Top 5 Books On JFK & Vietnam

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago @James DiEugenio said:

Wow, this is pretty bad:

On 7/20/2023 at 6:30 PM, @Tom Gram said:

What Moyar did is even worse than that, since he actually misrepresented the textual content of sources by inventing imaginary conversations out of non-verbatim memos. . . .

Let us take a closer look at this lame, misleading criticism. I have already noted Moyar’s point that other scholars have likewise treated meeting notes (aka meeting minutes) as verbatim transcripts. I have also mentioned my own experience on this issue as a professional technical editor: I have observed that at two of the agencies where I have worked, meeting notes were quoted in other documents as if they were verbatim transcripts. 

But, let us examine the specific example that Tom is referring to here, i.e., the example from Miller’s review regarding a conversation between Diem and General Harkins during a July 1962 meeting (Triumph Revisited, pp. 205-206). The first thing that should be noted is that the “memorandum” in question, as Miller admits, was a “memorandum of the conversation.” In other words, we are clearly talking about meeting minutes/meeting notes—this becomes obvious when we read the memorandum, which we will do in a moment. With this understood, let us continue. 

As support for his charge that Moyar “dramatically embellishes the available record” of the Diem-Harkins conversation, Miller observes that Moyar relates the following about the conversation: 

          Diem admitted to Harkins, “I am concerned over the number of senior officers who have reached the height of their potential and who lack the education and initiative required in higher grades.” 

          “Such men should be eliminated,” said Harkins. 

          “The situation was inherited from the French, who were too easy and made colonels and lieutenant colonels who had no real capability or training,” Diem explained. “One of the difficulties in identifying incompetent officers lies in the fact that my generals do not want to recommend the separation of officers who are old friends.” Despite the problems involved, Diem said, “I am considering the thought of elimination.” (p. 205) 

Now, let us take a look at the segment of the meeting minutes/memorandum that Moyar cites as his source, which Miller himself quotes: 

          [Diem] then added that he was concerned over the number of senior officers who have reached the height of their potential and who lack the education and initiative required in higher grades. In response to General Harkins’ remark that such men should be eliminated, the President commented that the situation had been inherited from the French, who were too easy and had made colonels and lieutenant colonels who had no real capability or training. He was considering the thought of elimination. General Harkin’s [sic] suggested that there might be an examination given and that those who failed to qualify would be eliminated. President Diem commented that one of the difficulties in identifying incompetent officers lies in the fact that his Generals do not want to recommend separation of officers who are old friends. (p. 206) 

Uh, where is the “embellishment”? Where is it? As anyone with two functioning eyes can see, there is none, not one little bit. Moyar’s use of the meeting notes as a verbatim transcript accurately represents the memorandum’s version of the Diem-Harkins conversation in every essential detail. Indeed, Moyar could have just as effectively related the conversation by merely quoting the memorandum, but he chose to use the meeting minutes as a verbatim transcript simply as a matter of style, just as other scholars have done.

Finally, I conclude this reply by again quoting Moyar’s response to Miller’s attack on his use of meeting notes as verbatim transcripts:

          Miller then asserts that I “misrepresented” the “textual content” of sources, which “dramatically embellishes the available record” and “raises worrisome questions about whether and how frequently he plays fast and loose with his sources.” Miller seems to be asserting that I seriously misrepresented the meaning of sources, but when he gets down to specifics, it turns out that he is discussing something of much less significance, which begs the question of why he used such ominous and inflammatory language. What he is discussing is merely the use of meeting notes as verbatim transcripts—a matter of style rather than content, upon which reasonable people sometimes disagree. Other historians have employed this same method without incurring invective. Richard Reeves, for example, used it extensively in his highly acclaimed President Kennedy, which won best non-fiction book of the year accolades from Time Magazine and P.E.N. (p. 222)

Edited July 24, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

28 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jim 

I've been following this extended debate and discussion about JFK, Diem and Vietnam.  I am also now reading Monika Wiesak's fine book, "America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy".  My question is, in your estimation, why did Foster Dulles and company originally back/support Diem?  Was it because they felt he was a controllable puppet?  Or perhaps a Catholic leader they thought could unite the north and south? 

Surely, they must've known how flawed and weak he was. But they had Edward Lansdale continue to prop him up as a leader.  What was their end game here? 

You should have directed these questions to someone whose research has not been so limited and one sided. 

Who says Diem was "weak"??? The standard complaint is that he was too forceful, too aggressive. Are we talking about the same Diem who crushed the Binh Xuyen (the South Vietnamese Mafia), subdued the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, and decimated the Communist movement in South Vietnam?

Diem's flaws paled in comparison to Ho Chi Minh's and Le Duan's flaws. 

And, FYI, Lansdale had very good reasons for supporting Diem, and he was by no means the only American official who thought highly of Diem.

Ike and John Foster Dulles opted for Diem because they believed he was the best anti-communist leader available, and they were right. 

On 7/22/2023 at 4:27 AM, @James DiEugenio said:

That is a good question.  

Because even Bao Dai thought that Phan Huy Quat was a better choice.  (Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin, pp. 18-19) And Quat was both anti French and anti communist.

Phew! "Even" Bao Dai? "Even"? Once again you show you have no clue what you are talking about. Some relevant facts:

One, the indolent and corrupt Bao Dai disliked Diem because Diem was not a yes-man and because Diem would not go along with his corruption schemes. Two, when Diem began his crackdown on the South Vietnamese Mafia (the Binh Xuyen), Bao Dai tried to halt the crackdown because he was getting huge payoffs from the Binh Xuyen. Three, Phan Huy Quat, though a genuine anti-communist, did not possess half the leadership skills and force of character that Diem did. Four, Bao Dai supported the disastrous 1963 coup against Diem. And, five, at the prompting of the Hanoi regime, Bao Dai issued a statement in 1972 (from his home in France) calling for the withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam but not for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops. 

Sheesh, "even Bao Dai." This is as discrediting as saying "Even Allen Dulles thought that Nixon was a better choice than JFK in the 1960 election."

I reviewed Selverstone.  

You did not really "review" Selverstone's book. You wrote a specious hit piece on it that ignores most of the evidence Selverstone presents, as anyone who reads his book and then reads your "review" can see. 

Really not worth reading.  

Leaving aside the fact that you have done only a small fraction of the research that Selverstone has done, why do you suppose that scholars from all across the spectrum have praised Selverstone's book? Why do you suppose you cannot cite a single recognized scholar who supports your fringe rejection of Selverstone's book? 

He actually said in an interview that it is hard to say what Kennedy would have done.
 
Uh, yeah, he "actually said" that because he, unlike you, is a credible scholar who recognizes the obvious fact that JFK was never confronted with the kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in '64 and '65. I have pointed out this fact to you many times, but you just keep ignoring it. As I have also pointed out to you, even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. likewise noted that we simply cannot say for sure what JFK would have done if he had been faced with the situation that LBJ faced. And, as I have further pointed out to you, in his April 1964 oral history interview, RFK himself indicated that JFK may have sent in combat troops if South Vietnam appeared to be on the verge of collapse ("were about to lose it").

Bundy, McNamara, and Taylor have all said that Kennedy was never going into Vietnam.  Those were his three major defense advisors. So why is it hard to tell?  Taylor even said that Kennedy was the one guy who stopped American intervention.

I refuted this collection of falsehood and distortion just a few days ago, yet here you are repeating it again. We both know that if you repeated this stuff in a forum of Vietnam War historians, even the liberal historians would strongly reject it. Even a fire-breathing anti-war historian such as Edwin Moise has flatly rejected this garbage. But you just keep peddling it.

18 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jacobs wrote that, following the removable of the emperor Bao Dai, the nation was led by a Confucianist authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave preference to a Catholic minority (of which he was a part). 

Jacobs' book contains a lot of valid information, and I agree with much of what he says. However, he is wrong in repeating the myth that Diem favored Catholics at the expense of everyone else. Actually, the substantial majority of the members of Diem's administration were non-Catholics, and most of the generals who supported him were also non-Catholics. In addition, Diem did a great deal to help the Buddhists. 

You will get a more balanced view of Diem in such books as Tuong Vu's The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975 (a compilation with chapters authored by numerous Vietnamese scholars) and Canadian historian Dr. Geoffrey Shaw's The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem. Some of the Asia scholars who have praised Dr. Shaw's book include Thomas Marks, Nghia M. Vo, Andrew Finlayson, and William Stearman.

While interesting to consider, Marc Silverstone's thesis doesn't convince me.

It sounds like you have no intention of reading Selverstone's widely acclaimed book, or any other book that challenges the liberal/orthodox position on the war. 

It's simply not credible that JFK would've escalated similar to LBJ in the ensuing years. 

Exactly why is it "simply not credible" that JFK would have escalated similarly to the way LBJ did when faced with the same massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in 1964 and 1965, given the fact that JFK escalated dramatically from 1961 through 1963 when faced with a far smaller North Vietnamese escalation than the one LBJ faced?

You realize that JFK increased our military presence in South Vietnam from a few hundred troops in January 1961 to 16,000 troops by late 1963, right? (They were not regular infantry troops but were armed troops nonetheless, and hundreds of them were specialized combat troops, i.e., various kinds of special forces troops). 

A New York Journal of Books review states that "Silverstone speculates about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam, suggesting that Kennedy and his national security team would probably have acted on the basis of the military situation on the ground as it evolved over the next several years". But the reviewer also points out that most of the people advising Johnson on Vietnam after Kennedy’s death were Kennedy’s people. 

The fact that LBJ escalated our involvement when most of his adviers were JFK's people should suggest that JFK had no intention of abandoning South Vietnam after the war, should it not? This is especially logical given the fact that the LBJ White House tapes reveal that never did any of the LBJ's former JFK advisers say anything like "hey, we should not escalate because JFK planned on withdrawing unconditionally after the election!" 

In one very revealing recording, LBJ is criticizing McNamara for having announced a withdrawal shortly before JFK's death, yet not once does McNamara attempt to defend the withdrawal announcement by saying anything such as "Hey, I'll have you know that JFK himself told me that he was going to pull out of Vietnam after the election no matter what." Neither McNamara nor any other former Kennedy adviser ever uttered one word on the White House tapes about any intention to abandon the war effort after the election. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

In Newman's revised edition, he has the memo about the November 27th meeting of 1961.

That is important.

Although JFK called the meeting, he was the last to arrive.

The first thing he said was, once policy is decided those on the spot support it or they get out.  This is important because it registers Kennedy's frustration at having to fight so hard to get NSAM 111 through and stop direct American intervention.

Once he got everyone's attention with that, he then asked who was going to implement his Vietnam policy.  McNamara said he would.

Key point, because Kennedy had already sent Galbraith to Vietnam. Knowing what he would report back about.  So then when Galbraith was in town in April, JFK sent him to see McNamara.  And that is how the withdrawal started.  

I would argue that Kennedy was so taken aback by the hawks at the mid November meeting that he went to Galbraith as a kind of life preserver to escape the maelstrom.  And Galbraith came through.

[Gene Kelly]

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

28 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jim 

I've been following this extended debate and discussion about JFK, Diem and Vietnam.  I am also now reading Monika Wiesak's fine book, "America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy".  My question is, in your estimation, why did Foster Dulles and company originally back/support Diem?  Was it because they felt he was a controllable puppet?  Or perhaps a Catholic leader they thought could unite the north and south? 

Surely, they must've known how flawed and weak he was. But they had Edward Lansdale continue to prop him up as a leader.  What was their end game here? 

You should have directed these questions to someone whose research has not been so limited and one sided. 

Who says Diem was "weak"??? The standard complaint is that he was too forceful, too aggressive. Are we talking about the same Diem who crushed the Binh Xuyen (the South Vietnamese Mafia), subdued the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, and decimated the Communist movement in South Vietnam?

Diem's flaws paled in comparison to Ho Chi Minh's and Le Duan's flaws. 

And, FYI, Lansdale had very good reasons for supporting Diem, and he was by no means the only American official who thought highly of Diem.

Ike and John Foster Dulles opted for Diem because they believed he was the best anti-communist leader available, and they were right. 

On 7/22/2023 at 4:27 AM, @James DiEugenio said:

That is a good question.  

Because even Bao Dai thought that Phan Huy Quat was a better choice.  (Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin, pp. 18-19) And Quat was both anti French and anti communist.

Phew! "Even" Bao Dai? "Even"? Once again you show you have no clue what you are talking about. Some relevant facts:

One, the indolent and corrupt Bao Dai disliked Diem because Diem was not a yes-man and because Diem would not go along with his corruption schemes. Two, when Diem began his crackdown on the South Vietnamese Mafia (the Binh Xuyen), Bao Dai tried to halt the crackdown because he was getting huge payoffs from the Binh Xuyen. Three, Phan Huy Quat, though a genuine anti-communist, did not possess half the leadership skills and force of character that Diem did. Four, Bao Dai supported the disastrous 1963 coup against Diem. And, five, at the prompting of the Hanoi regime, Bao Dai issued a statement in 1972 (from his home in France) calling for the withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam but not for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops. 

Sheesh, "even Bao Dai." This is as discrediting as saying "Even Allen Dulles thought that Nixon was a better choice than JFK in the 1960 election."

I reviewed Selverstone.  

You did not really "review" Selverstone's book. You wrote a specious hit piece on it that ignores most of the evidence Selverstone presents, as anyone who reads his book and then reads your "review" can see. 

Really not worth reading.  

Leaving aside the fact that you have done only a small fraction of the research that Selverstone has done, why do you suppose that scholars from all across the spectrum have praised Selverstone's book? Why do you suppose you cannot cite a single recognized scholar who supports your fringe rejection of Selverstone's book? 

He actually said in an interview that it is hard to say what Kennedy would have done.
 
Uh, yeah, he "actually said" that because he, unlike you, is a credible scholar who recognizes the obvious fact that JFK was never confronted with the kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in '64 and '65. I have pointed out this fact to you many times, but you just keep ignoring it. As I have also pointed out to you, even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. likewise noted that we simply cannot say for sure what JFK would have done if he had been faced with the situation that LBJ faced. And, as I have further pointed out to you, in his April 1964 oral history interview, RFK himself indicated that JFK may have sent in combat troops if South Vietnam appeared to be on the verge of collapse ("were about to lose it").

Bundy, McNamara, and Taylor have all said that Kennedy was never going into Vietnam.  Those were his three major defense advisors. So why is it hard to tell?  Taylor even said that Kennedy was the one guy who stopped American intervention.

I refuted this collection of falsehood and distortion just a few days ago, yet here you are repeating it again. We both know that if you repeated this stuff in a forum of Vietnam War historians, even the liberal historians would strongly reject it. Even a fire-breathing anti-war historian such as Edwin Moise has flatly rejected this garbage. But you just keep peddling it.

18 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jacobs wrote that, following the removable of the emperor Bao Dai, the nation was led by a Confucianist authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave preference to a Catholic minority (of which he was a part). 

Jacobs' book contains a lot of valid information, and I agree with much of what he says. However, he is wrong in repeating the myth that Diem favored Catholics at the expense of everyone else. Actually, the substantial majority of the members of Diem's administration were non-Catholics, and most of the generals who supported him were also non-Catholics. In addition, Diem did a great deal to help the Buddhists. 

You will get a more balanced view of Diem in such books as Tuong Vu's The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975 (a compilation with chapters authored by numerous Vietnamese scholars) and Canadian historian Dr. Geoffrey Shaw's The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem. Some of the Asia scholars who have praised Dr. Shaw's book include Thomas Marks, Nghia M. Vo, Andrew Finlayson, and William Stearman.

While interesting to consider, Marc Silverstone's thesis doesn't convince me.

It sounds like you have no intention of reading Selverstone's widely acclaimed book, or any other book that challenges the liberal/orthodox position on the war. 

It's simply not credible that JFK would've escalated similar to LBJ in the ensuing years. 

Exactly why is it "simply not credible" that JFK would have escalated similarly to the way LBJ did when faced with the same massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in 1964 and 1965, given the fact that JFK escalated dramatically from 1961 through 1963 when faced with a far smaller North Vietnamese escalation than the one LBJ faced?

You realize that JFK increased our military presence in South Vietnam from a few hundred troops in January 1961 to 16,000 troops by late 1963, right? (They were not regular infantry troops but were armed troops nonetheless, and hundreds of them were specialized combat troops, i.e., various kinds of special forces troops). 

A New York Journal of Books review states that "Silverstone speculates about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam, suggesting that Kennedy and his national security team would probably have acted on the basis of the military situation on the ground as it evolved over the next several years". But the reviewer also points out that most of the people advising Johnson on Vietnam after Kennedy’s death were Kennedy’s people. 

The fact that LBJ escalated our involvement when most of his adviers were JFK's people should suggest that JFK had no intention of abandoning South Vietnam after the war, should it not? This is especially logical given the fact that the LBJ White House tapes reveal that never did any of the LBJ's former JFK advisers say anything like "hey, we should not escalate because JFK planned on withdrawing unconditionally after the election!" 

In one very revealing recording, LBJ is criticizing McNamara for having announced a withdrawal shortly before JFK's death, yet not once does McNamara attempt to defend the withdrawal announcement by saying anything such as "Hey, I'll have you know that JFK himself told me that he was going to pull out of Vietnam after the election no matter what." Neither McNamara nor any other former Kennedy adviser ever uttered one word on the White House tapes about any intention to abandon the war effort after the election. 

Michael

I am now reading Marc Selverstone's book and find much of what he says to be thought-provoking.  I am not as well-versed as you and others in this topic (the "great what-if" as it's called) but I am performing my due diligence. While not a student of military history, I lived through Vietnam and - thanks to your thread and challenges - have become more interested in what might have happened in a 2nd Kennedy term. 

I believe that each newly elected president inherits the decisions/policies of the previous administration (both good and bad).  As John Newman writes, Kennedy had a lot on his plate ... Vietnam in the early 1960's was a marginal issue compared with problems regarding Berlin, Cuba, Mississippi, the nuclear test ban treaty and Capitol Hill.  Nonetheless, JFK 'inherited' the Vietnam conflict similar to the Cuban Bay of Pigs from Dwight Eisenhower, who initially chose in 1954 to stay out of the French conflict (and not American commit troops). When Kennedy took office, Diem’s government appears to have been faltering. As Edward Cuddy wrote in 2003 in "Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War or Mr. Eisenhower's?”:

After the partition of Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South, Eisenhower chose to invest huge sums of money and prestige in transforming South Vietnam into a showcase of a new “free Asia.” Spending billions of dollars, sending military advisers, supporting the increasingly brutal tactics of the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem—all this effort would help create a pro-American bastion in Southeast Asia and halt Communism. Yet it also left a terrible decision for his successors.

Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms, but he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter – and failed – war to keep it. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Geneva Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam decisions.

If you are interested in all sides of the debate and a good weighing of the pros/cons of this topic, I would refer you to Mark White's November 2020 essay in American Diplomacy entitled “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War”, where he opines:

Kennedy’s manifest capacity to reject his military’s hawkish advice, his shift towards a more conciliatory foreign policy in 1963 and his enhanced credibility in international affairs due to his successful management of the Cuban missile crisis (and hence the limited pressure he would have felt to prove in Vietnam that he could cut the mustard on the world stage) indicate that Kennedy would probably have decided against going to war in Vietnam.  His default approach to politics and policy was caution, in sharp contrast with his private life.  Putting his presidency on the line by fighting a land war in Southeast Asia would not ultimately be a decision he could have made with equanimity.

What I have learned thus far is that this "What-If" is a subject of fierce debate among historians, and there's no shortage of books, articles and opinions. What some conclude (notably Selverstone) is the best historians can do is to speculate about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam. I'm not sure what you infer by the "liberal/orthodox position on the war", but I remain open to all views and input.  

Gene

[Michael Griffith]

12 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

 

I am now reading Marc Selverstone's book and find much of what he says to be thought-provoking.  I am not as well-versed as you and others in this topic (the "great what-if" as it's called) but I am performing my due diligence. While not a student of military history, I lived through Vietnam and - thanks to your thread and challenges - have become more interested in what might have happened in a 2nd Kennedy term. 

I am glad to hear you are reading Selverstone's book.

I believe that each newly elected president inherits the decisions/policies of the previous administration (both good and bad).  As John Newman writes, Kennedy had a lot on his plate ... Vietnam in the early 1960's was a marginal issue compared with problems regarding Berlin, Cuba, Mississippi, the nuclear test ban treaty and Capitol Hill.  Nonetheless, JFK 'inherited' the Vietnam conflict similar to the Cuban Bay of Pigs from Dwight Eisenhower, who initially chose in 1954 to stay out of the French conflict (and not American commit troops). When Kennedy took office, Diem’s government appears to have been faltering. As Edward Cuddy wrote in 2003 in "Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War or Mr. Eisenhower's?”:

After the partition of Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South, Eisenhower chose to invest huge sums of money and prestige in transforming South Vietnam into a showcase of a new “free Asia.” Spending billions of dollars, sending military advisers, supporting the increasingly brutal tactics of the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem—all this effort would help create a pro-American bastion in Southeast Asia and halt Communism. Yet it also left a terrible decision for his successors.

Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms, but he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter – and failed – war to keep it. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Geneva Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam decisions.

I think Cuddy's analysis is deeply flawed and some of his history is just wrong. For example, Ike had nothing to do with the huge North Vietnamese escalation that Johnson faced. That escalation was a direct result of the disastrous Hilsman-Lodge-Forrestal-Harriman-pushed coup against Diem in November 1963. We know from North Vietnamese sources that Hanoi's leaders were thrilled with Diem's removal, and that the political instability in South Vietnam following Diem's death led Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan et al to decide to vastly escalate their war effort. 

If you are interested in all sides of the debate and a good weighing of the pros/cons of this topic, I would refer you to Mark White's November 2020 essay in American Diplomacy entitled “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War”, where he opines:. . . .

I have already read White's article. He makes a few mistakes in the article, and I disagree with his conclusion, but he does a decent of presenting both sides of the argument and does not pretend that he knows what JFK would have done in '64 and '65.

What I have learned thus far is that this "What-If" is a subject of fierce debate among historians, and there's no shortage of books, articles and opinions. What some conclude (notably Selverstone) is the best historians can do is to speculate about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam.

Selverstone is undoubtedly correct. I am not aware of a single recognized historian who disagrees with the self-evident fact that we can only speculate about what JFK would have done if he had faced the same kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced. Unless someone claims to have supernatural powers to divine what JFK would have done in that situation, a situation that he never came close to facing during his presidency, there is no way anyone can do more than theorize. 

I'm not sure what you infer by the "liberal/orthodox position on the war", but I remain open to all views and input.  Gene

It is a bit complicated. In terms of the civilian academic world, the view that the Vietnam War was wrong and unwinnable is the "orthodox" position. This position is held by most civilian academic scholars on the war, and the vast majority of those scholars are liberals. Scholars who disagree with the orthodox view are often called "revisionists" and their viewpoint is called revisionist/revisionism. Their view is the minority position in the civilian academic world.

In the military academic world, i.e., the military war colleges and historical divisions, the situation is different. Among Vietnam War veterans, the overwhelming majority believe the war was morally justified and winnable--we know this from a great deal of polling done by the DoD and by other institutions. 

All this being said, in the civilian world you have many Vietnam War scholars (1) who support the orthodox view but do so with crucial qualifications, or (2) who lean toward aspects of the revisionist view but who reject other aspects of that view. You also have some Vietnam War scholars who focus on certain aspects of the war without expressing a firm view on its morality and winnability. 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Gene:

This is why I do not read Mike anymore on this.

He accuses me of things that are so far out that he is not worth replying to.

Take for example Jacobs and Bao Dai.  Like no one knows who the man was. Bao Dai is the guy who appointed Diem!  So what in heavens is Mike talking about? But Jacobs also says that this was not really his choice but he did so since he knew the USA favored him and he also knew it was now America who was going to be running things. Personally, like many others named by David Anderson, Bao Dai did not think Diem was a good choice.  Almost anyone from the Caravelle Group would have been better.

Another example:  the conversation between McNamara and LBJ.  That was in February of 1964.  About three months after Kennedy was killed.  

THE POLICY HAD BEEN CLEARLY CHANGED BY THEN!

Newman argues that it was actually changed at the first meeting on Vietnam, just two days after Kennedy was killed. It was surely changed when LBJ altered the rough draft of NSAM 273. McNamara had a choice at this time.  Its what Kennedy said on the November 27, 1961.  Once policy is decided you either support it or get out.

McNamara, who was provenly the point man on Kennedy's withdrawal policy, chose--for whatever reason--to stay on. At great emotional duress and turmoil to himself.  A point which Selverstone underplays.  By 1966 he was visibly upset and disturbed. He complained about what Johnson had done to a gathering of former Kennedy employees.  

Bundy said the same thing about LBJ and he revealed also that Johnson had a private back channel to Westmoreland which he did not know about.  So once he found out about it he realized that it did not matter what was said during policy debates, that was really rhetoric.

All of Kennedy's men one by one left the White House. Did they not?  Just count them.  And LBJ brought back the nutty Rostow to replace Bundy, after Kennedy had retired crazy Walt to the Planning Dept. When Bundy left he secretly started meeting with Humphrey to try and convince him that Johnson was too far out there on the issue.

Selverstone said that Kennedy did not really order a policy review on Vietnam like Forrestal said he did.  False.  In my review I quoted Scott, and through him, a direct source that said this is what JFK had done.  BTW, if anything, I was too mild on Selverstone.  In my notes, I actually left out even more things he was wrong about or simply distorted.

As per getting out, in addition to Taylor, Bundy, and McNamara, there were numerous witnesses I located in my review of Newman's revised edition of his book.  It was in the high teens.   Why did Selverstone not quote these witnesses?

I get a kick out of Mike disputing my credentials on Vietnam.  This is after Tom Gram just demolished Mike's other model, Mr. Moyar. . We can see from that where he is coming from. The evidence does not matter. Only the conclusion does.

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

In my view, this is the best book on the issue of Kennedy and Vietnam.  This version is even better than the original one.  And like Howard Jones, John is a conservative.

 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/john-newman-s-jfk-and-vietnam-2017-version

[James DiEugenio]

If you did not read my critique of Selverstone, here it is again.

Please pay attention to the section where i delineate the differences between JFK and LBJ.  And how fast that Johnson changed JFK's policy.  It is really kind of astounding.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-kennedy-withdrawal-by-marc-selverstone

[James DiEugenio]

Here is another administration witness, U Alexis Johnson on Kennedy's policy in Vietnam.

Because the line Kennedy drew on the “no combat troops” issue in 1961 was indelible. In fact, U. Alexis Johnson, Dean Rusk’s Deputy, said for the record that “the line has clearly been drawn in Vietnam.” (Richard Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith, p. 371)

[James DiEugenio]

Here is another administration witness, Roswell Gilpatric,deputy to McNamara.

…made it clear to McNamara and me that he wanted to not only hold the level of US military presence in Vietnam down, but he wanted to reverse the flow and that’s when this question of bringing back some of the US military personnel came up. But it was in keeping with his general reluctance to see us sucked in militarily to Southeast Asia. (Jones, pp. 381-82)

[Michael Griffith]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here is another administration witness, U Alexis Johnson on Kennedy's policy in Vietnam.

Because the line Kennedy drew on the “no combat troops” issue in 1961 was indelible. In fact, U. Alexis Johnson, Dean Rusk’s Deputy, said for the record that “the line has clearly been drawn in Vietnam.” (Richard Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith, p. 371)

This is a misleading, invalid argument, as I have explained to you before. Being very reluctant to deploy combat troops is not the same thing as being determined to completely disengage from South Vietnam after the election, which is the myth you keep peddling. You keep assuming that a reluctance to use combat troops somehow equals an unconditional withdrawal after the election, as if JFK's reluctance to deploy combat troops somehow proves he would have abandoned South Vietnam in '64 or '65. LBJ was likewise very reluctant to deploy combat troops.

Let us read first-hand statements from JFK himself, most of them made in the last months of his life, regarding his views about staying the course in Vietnam:

In a March 6, 1963, letter to Bobbie Lou Pendergrass of Santa Ana, California, whose brother had been killed in action in January, JFK wrote,

          “Americans are in Viet Nam because we have determined that this country must not fall under Communist domination . . . Your brother was in Viet Nam because the threat to the Vietnamese people is, in the long run, a threat to the Free World community, and ultimately a threat to us also. For when freedom is destroyed in one country, it is threatened throughout the world.”

In a July 17, 1963, news conference, Kennedy said,

          “We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Viet-Nam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there.”

In an interview with Walter Cronkite, broadcast on CBS News on September 2, 1963, Kennedy said,

          “I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. I know people don’t like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away. We took all this—made this effort to defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to participate—we may not like it—in the defense of Asia.”

In an interview with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, broadcast on NBC News on September 9, JFK said,

          “What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say because they don’t like events in southeast Asia or they don’t like the government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay. We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw.”

In a September 12 press conference, Kennedy said,

          “We have a very simple policy in that area, I think. In some ways I think the Vietnamese people and ourselves agree: we want the war to be won, the Communists to be contained, and the Americans to go home.”

We could also quote JFK's statements on the war in the speech he delivered on the morning of his death and in the speech he was going to deliver that afternoon after the motorcade. In both speeches, he expressed his determination to check communism in Southeast Asia. This was on the very day he died.

Yet, you brush aside all of the above first-hand evidence and rely on convenient statements made years later by some of JFK's aides and associates.

You dismiss the fact that in their first two memoirs, Schlesinger and Sorenson said nothing about any plan to abandon South Vietnam after the election, and that JFK's own Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, expressly rejected the claim that JFK planned on an unconditional withdrawal after the election.

You also brush aside what Bobby Kennedy said in his April 30, 1964, oral interview, when he specifically rejected the idea that JFK was thinking about pulling out of Vietnam, and when he said that JFK was determined to stay and win:

          Martin: There was never any consideration given to pulling out?
          Kennedy: No.
          Martin: It's generally true all over the world, whether it's in a shooting war or a different kind of a war. But the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there . . .
          Kennedy: Yes.
          Martin: . . . and couldn't lose it.
          Kennedy: Yes.

Tellingly, we also see JFK's determination to win the war in the JFK White House tapes, as Selverstone documents.

You keep assuming the false choice of LBJ-like escalation or total disengagement, as if JFK would have had no other options. You do so because your far-left version of the JFK assassination conspiracy maintains that JFK was killed because he was going to hand over South Vietnam to the Communists. 

In my view, this is the best book on the issue of Kennedy and Vietnam.  This version is even better than the original one.  And like Howard Jones, John is a conservative.

Newman certainly does not talk like a conservative. Indeed, he has made several statements that employ the same verbiage used by far-left authors. For example, he said McNamara was "responsible" for millions of deaths in Vietnam. That is far-left nonsense that blames America for the war and ignores the fact that there would have been no war if North Vietnam had not invaded South Vietnam.

In his book JFK and Vietnam, Newman repeats the liberal myth that the war going badly in '62 and '63, fails to deal with any of the new information that has come from North Vietnamese sources, wrongly assumes that JFK's liberal advisers were giving him accurate information about the war, wrongly assumes that his conservative advisers and senior military officers were giving him false information about the war, and uncritically relies on the McNamara "secret debrief," even though McNamara himself did not cite it in his memoir, even though McNamara never mentioned it in any of the White House tapes, and even though none of McNamara's aides said a word about the alleged debrief (neither in their memoirs, nor in internal memos, nor on the White House tapes).

Howard Jones was a conservative? He called the war "unwinnable," wrongly claimed that JFK had decided the war was hopeless (when in fact he approved the conditional, gradual withdrawal precisely because the war was going well), and peddled a modified version of the unconditional-withdrawal myth. 

Part of the problem, again, is that what little reading you have done has been almost exclusively in liberal sources. I hate to keep pointing this out, but it is a recurring problem, and you seem unwilling to do anything about it (i.e., by reading several books that give the other side of story and objectively weighing the evidence and arguments they present).

In your non-review "review" of the one non-liberal book that you say you have read, Selverstone's The Kennedy Withdrawal, you simply ignore most of the evidence Selverstone presents and misrepresent or ignore several of his arguments.

There was a withdrawal plan, but the plan called for a gradual and conditional withdrawal, and it would have continued the provision of economic and military aid to South Vietnam even if conditions on the ground permitted the withdrawal of the bulk of American troops from the country. JFK was not about to let South Vietnam fall under Communist tyranny on his watch.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Now, that is five high level administration witnesses that I named to attest to Kennedy's getting out policy.

Yet Selverstone says, its hard to say what JFK would have done?

Even when Kennedy said he knew what would happen after?  Like he said to O' Donnell and Powers?  When he told Schlesinger that if Vietnam became a white man's war we would lose like the French had lost?

Kennedy decided to accept defeat at the Bay of Pigs.

But he is going to go to war in a place that was 8,000 miles away?

This is why I think Selverstone, as I pointed out, distorts the picture of Kennedy at the beginning of his book, making him into a kind of conservative Democrat.  And he fails to delineate the differences between LBJ and JFK e.g. during the Missile Crisis.  If one understands this, then the  rapid changes Johnson makes to Kennedy's policy are more understandable. 

[Michael Griffith]

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, that is five high level administration witnesses that I named to attest to Kennedy's getting out policy.

Yet Selverstone says, its hard to say what JFK would have done?

Even when Kennedy said he knew what would happen after?  Like he said to O' Donnell and Powers?  When he told Schlesinger that if Vietnam became a white man's war we would lose like the French had lost?

Kennedy decided to accept defeat at the Bay of Pigs.

But he is going to go to war in a place that was 8,000 miles away?

This is why I think Selverstone, as I pointed out, distorts the picture of Kennedy at the beginning of his book, making him into a kind of conservative Democrat.  And he fails to delineate the differences between LBJ and JFK e.g. during the Missile Crisis.  If one understands this, then the rapid changes Johnson makes to Kennedy's policy are more understandable. 

This is your answer to the first-hand evidence from JFK himself and from Bobby that I presented???

You just keep repeating your arguments and ignoring the evidence that refutes them.

Kennedy decided to accept defeat at the Bay of Pigs. But he is going to go to war in a place that was 8,000 miles away?

What??? I am not sure what planet you are talking about, but down here on Earth, JFK went to war in Vietnam in a major way: He increased our troop presence there from a few hundred in January 1961 to 16,000 by October 1963. He provided a huge increase in military equipment and weaponry to South Vietnam. He authorized air strikes against the Viet Cong in support of ARVN operations. And he authorized the defoliation of jungle areas used by the Viet Cong. Good grief, even Stanley Karnow admitted these facts in his famous leftist book on the war (Vietnam: A History).

And JFK did all these things when facing a Communist escalation that was far smaller and far less threatening than the one LBJ faced in '64 and '65.

Furthermore, as I documented in my previous reply, JFK made it as clear as language can make something that he believed that pulling out of Vietnam would be a "great mistake" and that he was determined not to let South Vietnam fall under Communist tyranny. Bobby confirmed these facts in his April 30, 1964, oral interview, as I also documented in my previous reply.

As for the Bay of Pigs, we have known for years now that JFK never ceased his efforts to topple the Castro regime. And, when JFK learned that the Russians had lied to him about not putting missiles in Cuba, he remarked, as recorded on the White House tapes, "It shows the Bay of Pigs was really right, if we had done it right."

Edited July 26, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gene Kelly]

On 7/24/2023 at 5:44 PM, Michael Griffith said:

I am now reading Marc Selverstone's book and find much of what he says to be thought-provoking.  I am not as well-versed as you and others in this topic (the "great what-if" as it's called) but I am performing my due diligence. While not a student of military history, I lived through Vietnam and - thanks to your thread and challenges - have become more interested in what might have happened in a 2nd Kennedy term. 

I am glad to hear you are reading Selverstone's book.

I believe that each newly elected president inherits the decisions/policies of the previous administration (both good and bad).  As John Newman writes, Kennedy had a lot on his plate ... Vietnam in the early 1960's was a marginal issue compared with problems regarding Berlin, Cuba, Mississippi, the nuclear test ban treaty and Capitol Hill.  Nonetheless, JFK 'inherited' the Vietnam conflict similar to the Cuban Bay of Pigs from Dwight Eisenhower, who initially chose in 1954 to stay out of the French conflict (and not American commit troops). When Kennedy took office, Diem’s government appears to have been faltering. As Edward Cuddy wrote in 2003 in "Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War or Mr. Eisenhower's?”:

After the partition of Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South, Eisenhower chose to invest huge sums of money and prestige in transforming South Vietnam into a showcase of a new “free Asia.” Spending billions of dollars, sending military advisers, supporting the increasingly brutal tactics of the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem—all this effort would help create a pro-American bastion in Southeast Asia and halt Communism. Yet it also left a terrible decision for his successors.

Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms, but he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter – and failed – war to keep it. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Geneva Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam decisions.

I think Cuddy's analysis is deeply flawed and some of his history is just wrong. For example, Ike had nothing to do with the huge North Vietnamese escalation that Johnson faced. That escalation was a direct result of the disastrous Hilsman-Lodge-Forrestal-Harriman-pushed coup against Diem in November 1963. We know from North Vietnamese sources that Hanoi's leaders were thrilled with Diem's removal, and that the political instability in South Vietnam following Diem's death led Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan et al to decide to vastly escalate their war effort. 

If you are interested in all sides of the debate and a good weighing of the pros/cons of this topic, I would refer you to Mark White's November 2020 essay in American Diplomacy entitled “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War”, where he opines:. . . .

I have already read White's article. He makes a few mistakes in the article, and I disagree with his conclusion, but he does a decent of presenting both sides of the argument and does not pretend that he knows what JFK would have done in '64 and '65.

What I have learned thus far is that this "What-If" is a subject of fierce debate among historians, and there's no shortage of books, articles and opinions. What some conclude (notably Selverstone) is the best historians can do is to speculate about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam.

Selverstone is undoubtedly correct. I am not aware of a single recognized historian who disagrees with the self-evident fact that we can only speculate about what JFK would have done if he had faced the same kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced. Unless someone claims to have supernatural powers to divine what JFK would have done in that situation, a situation that he never came close to facing during his presidency, there is no way anyone can do more than theorize. 

I'm not sure what you infer by the "liberal/orthodox position on the war", but I remain open to all views and input.  Gene

It is a bit complicated. In terms of the civilian academic world, the view that the Vietnam War was wrong and unwinnable is the "orthodox" position. This position is held by most civilian academic scholars on the war, and the vast majority of those scholars are liberals. Scholars who disagree with the orthodox view are often called "revisionists" and their viewpoint is called revisionist/revisionism. Their view is the minority position in the civilian academic world.

In the military academic world, i.e., the military war colleges and historical divisions, the situation is different. Among Vietnam War veterans, the overwhelming majority believe the war was morally justified and winnable--we know this from a great deal of polling done by the DoD and by other institutions. 

All this being said, in the civilian world you have many Vietnam War scholars (1) who support the orthodox view but do so with crucial qualifications, or (2) who lean toward aspects of the revisionist view but who reject other aspects of that view. You also have some Vietnam War scholars who focus on certain aspects of the war without expressing a firm view on its morality and winnability. 

Michael

The following paper by Derek Shildler of Eastern Illinois University in 2008 provides a good description of the orthodox/revisionist positions and their advocates: "Vietnam’s Changing Historiography: Ngo Dinh Diem and America’s Leadership."  Here is a summary:

Three scholarly views have arisen and become increasingly heated. Orthodox scholars follow the traditional doctrine that America’s involvement in the war was unwinnable and unjust, while the revisionists believe that the war was a noble cause and Vietnam, below the 17th parallel, was a viable and stable country, but policies and military tactics were improperly executed. The heated debates have focused on two central issues—Ngo Dinh Diem and his reign over South Vietnam and poor leadership by American presidents and top officials. Orthodox scholars argue that Diem as a corrupt tyrannical puppet, while revisionists believe Diem was an independent leader who knew what was necessary to allow his young country to survive. According to the orthodox scholars, American presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson and other top officials did their best to control the situation in Vietnam, though the war was doomed from the beginning. Revisionists do not believe the war was lost on the battlefield but was lost due to poor decisions and lack of attention to the war. Recently, another group of scholars have weighed in on this subject. These scholars, post-revisionists, do not even admit defeat—arguing that the United States won the war by late 1970.

Gene

 

[Michael Griffith]

54 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

Michael

The following paper by Derek Shildler of Eastern Illinois University in 2008 provides a good description of the orthodox/revisionist positions and their advocates: "Vietnam’s Changing Historiography: Ngo Dinh Diem and America’s Leadership."  Here is a summary:

Three scholarly views have arisen and become increasingly heated. Orthodox scholars follow the traditional doctrine that America’s involvement in the war was unwinnable and unjust, while the revisionists believe that the war was a noble cause and Vietnam, below the 17th parallel, was a viable and stable country, but policies and military tactics were improperly executed. The heated debates have focused on two central issues—Ngo Dinh Diem and his reign over South Vietnam and poor leadership by American presidents and top officials. Orthodox scholars argue that Diem as a corrupt tyrannical puppet, while revisionists believe Diem was an independent leader who knew what was necessary to allow his young country to survive. According to the orthodox scholars, American presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson and other top officials did their best to control the situation in Vietnam, though the war was doomed from the beginning. Revisionists do not believe the war was lost on the battlefield but was lost due to poor decisions and lack of attention to the war. Recently, another group of scholars have weighed in on this subject. These scholars, post-revisionists, do not even admit defeat—arguing that the United States won the war by late 1970.

Gene

Gene, I would say Shidler is about 75% correct. There is much more variation/divergence among each camp than his general summary describes. I would keep in mind, also, that Shidler is not a Vietnam War scholar. He has dabbled in it, but he does not specialize in it.

The key sources to read are the North Vietnamese sources. They have proved to be a game-changer; they have provided a great deal of historic new information that sheds crucial light on the major issues regarding the war.

You will find very little information about the North Vietnamese sources in liberal books on the war. The authors who have provided the fullest presentation on the important disclosures from the North Vietnamese sources are Mark Moyar, George Veith, Michael Kort, Lien-Hang Nguyen, and Lewis Sorley, followed by Max Hastings and Harry Rothmann, then followed by Pierre Asselin. (Note: Nguyen, Hastings, Rothmann, and Asselin are not considered to be revisionist scholars, but their writings contain a wealth of information that contradicts the orthodox view.) Sorley played an important role in Merle Pribbenow's translation of the official history of the war published by Vietnam's Ministry of Defense.

I summarized many of the key disclosures from the North Vietnamese sources earlier in this thread.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Michael Griffith