Peter Dale Scott on "The Kennedy-CIA Divergence Over Cuba"

[Douglas Caddy]

 

Chapter V. The Kennedy-CIA Divergence Over Cuba (history-matters.com)

[Benjamin Cole]

16 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

Chapter V. The Kennedy-CIA Divergence Over Cuba (history-matters.com)

One thing I never understood. 

Almost the minute JFK was assassinated, the intel-military community dropped Cuba like a hot potato, and went gungho into Vietnam. 

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

One thing I never understood. 

Almost the minute JFK was assassinated, the intel-military community dropped Cuba like a hot potato, and went gungho into Vietnam. 

They were already gung-ho in Laos.

My bet is that Castro took the hint from the JFKA and started moving his Red Chinese donated heroin thru Geo. Bush’s Zapata Off-Shore.

[Michael Griffith]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

One thing I never understood. 

Almost the minute JFK was assassinated, the intel-military community dropped Cuba like a hot potato, and went gungho into Vietnam. 

This is not what happened. We were already in South Vietnam and were actively trying to ensure that the country did not fall to Communist rule. Cuba had already come under Communist control, and we had no troops or bases in Cuba (except for the tiny toe hold of Guantanamo). 

Also, the record is clear that LBJ had no desire to massively escalate our Vietnam involvement. He wanted to increase our support for the Saigon government and to put more military pressure on North Vietnam, but he had no desire to deploy hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat troops. He wanted to focus on his domestic agenda and was worried that a major war effort in Vietnam would endanger his domestic policies. If you doubt this, read H. R. McMaster's book Dereliction of Duty. 

LBJ only--and with great reluctance--agreed to a large deployment of combat troops in response to Hanoi's massive escalation in early 1965, a situation that JFK never faced.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Michael Griffith