry D.] Felt. "Clearances [are] being obtained from [Acting Secretary of State] Ball and [the Department of] Defense...Will advise you reactions Ball and Defense, but suggest you let me know if you wish comment or hold-up action." A copy of their draft was dispatched to the president.

This would become Department of State telegram No. 243.

It stated that the American government could not tolerate a situation in which power lay in [Diem brother and head of SVN secret police] Nhu's hands. Military leaders were to be informed that the United States would find it impossible to continue military and economic support to the government unless prompt dramatic actions were taken by Diem to redress Buddhist grievances and remove the Nhus from the scene...Ambassador and country team should urgently examine all possible alternative leadership and make detailed plans as to how we might bring about Diem's replacement if this should become necessary...

...Harriman and Hilsman were determined to send their cable that very day. They found Acting Secretary of State [George] Ball on the golf course, and he telephoned the president in Hyannis Port. Kennedy made no difficulty about giving his approval, assuming that the appropriate officials agreed.

After the call to Kennedy the rest was simple. Ball telephoned [secretary of State Dean] Rusk in New York and told him the president had already agreed, and Rusk gave his own unenthusiastic endorsement. When Roswell Gilpatric (McNamara's deputy at Defense) was called at home by Forrestal, he too was told that Kennedy had cleared the telegram and he was assured that Rusk had seen it. Gilpatric reluctantly gave the clearance of the Department of Defense but was concerned enough about the substance of the cable and the way it had been handled to alert General Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Taylor sent for a copy of the cable. When he read it, his first reaction was that the anti-Diemists in the State Department had taken advantage of the absence of the principal officials to get out instructions that would never have been approved as written under ordinary circumstances. John McCone also was out of town, and rather than try to locate him Harriman had reached Richard Helms, who provided the clearance of the Central Intelligence Agency.

With the president's approval State Department telegram 243 was dispatched to Saigon at 9:36 P.M. on August 24.

John Kennedy would regard this as a major mistake on his part, according to his brother Robert. "He had passed it off too quickly over the weekend at the Cape--he had thought it was cleared by McNamara and Taylor and everyone at State. In fact, it was Harriman, Hilsman and Mike Forrestal at the White House and they were all the ones who were strongly for a coup. Harriman was particularly strong for a coup.

Although the August coup against wasn't mounted, the die was cast against Diem and is brother Nhu.

ibid, pg 185:

Washington, August 26-27, 1963

...In the cool halls of the White House the hectic plotting of the weekend took on an air of unreality. Robert Kennedy had talked with Taylor and McNamara and discovered that "nobody was behind it, nobody knew what we were going to do, nobody knew what our policy was; it hadn't been discussed, as everything else had been discussed since the Bay of Pigs in full detail before we did anything--nothing like that had been done before the decision made on Diem, and so by Tuesday we were trying to pull away from that policy..."

President Kennedy belatedly realized that one one had spelled out to him the ramifications fo the plicy he had approved so lightly. He was irritated at the disagreement among his advisers. Taylor, McNamara, and McCone all were critical of the attempt to run a coup in Saigon. Even Rusk seemed to have second thoughts. "The government was split in two," Robert Kennedy recalled. "It was the only time really in three years, the government was broken in two in a very disturbing way."

ibid, page 198, quoting Robert Kennedy:

"The result [of the cable of August 24] is we started down a road from which we never really recovered...[uS Vietnam military commander General Paul] Harkins was against it and Lodge wasn't talking to Harkins. So Henry Cabot Lodge started down one direction, the State Department was rather in the middle, and they suddenly called off the coup. Then the next five or six weeks we were all concerned about whether they were going to have a coup, who was going to win the coup, and who was going to replace the government. Nobody ever really had any of the answers to any of these things...the President was trying to get rid of Henry Cabot Lodge...The policy he [Lodge] was following was based on that original policy that had been made and then rescinded...that Averell Harriman was responsible for..."

Harriman and his minions bum rushed JFK on the Diem coup. Although Kennedy had sought to make a 1965 withdrawal from Vietnam official American policy, I think the historical record shows that JFK was not in command of American policy in SE Asia in 1963.

According to Ellen J. Hammer the North Vietnamese were chafing under the yoke of the Soviets and the Red Chinese while Diem and his brother Nhu were chafing under the yoke of American economic and military pressure. Both governments sought an eventual non-aligned status.

According to Gareth Porter, Kennedy wanted the same thing.

It didn't happen. And the main reasons Vietnam wasn't neutralized a la Laos were the resistance of the US foreign-policy/military establishment and the machinations of one W. Averell Harriman.

Edited by Cliff Varnell
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  • 4 years later...

From Carl Anthony online who discusses what JFK had planned for his second term as reported to him [Anthony] by Jacqueline Kennedy:

Of all her later recollections about what President Kennedy intended to do, the most upsetting to her was what she curiously characterized as a “secret meeting,” with U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge.

president-kennedy-with-u-s-ambassador-to

President Kennedy with the man he soon after appointed as U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, 1961. (AP)

Her account suggests that he went into uncharacteristic detail with her about the reasons for this, briefing her fully on the current and unfolding situation. He would have had two strong reasons for doing this.

First, he was meeting with the Ambassador not at the White House but at their private weekend home “Wexford,” thus intruding on what was supposed to be set aside as time alone with her and their children.

Second, since the time they had first begun dating, while he was a freshman U.S. Senator and she was a newspaper columnist and photographer, he had known of her particular depth of knowledge and nuanced understanding of the delicate situation in Vietnam which, along with Laos and Cambodia, formed the former French colony of “Indochina.” She had begun studying the situation since 1949 while enrolled at the Sorbonne and she also translated French military policy reports for him on the matter in 1953.

It is unclear why the account provided by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1990 contradicts the later publicly reported claim that the meeting was to take place at Camp David.

the-widowed-jacqueline-kennedy-greets-he

The widowed Jacqueline Kennedy greets her friend Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, 1967.

As the former First Lady specifically amplified my original manuscript account:

“He [JFK] was searching for a way to relieve the ambassador of his duties and to gradually diminish the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had scheduled a White House meeting on this subject for Monday morning, November 25.”

This particular intention of JFK’s, “haunted for years” Jacqueline Kennedy (as her friend, the JFK-LBJ Defense Secretary Robert McNamara put it in our taped interview) because instead of beginning perhaps “to gradually diminish the U.S. presence in Vietnam” on Monday, November 25, 1963, the President was instead being buried at Arlington National Cemetery that day.

=============

Again for emphasis, according to Jackie Kennedy:

“He [JFK] was searching for a way to relieve the ambassador [Lodge] of his duties and to gradually diminish the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had scheduled a White House meeting on this subject for Monday morning, November 25.”

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