Oliver Stone Talks to Jacobin About JFK’s Killing

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I think that Oliver Stone’s belief in the Vietnam situation being the reason that JFK was assassinated is nonsense. I don’t believe it whatsoever. My point is simply that I believe that JFK would not have sent U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. The plan at the time of his death was to reduce the number of U.S. military advisers back to the level it was before he took office. I think JFK probably would have been willing to negotiate a settlement after the 1964 elections. Sadly, LBJ had a different viewpoint. He took the situation personally. And he was willing to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight so that HE wouldn’t be the first U.S. President to loose a war.

The plan as I read it was to withdraw forces as the South was able - through our training, assistance, aid et cetera - to take on more of the battle. It wasn't simply to withdraw regardless of the situation on the ground. Two things were to happen simultaneously: we withdraw as they step up. So what would JFK do it the South wasn't able to accomplish that? That's what happened. That's what LBJ faced; and what JFK would have to face. That's why we had to take on more of the effort or leave. Nixon tried to reverse that but it was too late.

As to JFK and a settlement: What's the evidence that Hanoi wanted one? Or Moscow either? After 1964 the Soviets fundamentally changed their approach to SE Asia and, after Khrushchev's removal (he was reluctant to get involved because he believed it would help Mao), began providing massive military and economic support to the North.

JFK was able to settle - for a time - the Laotian crisis without sending in troops because Khrushchev agreed to one. The historian and conspiracy believer John Newman argues that JFK would have dealt with Vietnam like he did with Laos. That is, not send in ground troops. But that ignores the key fact that Soviet policy towards Vietnam was completely different after Khrushchev then it was when he was in charge.

As to LBJ: he uncritically listened to his advisers, the "Best and Brightest", who gave him bad advice and didn't like disagreement among his people. As you pointed out, JFK was much more willing to challenge his advisers, especially the Pentagon and liked hearing dissenting views; so while LBJ went along with their advice, JFK was probably going to reject it.

Anyway: again, what JFK wanted to do is not the same thing as what he was able to do. I don't think LBJ wanted to send in troops either. There are records of conversations he had with people where he said he didn't know what to do. We had to get out but how? What about the consequences?

[W. Tracy Parnell]

We can't possibly know what JFK would've done had he lived ...

That's the point. Stone and DiEugenio tell us that we do know. JFK would have pulled out and he was killed for it. Which is nonsense.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

That's the point. Stone and DiEugenio tell us that we do know. JFK would have pulled out and he was killed for it. Which is nonsense.

Thank you, Tracy. I don't know how many times I have to make the same observation.

There's no evidence that JFK - at the time of his death (hint: it was Oswald) - had decided to simply leave. He had just supported the removal of Diem and with that the idea that a new government would be better able to take on the war, e.g., the Buddhist crisis would end. The plan was to pull our troops out AS the South was able to take on the war by itself. It simply wasn't to leave. Not at that time.

As to Vietnam and the Cold War: I find it remarkable at this date, after all we've learned about the Soviets and Mao and Hanoi, that the left (and some on the far right) in America still argue the US was the chief or primary (or sole as Stone does) cause for that conflict. Nothing about the policies from Moscow, from Mao. This is the Oliver Stone/Howard Zinn description of the Cold War. It's nonsense, it's a lie, it's false and even now people still believe it.

They're free to express it. And I am free to say they're wrong and they're free to say I am. This is the US. Not the Soviet Union. Or China. Or Hanoi. Or Havana. Or North Korea.

[Jon Banks]

That's the point. Stone and DiEugenio tell us that we do know. JFK would have pulled out and he was killed for it. Which is nonsense.

I agree that it’s not very convincing that JFK’s foot-dragging over Vietnam got folks angry enough to want him killed.

OTOH, there was documented outrage over Kennedy’s Cuba policies beginning with the failed Bay of Pigs operation. There was also a lot of anger over RFK’s crusade against Organized Crime especially due to the fact that the Mob felt they helped Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960. So in terms of motive, I think the CIA-Mafia thing seems more plausible than the Vietnam angle.

[Jon Banks]

As to Vietnam and the Cold War: I find it remarkable at this date, after all we've learned about the Soviets and Mao and Hanoi, that the left (and some on the far right) in America still argue the US was the chief or primary (or sole as Stone does) cause for that conflict. Nothing about the policies from Moscow, from Mao. This is the Oliver Stone/Howard Zinn description of the Cold War. It's nonsense, it's a lie, it's false and even now people still believe it.

Steve, it's absurd that in 2021, you still believe that myth.

With the benefit of Hindsight we now can say that the threat of Soviet/China takeover of Vietnam was overstated while the strength of Vietnamese nationalism understated at the time. The Vietnamese were fighting an anti-colonial war of independence against the French and then a civil war and then they fought the Chinese.

Ho Chi Minh admired the US and the American Revolution. Things could've turned out radically different if Eisenhower didn't commit us to a futile attempt to try to reverse the tide of anti-Colonialism.

Here's why Eisenhower was largely to blame for our Vietnam folly:

Eisenhower had inherited Harry Truman's folly of supporting French colonialism as vital to containing communism in Vietnam. But that commitment ended in 1954, when Ho Chi Minh's forces shattered French power at Dien Bien Phu and peacemakers in Geneva outlined their blueprint for peace: an independent, self-ruled Vietnam. The "Geneva Accords" divided the country temporarily into northern and southern zones -- not separate nations -- to be reunited through general elections in 1956.

Ike could have had a clean break from past mistakes. But he blew it. After publicly endorsing the Accords, he proceeded to trash them, swayed by reports that Ho Chi Minh -- Vietnam's popular revolutionary hero but also a communist -- would easily win the 1956 elections.

Ike took a fatal turn, setting America on course for disaster. His administration forged the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), committing the United States to protect a South Vietnam that was not even supposed to exist. Ike boosted Ngo Dinh Diem into power, backed his refusal to hold the 1956 elections and then pumped massive aid into building a new nation around him.

Defending these actions with his doctrinaire anti-communism, Eisenhower reinforced the fatal illusions luring the nation toward calamity. Ho, fiercely nationalistic and distrustful of both Chinese and Russians, was falsely portrayed as their puppet in the communist conspiracy to conquer the rest of Asia. And while Ike was touting Diem's "statesmanship" as guardian of freedom against communist expansion, it was Diem's despotism in the South, not Ho's aggression from the North, that started the conflict.

https://buffalonews.com/news/want-to-place-blame-for-vietnam-start-with-eisenhower/article_1e6bfcab-2fe1-5482-b79b-cdde83261032.html


More on Eisenhower's influence over Vietnam policy even as an ex-President:

With the United States on the brink of a major intervention in Vietnam, the nation needed Ike’s sense of caution and restraint, and his recognition that the use of force can trap a country in foreign adventures. Unfortunately, Eisenhower’s good judgment vanished during the 1960s, as he urged officials into ever-greater escalation in Vietnam. As Andrew Johns detailed in his book on the Republican Party and the war, Vietnam’s Second Front, Eisenhower sought victory in Vietnam by almost any means.

In February 1965, Eisenhower spent two hours explaining to LBJ’s inner circle the vital importance of “denying Southeast Asia to the Communists,” and the need to massively expand the bombing of North Vietnam. But air power didn’t work, and by the summer of 1965, South Vietnam was crumbling in the face of a Communist insurgency. LBJ faced a critical decision about whether to send large numbers of American troops, and Ike urged the president to Americanize the war. “When you once appeal to force in an international situation involving military help for a nation, you have to go all out!” Eisenhower told Johnson. “We are not going to be run out of a free country that we helped establish.”
...
If Ike in winter had retreated from public life, and railed against the peaceniks from his farm in Gettysburg, it might have mattered less. But Eisenhower was still a highly influential player who reinforced LBJ’s hawkish views and made it more difficult to find an exit strategy from a tragic conflict...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/ike-winter-soldier/360857/


Ike didn't have a relationship at all with Kennedy but he had LBJ's ear.

[Martin Weidmann]

(hint: it was Oswald)

Why only hint if you have the evidence to back it up?

Presenting the evidence and defending it, makes him and his belief system vulnerable, because he fully understands that the evidence is weak, superficial, speculative and non-conclusive. By not presenting and/or defending the evidence, he can stay in his comfort zone and keep on whining about all those nasty contrarians who only challenge LNs and not CTs.

It's sad

[Charles Collins]

The plan as I read it was to withdraw forces as the South was able - through our training, assistance, aid et cetera - to take on more of the battle. It wasn't simply to withdraw regardless of the situation on the ground. Two things were to happen simultaneously: we withdraw as they step up. So what would JFK do it the South wasn't able to accomplish that? That's what happened. That's what LBJ faced; and what JFK would have to face. That's why we had to take on more of the effort or leave. Nixon tried to reverse that but it was too late.

As to JFK and a settlement: What's the evidence that Hanoi wanted one? Or Moscow either? After 1964 the Soviets fundamentally changed their approach to SE Asia and, after Khrushchev's removal (he was reluctant to get involved because he believed it would help Mao), began providing massive military and economic support to the North.

JFK was able to settle - for a time - the Laotian crisis without sending in troops because Khrushchev agreed to one. The historian and conspiracy believer John Newman argues that JFK would have dealt with Vietnam like he did with Laos. That is, not send in ground troops. But that ignores the key fact that Soviet policy towards Vietnam was completely different after Khrushchev then it was when he was in charge.

As to LBJ: he uncritically listened to his advisers, the "Best and Brightest", who gave him bad advice and didn't like disagreement among his people. As you pointed out, JFK was much more willing to challenge his advisers, especially the Pentagon and liked hearing dissenting views; so while LBJ went along with their advice, JFK was probably going to reject it.

Anyway: again, what JFK wanted to do is not the same thing as what he was able to do. I don't think LBJ wanted to send in troops either. There are records of conversations he had with people where he said he didn't know what to do. We had to get out but how? What about the consequences?

But that ignores the key fact that Soviet policy towards Vietnam was completely different after Khrushchev then it was when he was in charge.

I think that the Soviet policy changes had more to do with a response to the U.S. policy changes that took place under LBJ’s reign than anything else.

By August, 1964, the Johnson Administration believed that escalation of the U.S. presence in Vietnam was the only solution. The post-Diem South proved no more stable than it had been before his ouster, and South Vietnamese troops were generally ineffective. In addition to supporting on-going South Vietnamese raids in the countryside and implementing a U.S. program of bombing the Lao border to disrupt supply lines, the U.S. military began backing South Vietnamese raids of the North Vietnamese coast. The U.S. Navy stationed two destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy, in the Gulf of Tonkin to bolster these actions. They reported an attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats on August 2, and a second attack on August 4. Doubts later emerged as to whether or not the attack against the Turner Joy had taken place.

Immediately after reports of the second attack, Johnson asked the U.S. Congress for permission to defend U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. The Senate passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution with only two opposing votes, and the House of Representatives passed it unanimously. Congress supported the resolution with the assumption that the president would return and seek their support before engaging in additional escalations of the war.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the subsequent Gulf of Tonkin resolution provided the justification for further U.S. escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Acting on the belief that Hanoi would eventually weaken when faced with stepped up bombing raids, Johnson and his advisers ordered the U.S. military to launch Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against the North. Operation Rolling Thunder commenced on February 13, 1965 and continued through the spring of 1967. Johnson also authorized the first of many deployments of regular ground combat troops to Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong in the countryside.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin

[Mark A. Oblazney]

You almost seemed reasonable. JFK did not create what he found himself confronted with, or appoint them, except the extremist hawks of the Ex-Comm...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Lemnitzer
"...Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September 1960. As Chairman, Lemnitzer was involved in the Bay of Pigs crisis and the early years of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. He was also required to testify before the United States Senate Foreign Affairs Committee about his knowledge of the activities of Major General Edwin Walker, who had been dismissed from the Army over alleged attempts to promote his political beliefs in the military.

As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Lemnitzer approved the plans known as Operation Northwoods in 1962, a proposed plan to discredit the Castro regime and create support for military action against Cuba by staging false flag acts of terrorism and developing "a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington". Lemnitzer presented the plans to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. It is unclear how McNamara reacted, but three days later President John F. Kennedy told the general that there was no chance that the US would take military action against Cuba. Within a few months, after the refusal to endorse Operation Northwoods, Lemnitzer was denied another term as JCS chairman.[3] ..."

https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/CMC50/DavidGWelchandJamesGBlightAnIntroductiontotheExCommTranscriptsInternationalSecurity.pdf
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says a lot+