Oliver Stone's New JFK Documentaries and the Vietnam War

[James DiEugenio]

As another part of what I consider Hoover Institute cherry picking, why does Mike ignore all the other statements that are on the record from JFK on this issue?

A prominent one is the statement from the O'Donnell and Powers book.  This is pretty important since I think this was the first memoir type book that really made an issue of the LBJ/JFK split on VIetnam. In fact, it took that whole topic pretty much head on.  Let us go ahead and use it.  The two long time advisors both say that Kennedy wanted to win in 1964 by the largest possible margin, because he wanted to use that as a cushion  "and make a complete withdrawal of military forces  from Vietnam."  (p. 14)

They go on to say that Kennedy was very much influenced by two military guys, MacArthur and DeGaulle. They told him that such an infantry battle in the jungle would be hopeless.  There were two talks with MacArthur, the second one lasting two hours.  This book also says that Kennedy was really frustrated because of the conflicting intelligence reports he was getting about the situation; sometimes the same mission would come back with two different reports. (ibid, p. 15)

Now, in the same book, the authors tells us that Mike Mansfield said the same thing to Kennedy.  Because it was now a civil war. that was not our war.  They conclude with the comment that Kennedy ended up agreeing with Mansfield. We needed to withdraw everyone. (p. 16)

Another point the authors bring up is a second Mansfield talk, this time in public where Mansfield again said we should get out.  Kennedy spoke with the senator after, and said he agreed "on the need for a complete military withdrawal from Vietnam."  He then added crucially, "But I can't do it until 1965--after I'm reelected."  Then after Mansfield left, Kennedy said "In 1965, I'll become one of the most unpopular Presidents in history.  I'll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser.  But I don't care." (p. 17)

That book actually mentions NSAM 263, without naming it.  That book also mentions the intent to withdraw the rest by the end of 1965.  And it also states that when Kennedy sent McNamara out to tell the press about it that he yelled through a window,: "And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots too," That comment is really crucial due to the importance of the copter in that war. (p. 18)

The authors then add that the overthrow of the Diem government  made JFK even more skeptical  about the military advice of Harkins, and more determined to pull out.  The authors  end this section by saying NSAM 263 was in effect when Kennedy left for Texas.  "A few days after his death, during the mourning, the order was quietly rescinded." (p. 19)

IMO, O'Donnell and Powers did what they did because they understood what happened after JFK was killed.  Not only did LBJ expand the war and escalate it in direct violation of what he knew Kennedy was doing, but he then lied and said he was not changing JFK's policy.  When, in fact, we know from declassified tapes--which Oliver Stone played in his film--that he was doing just that. This contributed to the whole myth of continuity, when in fact, there was no continuity between LBJ and JFK on the issue.  

 

Edited September 15, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Now let us go to Kennedy's friend and neighbor, Larry Newman.  On October 20, 1963, during a final visit to Hyannis Port Kennedy said to him that Vietnam was starting to haunt him.  "The first thing I do when I'm re-elected, I'm going to get the Americans out of Vietnam." He then added it would be his number one priority--to get out of Indochina. (Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 182)

He then added that he was not going to further a war that was not possible to win. (ibid, p. 189) This is consistent with what JFK told Forrestal, that the USA had about a 100 to 1 chance of winning the war. And he wanted his advisors to question if we should be there at all.(p. 183). When he asked Lester Pearson about the problem, Pearson said he should get out.  Kennedy replied with words to the effect, well that's dumb because everyone knows that. (p. 181)

Kennedy told journalist Charles Bartlett the same thing.  He said words to the effect,  we had no chance of winning, because the populace there was turning on us.  But he had to time a pullout around the 1964 election. Tip O'Neill said the same thing.  That during a conversation with Kennedy in the fall of 1963, Kennedy said that he was pulling all Americans out of Vietnam as soon as the election was over. (ibid, p. 181)

So that makes, so far: 

O'Donnell

Powers

Johnson

Mansfield

Newman

Pearson

Bartlett

O'Neill

Forrestal

Edited September 16, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Let us now go to David Shoup, the one member of the JCS who Kennedy trusted. When Kennedy asked him what he thought about Vietnam, Shoup said unless he was going to commit one million combat troops we need to pull out before it got out of control.  Later on, Kennedy told Shoup he was correct and he was withdrawing all US forces from VIetnam. (Douglass, p. 182)

How about Wayne Morse, a vehement critic of America's Vietnam policy.  On November 12, 1963 Morse came to the oval office to talk about some education bills of his.  But Kennedy wanted to talk about Vietnam.   Morse had been making about 2-5 speeches a week against American involvement there. JFK took him outside into the rose garden. Kennedy shocked Morse by saying that Morse was utterly correct about his criticism of American involvement in Vietnam.  And he was in the process of substantiating  Morse's position to make it his own. When he was done, he wanted Morse to visit him and do a mutual analysis. Morse asked if JFK really understood his position. Kennedy said he did. He then added,  "Wayne, I've decided to get out. Definitely." (ibid.)

Edited September 15, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Now, I could go on in this manner.  I once did so and came up with about 18 credible witnesses. Above I have listed and described 11 of them.

My point is: why ignore them?  Why dump them all out and say they do not matter? Along with say Max Taylor who said Kennedy was never committing combat troops to Vietnam.  Or McGeorge Bundy who said the same thing to Gordon Goldstein his biographer. Or also ignore McNamara's debriefing, which Oliver Stone used in the long version of his film. Where he said Kennedy and he had decided to leave and it did not matter if we were losing or winning. Because America could not fight the war for the ARVN.  

Why ignore all of this and say: only Bobby Kennedy matters.   When, in fact, Bobby Kennedy, on at least two occasions, later contradicted what he said?

This is not scholarship.  It is cherry picking I believe.  What Kennedy was going to do is what Nixon eventually did do.  Except Kennedy was going to save about 5.8 million lives and seven million tons of bombing. Plus the nutty invasions of Laos and Cambodia.

Why we, and he, should be made to feel ashamed of that is really beyond me.

Edited September 16, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

7 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, I could go on in this manner.  I once did so and came up with about 18 credible witnesses. Above I have listed and described 11 of them.

My point is: why ignore them?  Why dump them all out and say they do not matter.  Along with say Max Taylor who said Kennedy was never committing combat troops to Vietnam.  Or McGeorge Bundy who said the same thing to Gordon Goldstein his biographer. Or also ignore McNamara's debriefing, which Oliver Stone used in the long version of his film. Where he said Kennedy and he had decided to leave and it did not matter if we were losing or winning. Because America could not fight the war for the ARVN.  

Why ignore all of this and say: only Bobby Kennedy matters.   When, in fact, Bobby Kennedy, on at least two occasions, later contradicted what he said?

This is not scholarship.  It is cherry picking I believe.  What Kennedy was going to do is what Nixon eventually did do.  Except Kennedy was going to save about 5.8 million lives and seven million tons of bombing. Plus the nutty invasions of Laos and Cambodia.

Why we, and he, should be made to feel ashamed of that is really beyond me.

It’s perfectly clear Jim, and thanks for all the detail. And yet mainstream media insists on rewriting history. JFK is always cast as a determined Cold Warrior. Perhaps ultimately this is because if they reported, as you are, the truth about JFK and Vietnam (and Indonesia) it would make it more obvious who stood to gain from his death. 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

And yet mainstream media insists on rewriting history

Paul have you yet read your San Francisco neighbor's latest book yet?

Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy: Joseph McBride: 9781939795618: Amazon.com: Books

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

Paul have you yet read your San Francisco neighbor's latest book yet?

Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy: Joseph McBride: 9781939795618: Amazon.com: Books

Haven’t, though I loved his previous book. Pretty expensive on kindle, hoping I can find a less costly way to read it. 

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

 

Hey Cliff! Good to see you back man. Hope you and yours are well.

 

[Paul Brancato]

3 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Hey Cliff! Good to see you back man. Hope you and yours are well.

 

Same here Cliff. Sandy - Where is his post? 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 minute ago, Paul Brancato said:

Same here Cliff. Sandy - Where is his post? 

 

His post is on the previous page (page 10), the very bottom of the page.

It's not about the location of Kennedy's back wound! 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Paul:

I found the list of 18, really 19, its in my review of Newman's 2017 version of JFK and VIetnam.

 

• Senator Wayne Morse
• Senator Mike Mansfield
• General James Gavin
• Marine Corps Commander David Shoup
• Journalist Charles Bartlett
• Prime Minister of Canada, Lester Pearson
• National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy
• Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
• Chair of the JCS Max Taylor
• Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff
• State Department assistant Mike Forrestal
• Congressman Tip O’Neill
• Assistant Secretary of State Roger HIlsman
• Assistant Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric
• Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith
• Journalist Larry Newman
• White House assistants Ken O’Donnell and Dave Powers
• Commanding General of North Vietnam, Vo Nguyen Giap

Many of these are taken from either JFK and the Unspeakable, the volume under discussion [JFK and Vietnam 2017], or JFK: The Book of the Film. Another source would be Virtual JFK by James Blight, or Gordon Goldstein’s Lessons in Disaster. The last listed source is from Mani Kang who interviewed Giap’s son. (Click here for the details) 

I consider the last one, Giap, to be pure gold.  

Edited September 16, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

On Black Op Radio this week me and Len Osanic did an interview with Monica Weisak. Its about her fine new book, America's Last President. 

As we relate, Hilsman is a real humdinger of a story.

Kennedy read a newspaper account about some general visiting Vietnam.  He immediately slammed down the newspaper and placed a call to Hilsman.  He said to the Undersecretary of the Far East: What are you doing letting these military guys into Vietnam? They will want to escalate and I do not want a military situation there.  Hilsman said he did not have the power to do that kind of thing.  Kennedy said something like "Oh, alright"  

Hilsman said that in a few hours, Kennedy issued an NSAM.  Which gave him the power to do just that.

Case Closed.

Edited September 16, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

On Black Op Radio this week me and Len Osanic did an interview with Monica Weisak. Its about her fine new book, America's Last President. 

As we relate, Hilsman is a real humdinger of a story.

Kennedy read a newspaper account about some general visiting Vietnam.  He immediately slammed down the newspaper and placed a call to Hilsman.  He said to the Undersecretary of the Far East: What are you doing letting these military guys into Vietnam? They will want to escalate and I do not want a military situation there.  Hilsman said he did not have the power to do that kind of thing.  Kennedy said something like "Oh, alright"  

Hilsman said that in a few hours, Kennedy issued an NSAM.  Which gave him the power to do just that.

Case Closed.

The idea that JFK would engage large numbers of troops in Vietnam is inconsistent with his acceptance and even embrace that nations were, and should, shucking off colonialism. 

There was no way for the US to engage heavily in Vietnam without also shouldering the onus of being outside colonizers.  It was a losing situation. 

What is heartbreaking is how quickly so many leaders---LBJ, Richard Russell, Nixon, Kissinger---realized it was a losing game, but could not alter course. 

Six million dead in SE Asia, maybe more...and for what? Let alone poisoned landscapes, live cluster bombs left behind, cruel injuries....

[Michael Griffith]

15 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, I could go on in this manner.  I once did so and came up with about 18 credible witnesses. Above I have listed and described 11 of them.

My point is: why ignore them?  Why dump them all out and say they do not matter? Along with say Max Taylor who said Kennedy was never committing combat troops to Vietnam.  Or McGeorge Bundy who said the same thing to Gordon Goldstein his biographer. Or also ignore McNamara's debriefing, which Oliver Stone used in the long version of his film. Where he said Kennedy and he had decided to leave and it did not matter if we were losing or winning. Because America could not fight the war for the ARVN.  

Why ignore all of this and say: only Bobby Kennedy matters.   When, in fact, Bobby Kennedy, on at least two occasions, later contradicted what he said?

This is not scholarship.  It is cherry picking I believe.  What Kennedy was going to do is what Nixon eventually did do.  Except Kennedy was going to save about 5.8 million lives and seven million tons of bombing. Plus the nutty invasions of Laos and Cambodia.

Why we, and he, should be made to feel ashamed of that is really beyond me.

A few points in reply:

-- Apparently you still have not viewed the video of Dr. Selverstone's 2016 interview on JFK's Vietnam policy, which I've linked in a previous reply.

-- You, once again, for about the umpteenth time, make the false assumption that withdrawing American troops also meant totally abandoning South Vietnam. This erroneous assumption is not only clearly contradicted in NSAM 263 and in other 1963 documents, it is also refuted by Bobby's April 1964 insistence that JFK was determined to keep South Vietnam free, that JFK was going to continue to aid South Vietnam, and that JFK was willing to carry out air strikes to help defend South Vietnam. 

-- Bobby never retracted or contradicted the above statements, and he never said JFK was going to completely disengage from South Vietnam, not even after he turned strongly against LBJ's handling of the war. What Bobby did later say was that JFK was determined to avoid sending regular combat troops to South Vietnam, which does not contradict anything he said in his 1964 oral interview.

-- The hearsay statements that you quote about JFK saying he was going to withdraw all American troops from South Vietnam after the 1965 election were made many years later. Bobby's statements were made in April 1964 and are supported by every 1963 document that we have. Bobby's statements also agree with everything that JFK himself said on the subject in TV interviews and speeches in 1963.

-- Speaking of which, I notice that you said nothing, not one word, about JFK's many 1963 statements, many of which I've quoted, about his determination to help South Vietnam resist communist aggression. You keep ignoring them.

-- Not one of the later hearsay statements that you quote actually says that JFK was not going to continue to provide aid to South Vietnam. They all claim that he said he would bring all U.S. troops home after the election, but they do not quote him as saying that he was going to cut off all aid to South Vietnam or that he would not provide air support. This is another key point that you keep ignoring. 

-- Bobby's April 1964 oral history interview is not the only evidence against the later claims made by Powers, O'Donnell, Mansfield, etc. Sorenson's and Schlesinger's 1965 memoirs likewise contradict those claims. Even when Schlesinger reviewed Newman's 1992 book JFK and Vietnam, he did not claim that JFK intended to completely disengage from South Vietnam, and I would note that Schlesinger's review was mostly positive.

-- After the movie JFK was released, Kennedy's former Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, adamantly insisted that JFK had no plans for a complete withdrawal. JFK administration officials Walt Rostow and William Bundy said the same thing (Fred Logevall, Choosing War, 1999, pp. 69-72). Logevall also notes the fact that JFK rejected French proposals for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam (pp. 72-74).

-- You keep quoting this or that official that the war was unwinnable, but you keep ignoring the evidence I've presented that the war was entirely winnable. And I would note that the evidence I've presented is only a rather small part of the evidence that could be presented. You have yet to explain how anyone can rationally claim that the war was unwinnable when our military was forced to operate under suicidal, absurd restrictions for all but a few weeks of the war, and given the fact that we brought North Vietnam to the verge of collapse by lifting most of those restrictions for less than two weeks in 1972. One of the most thorough refutations of the "unwinnable" myth is Dr. Dale Walton's book The Myth of Inevitable U.S. Defeat in Vietnam. If you ever do decide to read or view anything that challenges your version of the war, I would recommend that you start with Walton's book.

-- The "nutty invasions of Laos and Cambodia"??? What on earth was "nutty" about them? We know from North Vietnamese sources that those invasions were badly needed and did enormous damage to North Vietnamese military operations. The incursions into Laos and Cambodia followed universally recognized, long-established military doctrine. The NVA had huge supply depots and bases in eastern Laos and Cambodia. Attacking those depots and bases was an entirely rational, sensible action--and it was an action that should have been done years earlier.

-- "Except Kennedy was going to save about 5.8 million lives and seven million tons of bombing." In making this surreal argument, you once again sweep aside huge chunks of inconvenient history that you don't like. You keep ignoring the fact that there would have been no war if North Vietnam had not repeatedly invaded South Vietnam. It almost seems like you think that communist tyranny is a good thing or at least not a very bad thing. 

You repeat debunked communist-inspired lies and exaggerations about American military war crimes in Vietnam, yet you steadfastly ignore the documented, widespread NVA and VC war crimes. You also keep ignoring the murderous, brutal nature of the North Vietnamese regime, dating back to when Ho Chi Minh carried out large-scale bloody purges and oppression to maintain his power in the North. And you keep downplaying the horrible brutality that the NVA imposed on the South Vietnamese after Saigon fell. It almost seems like you think that South Vietnam was better off under communist rule.

You keep bringing up the fact that Diem refused to take part in a national election in 1956, even though JFK himself opposed holding that election, and you say nothing about the fact that when President Thieu three times called for a national election in 1973, North Vietnam refused. Hanoi's leaders were well aware that by 1973, the brutal, vicious nature of communist rule was much more obvious than it was in 1956.

Finally, you've repeatedly claimed that the U.S. violated the Geneva Accords, even though the U.S. was not a signatory to those accords--nor was South Vietnam, and you keep ignoring the fact that North Vietnam flagrantly violated the accords. 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

2 hours ago, Miles Massicotte said:

Michael, I have been reading your arguments very carefully. Are you implying that countries such as the United States have a duty to intervene militarily in countries it deems communist tyrannies?

(This is putting aside the arguments specifically about North Vietnam; I'm trying to see where you come from on a foreign policy standpoint).

Miles,

Generally speaking, no, I don't believe we have a duty to militarily intervene in countries with brutal, repressive regimes, whether they be communist or non-communist.

Of course, in the case of South Vietnam, we intervened to prevent South Vietnam from being conquered by North Vietnam. We were not trying to take over North Vietnam but were trying to force North Vietnam to stop attacking South Vietnam. 

South Vietnam was not a model democratic nation, but it was far less oppressive and much freer than North Vietnam. The people in South Vietnam enjoyed many more freedoms than did the people in North Vietnam. Similarly, during the Korean War and for many years afterward, South Korea was hardly an exemplary democratic nation, but it was far better than North Korea.

What is so tragic and shameful about the conduct of the majority party in Congress after the Paris Peace Accords is that the 1972 Easter Offensive proved beyond any doubt that South Vietnam could defend itself without American ground troops as long as we provided air support and adequate military supplies. In fact, in his book Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975, military historian George Veith makes a good case that South Vietnam could have defended itself without American air power but just with sufficient military supplies and financial aid.

What is especially tragic and shameful about Congress's betrayal of South Vietnam is that we know from North Vietnamese sources that Hanoi's leaders would not have launched another invasion after the Paris Peace Accords if we had made it clear that we would respond with vigorous air attacks if North Vietnam invaded again. 

We know from North Vietnamese sources that Hanoi's leaders, both civilian and military, were literally terrified of American air power after the American air raids during the 1972 Easter Offensive and especially after the Operation Linebacker II air raids on North Vietnam in December 1972. 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Michael Griffith