Ellsberg, McNamara and JFK: The Pentagon Papers

[Michael Griffith]

31 minutes ago, Karl Kinaski said:

@Michael Griffith

IMO JFK wasn't about to abandon the south. His words to Salinger suggest he had in mind to bring Hanoi and Saigon to the negotiation table to work out a "Laotian solution". The Diem brothers had already established a channel to Hanoi. All looked well. But within three weeks the Diems and Kennedy were dead. BTW killing the Diems wouldn't have made much sense without killing Kennedy. Whoever killed the Diems knew without killing Kennedy there would be no Vietnam war. 

The Interview with Salinger was recorded in 1999 for a series of the German TV channel MDR  (Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk) if I remember correctly. 

Most of this is based on far-left mythology.

JFK had no interest in a coalition government in Vietnam, nor did the Diem brothers.

JFK was determined to keep South Vietnam free. The White House tapes alone make that clear. 

There was already a Vietnam War. The U.S.-South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam war had been going on since 1960, when North Vietnam decided to increase the flow of troops and weapons into South Vietnam. That is why JFK authorized numerous increases in American military personnel and military aid. We had over 16,000 military personnel in South Vietnam by November 1963. 

1999? Okay, so Salinger made this claim 36 years after the fact. One can only wonder why he did not reveal this in the '70s and '80s when a number of other Kennedy aides and friends came forward with claims that JFK had told them he was going to totally disengage from South Vietnam after the election. 

You really should read Selverstone's new book The Kennedy Withdrawal.

[Karl Kinaski]

37 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Most of this is based on far-left mythology.

JFK had no interest in a coalition government in Vietnam, nor did the Diem brothers.

JFK was determined to keep South Vietnam free. The White House tapes alone make that clear. 

There was already a Vietnam War. The U.S.-South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam war had been going on since 1960, when North Vietnam decided to increase the flow of troops and weapons into South Vietnam. That is why JFK authorized numerous increases in American military personnel and military aid. We had over 16,000 military personnel in South Vietnam by November 1963. 

1999? Okay, so Salinger made this claim 36 years after the fact. One can only wonder why he did not reveal this in the '70s and '80s when a number of other Kennedy aides and friends came forward with claims that JFK had told them he was going to totally disengage from South Vietnam after the election. 

You really should read Selverstone's new book The Kennedy Withdrawal.

The day before he died in Washington Vietnam was very much on Kennedys mind. He not only talked to Salinger about negotiations with the North, he had a Vietnam conversation with Malcolm Kilduff too: (quote from Douglas' book THE UNSPEAKABLE): (This is November 21. 1963)

 

Quote

Kilduff said he came into the Oval Office the morning of November 21  to prepare the president for a press briefing. Kilduff discovered that JFK's mind was instead on Vietnam.  Kennedy said to  Kilduff:  "I've just  been given  a  list of the  most recent casualties in Vietnam. We're losing too damned many people over there. It's time for us to get out. The Vietnamese aren't fighting for themselves. We're the ones who are doing the fighting. 
"After I come back from Texas, that's going to change. There's no reason 
for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another Amer­
ican life. " What Kennedy meant was clear, Kilduff said: "There is no question that he was taking us out of Vietnam. I was in his office just before we went to Dallas and he said that Vietnam was not worth another American life. There is no question about that. There is no question about it. I know that firsthand ."

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Karl Kinaski

[Michael Griffith]

10 minutes ago, Karl Kinaski said:

The day before he died in Washington Vietnam was very much on Kennedys mind. He not only talked to Salinger about negotiations with the North, he had a Vietnam conversation with Malcolm Kilduff too: (quote from Douglas' book THE UNSPEAKABLE): (This is November 21. 1963)

Kilduff's claim is unbelievable and counter factual. JFK would not have said what Kilduff claimed he said because the war was going well and the South Vietnamese were most certainly "fighting for themselves." This was the whole reason JFK believed he could begin a gradual, conditional withdrawal. Again, read Selverstone's The Kennedy Withdrawal, for starters.

Look, we really need to stop repeating the myth that JFK was going to cut and run from Vietnam after the election and that this is why he was killed. This myth has done enormous damage to the case for conspiracy.

Even most liberal historians reject the claim that JFK was going to disengage from South Vietnam after the election. Every single scrap of period evidence from JFK and RFK themselves, both public and private, refutes this claim.

The myth that JFK was killed over Vietnam took off when Oliver Stone made the sad mistake of believing Fletcher Prouty's ridiculous claims about JFK and Vietnam and made them a big part of his movie JFK. It is no surprise that critics from all across the political spectrum hammered the movie over these claims. 

Prouty was a fringe figure and a crackpot. He was also an anti-Semite who spent years palling around with Holocaust deniers and other extremists (such as the Scientology cult). The sooner we stop citing him and stop repeating his JFK-and-Vietnam myth, the better. 

[Karl Kinaski]

Even Vo Nguyen Giap the leading General of North Vietnam said in retrospect. (Same source as the Salinger quote).

Quote

 

Quote:

Kennedy and his Secretary of Defense McNamara launched the special warfare with "search and destroy" tactics against the Vietcong by US airborne troops. When that failed, Kennedy considered a partial withdrawal from Vietnam. But in 1963 he was shot and the hawk Johnson came to power ... 

 

 

[Karl Kinaski]

In late summer and fall of 1963 Kennedy and De Gaulle were de accord regarding what to do in Vietnam. 

Quote from A Certain Idea of France The Life of Charles De Gaulle by Julian Jackson:

Quote

 De Gaulle also told Kennedy that he would not stand in the way if America felt obliged to intervene. But in August 1963, (...) de Gaulle decided to go public in a solemn communiqué announcing the need for a unified, independent and neutralized Vietnam. 

The idea of neutralizing Vietnam was in the heads of Kennedy, De Gaulle, and the Diems and  considered in Hanoi. 

 

[Joe Bauer]

Was Kilduff ever asked to verify or deny his JFK Viet Nam conversation quotes stated above?

 

[James DiEugenio]

BTW,  Kennedy was interested in a neutralist solution, he and Galbraith actually tried for one through Nehru.

It was thwarted by Harriman. (Douglass, p. 119)

I don't know why Griffith continues with this BS when I showed it was wrong already.

Edited June 23, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Kennedy knew that that Saigon was hopeless and that the Diem/Nhu leadership was a loser.

This is why he had decided to get out under the cover of the 1964 election.

"in 1965, I'll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history.  I''l be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser.  But I don't care.  If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can  do it after I'm reelected. So we had better make damed sure that I am reelected." (O'Donnell and Powers, p. 17)

This is just a matter of English language, he understood Saigon was going to be lost, that is why he was going to be called a commie appeaser and there would be a red scare and he would be unpopular because of it.

This is why there is the section in the PP about Phased Withdrawal 1962-64.

[James DiEugenio]

KK: "Back to Ellsberg: Can anyone explain to me why Ellsberg is a hero, Snowden a traitor and Assange just another inmate? --For the US MSM I should add."

What a good  question this is.

Has America really changed this much?  Or is it because the Vietnam War had become so unpopular at the time when the PP were published?

[James DiEugenio]

This is why Nixon hired a fleet of lawyers and  fought tooth and nail not to have his papers declassified.

Nixon on Ellsberg:

“You can’t drop it,” he said to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. “You can’t let the Jew steal that stuff and get away with it. You understand?”