We should have gotten out in 1964
Had JFK not been ruthlessly murdered by a cabal of criminals, we would have.
JFK would have followed the same path that LBJ did in Vietnam
He had the same advisors
Many disagree, but you wouldn’t know this.
Those who martyr JFK think he is incapable of making a wrong decision. Any President in 1965 would have done the same as LBJ. Nixon, Goldwater AND JFK would not have passed on an opportunity to fight communism. It would have ruined their careers
You’re uninformed. JFK changed dramatically while in the White House, from his days as a hardened cold warrior. He gave a speech not long before he was murdered, that people like you ignore. Guess what? It’s call the Peace Speech. He also was covertly negotiating with Khrushchev to end the Cold War. He was in constant disagreement with the JCS and many others in his administration who wanted war. He intended to pull out of Vietnam as soon as he was re-elected. All these things are ignored or minimized by people like you.
Yea...everyone was advocating peace in Vietnam in 1963.
Then Diem was assassinated (three weeks before JFK) and the South went into turmoil. North Vietnam was on the verge of overtaking the South unless they received military aid.
LBJ wanted no part of putting American troops on the ground. But he was adamant that “Vietnam won’t turn communist on my watch” and his military advisers and Secretary of Defense MacNamara (same as LBJ had) all said we needed a few ground troops to turn back the tide and we would be home by Christmas.
LBJ took the bait. So would have JFK
And LBJ's policy led to the defeat of the Viet Cong 1968; their last gasp was the Tet offensive, and they lost. Anti-American propaganda had intensified greatly in both Europe and the U.S. when LBJ also took over from the French as the patrons of Israel, with the resulting Arab defeats in 1967 and again in 1973, which bankrupted the Soviets and destroyed their credibility with the Arab states. Without the U.S. in Viet Nam, the Soviets would have a free hand in Asia, and they wouldn't have gone bankrupt trying to prove to their client states they could beat our containment policy.
Kissinger merely exploited the wedge between the Soviets and Red Chinese from the Korean War, and in the end his policies led to the abandonment of the South Vietnamese to the commies, not ashining moment for the U.S.; we should have bombed them back into the stone age with that blatant violation of the treaties they signed, not they ever abided by any agreements and certainly the commie leftists in the U.S. were very happy with the results as they still are today. Kissinger and Nixon accomplished nothing by selling out the South, while the North could still count on Red Chinese and Soviet support.
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