Operation Tailwind

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Steve, have you read James W. Douglass’ “JFK and the Unspeakable”? I received a copy of it for Christmas and have only read the first 25% or so of it. I do not agree with Douglass’ idea that JFK was killed because of it, but, so far, he makes a good case for JFK’s peace-making philosophy. Here’s an excerpt for example:

While Ellsberg was trying to figure out JFK’s odd stand, he had the opportunity to raise the question in a conversation with Robert Kennedy. As a U.S. senator in 1967, Kennedy had invited Ellsberg, a Pentagon analyst, to talk with him in his office about a mutual concern, the escalating war in Vietnam. Ellsberg had boldly seized the chance to question RFK about JFK’s decision making in 1961. Why, Ellsberg asked him, had President Kennedy rejected both ground troops and a formal commitment to victory in Vietnam, thereby “rejecting the urgent advice of everyone of his top military and civilian officials”? 78

Robert Kennedy answered that his brother was absolutely determined never to send ground combat units to Vietnam, because if he did, the U.S. would be in the same spot as the French—whites against Asians, in a war against nationalism and self-determination.

Ellsberg pressed the question: Was JFK willing to accept defeat rather than send troops?

RFK said that if the president reached the point where the only alternatives to defeat were sending ground troops or withdrawing, he intended to withdraw. “We would have handled it like Laos,” his brother said. 79

Ellsberg was even more intrigued. It was obvious to him that none of President Kennedy’s senior advisors had any such conviction about Indochina. Ellsberg kept pushing for more of an explanation for Kennedy’s stand.

“What made him so smart? He asked John Kennedy’s brother.

Writing more than thirty years after this conversation, Ellsberg could still feel the shock he had experienced from RFK’s response:

“Whap! His hand slapped down on the desk. I jumped in my chair. ‘Because we were there!’ He slammed the desktop again. His face contorted in anger and pain. ‘We were there, in 1951. We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it. My brother was determined, determined never to let that happen to us.’ “ 80

John Kennedy had been there. He had seen it with Robert, when the French troops were doing it. A friend on the spot, Edmund Guillion, had underlined the futility of American combat troops replacing the French. Ellsberg wrote that he believed what Robert Kennedy said, “that his brother was strongly convinced that he should never send ground troops to Indochina and that he was prepared to accept a ‘Laotian solution’ if necessary to avoid that.” 81


I have a copy of one of Ellsberg’s books on the way to me now to try to confirm some of the footnotes in Douglass’ book.

Charles: I've read some of the book online, mostly the claims about JFK's policies but not about Douglass' theory on the assassination. I find his portrayal of JFK as someone who wanted to essentially abandon the Cold War containment policies of the US - policies he supposedly didn't believe in but was forced to promote - almost entirely wrong. He makes a few good points about how JFK wanted to lessen tensions, normalize US/Soviet relations, tried to find common ground (as in the AU speech) - as JFK said, "In a nuclear war the survivors would envy the dead" - but that's not really tossing out the Cold War containment policies enacted after WWII. JFK did indeed believe we were in a existential struggle with communism and that it needed to be contained. That wasn't an act, a line to appease the hawks, some script he was forced to read. He believed it. Douglass clearly thinks he didn't.

You really have to ignore a lot of JFK's statements about the communist threat - ignore them or call them lies (including the one he was to give in Dallas that November day). You also have to characterize his policies, as Douglass tries to do, as being forced upon him by the Pentagon and MIC. That's not how McNamara described the presidency. Or Rusk. Or Bundy. None described a reluctant JFK supporting containment. Operation Mongoose wasn't forced on him by the hawks; the Kennedys were behind all that nonsense from start to finish. If the MIC was behind all of it, forcing the Kennedys to go along, then why did it mostly stop after the assassination? And this idea - RFK, Jr. promotes it - that his father was trying to make a deal with Castro is silly. They were trying to kill Castro up to the day JFK was assassinated. 

As to Vietnam and a Laotian type agreement: That only worked as long as the US remained in the region and forced Hanoi and the Pathet Lao to agree to it. Once we were gone the government fell. Obviously, RFK didn't know this but any similar agreement would have had to keep US forces there to maintain it.

Anyway, this is an interesting thread. I think it - "Who was JFK?" - really is one of the key factors that divides the conspiracy believers from the lone assassin crowd. The former truly believe that JFK was going to fundamentally change US policies and it was for that that he was killed.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

BTW, the late John McAdams reviewed the Douglass book here: https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2009/12/unspeakably-awful.html

The comments were interesting. Lots of angry replies but nobody refuted McAdam's criticism that Douglass had JFK's Cold War policies entirely wrong.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

And the Pentagon Papers, that Ellsberg helped write, can be read here: https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

The key chapter re JFK details the Buddhist crisis and the inability to get the Diem government to change policies (mid-to-late '63) and that that should have been the time for a serious re-examination of our involvement in South Vietnam. But none was planned and none was seriously undertaken.

Longish passage: "In the course of these policy debates [i.e., how to deal with Diem], several participants pursued the logical but painful conclusion that if the war could not be won with Diem, and if his removal would lead to political chaos and also jeopardize the war effort, then the war was probably unwinnable. If that were the case, the argument went, then the U.S. should really be facing a more basic decision of either an orderly disengagement from an irretrievable situation, or a major escalation of the U.S. involvement, including the use of U.S. combat troops. These prophetic minority voices were, however, raising an unpleasant prospect that the [Kennedy] Administration was unprepared to face at that time. In hindsight, however, it is clear that this was one of the times in the history of our Vietnam involvement when we were making fundamental choices. The option to disengage honorably at that time now appears an attractively low-cost one. But for the Kennedy Administration the costs no doubt appeared much higher. In any event, it proved to be unwilling to accept the implications of predictions for a bleak future. The Administration hewed to the belief that if the US be but willing to exercise its power, it could ultimately have its way in world affairs.

That last two sentences are critical. Link here: https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-5.pdf

[Charles Collins]

Thanks Steve, yes James Douglass is definitely biased and we must pay attention and separate his opinions, conclusions, etc. from what actually happened and was said. As demonstrated in earlier posts in this thread omissions can cause misunderstandings also. I will add more when I get a chance. Glad that you find this interesting.

[Charles Collins]

BTW, the late John McAdams reviewed the Douglass book here: https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2009/12/unspeakably-awful.html

The comments were interesting. Lots of angry replies but nobody refuted McAdam's criticism that Douglass had JFK's Cold War policies entirely wrong.

I tend to agree with McAdams’ review. However, he doesn’t really address JFK’s character. Here’s a paragraph from Wikipedia that I find interesting:


Many historians, Kennedy acolytes, and celebrities, such as movie director Oliver Stone, have claimed that the withdrawal of 1,000 U.S. soldiers from Vietnam was the beginning of Kennedy's plan to withdraw completely from South Vietnam after he gained re-election in 1964 and cited NSAM-263 as evidence for that plan. Others, including Pulitzer Prize winning historian Fredrik Logevall, have said that "NSAM 263 hardly represented the kind of far-reaching policy initiative that the incipient-withdrawal proponents suggest. It was but one part of a larger 'selective pressures' policy designed to push the Diem regime into greater effectiveness." Logevall concluded that "The great preponderance of the evidence...would appear to refute any notion that John Kennedy had decided to withdraw from Vietnam." However, Logevall goes on to speculate that Kennedy, because of his character and personality, might have considered, at a later date, a unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam.[13]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Action_Memorandum_263



I underlined the last sentence. And I think that James Douglass’ book points out some actions (not just words) taken by JFK that would tend to support Logevall’s speculation…

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Here's Douglass in his book on "Operation Mongoose" and the covert war on Cuba (it gets one two mentions).

"For the remaining five months of his life, John Kennedy continued a policy of sabotage against Cuba that he may have seen as a bone thrown to his barking CIA and military advisers but was in any case a crime against international law."

Well, that's just not right at all. We all know that the covert war on Cuba was driven by the Kennedys, specifically RFK. People who attended the meetings where it was discussed - see Joe Califano's accounts; he was the top adviser to the Pentagon and attended many of them - say RFK was demanding more action, more aggressive policies, more results. This was not a policy "bone" by JFK thrown to others; it was a policy that originated in the Kennedy's minds. And as we know, after the assassination the entire plan most of the plan (corrected) disappeared. RFK was no longer interested in pushing it and LBJ showed no interest either. Why didn't the CIA and hawks push for it at that time? If JFK was killed because he was too "soft" on Cuba (among other things), then why did the covert war in large part end with his death? Douglass can't answer that question.

[Charles Collins]

Here's Douglass in his book on "Operation Mongoose" and the covert war on Cuba (it gets one two mentions).

"For the remaining five months of his life, John Kennedy continued a policy of sabotage against Cuba that he may have seen as a bone thrown to his barking CIA and military advisers but was in any case a crime against international law."

Well, that's just not right at all. We all know that the covert war on Cuba was driven by the Kennedys, specifically RFK. People who attended the meetings where it was discussed - see Joe Califano's accounts; he was the top adviser to the Pentagon and attended many of them - say RFK was demanding more action, more aggressive policies, more results. This was not a policy "bone" by JFK thrown to others; it was a policy that originated in the Kennedy's minds. And as we know, after the assassination the entire plan disappeared. RFK was no longer interested in pushing it and LBJ showed no interest either. Why didn't the CIA and hawks push for it at that time? If JFK was killed because he was too "soft" on Cuba (among other things), then why did the covert war in large part end with his death? Douglass can't answer that question.

I said when I first brought up Douglass’ book that I didn’t agree with his ideas along those lines. So, you are preaching to the choir. However, Douglass does a good job of pointing out actions (and words) of JFK’s that do tend to show his character. JFK once described himself as “an idealist without illusions.” I take that to mean he was somewhat of a realist. What he wanted and intended to do wasn’t always feasible, and I believe that he knew that. He knew the horrors of war from his WWII experiences. He refused to get U.S. combat forces involved during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He must have been deeply affected by the Cuban missile crisis. Who wouldn’t be after being in his position? He used secret back channels to work out his deal on the Cuban missile crisis. He (after a flurry of testing by the U.S.) worked out a deal on a limited test ban treaty. There is evidence that he was using secret back channels to try to normalize relations with Cuba. The RFK demands for more action against Cuba might have been a tactic designed to give Castro an incentive. Who knows?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I said when I first brought up Douglass’ book that I didn’t agree with his ideas along those lines. So, you are preaching to the choir. However, Douglass does a good job of pointing out actions (and words) of JFK’s that do tend to show his character. JFK once described himself as “an idealist without illusions.” I take that to mean he was somewhat of a realist. What he wanted and intended to do wasn’t always feasible, and I believe that he knew that. He knew the horrors of war from his WWII experiences. He refused to get U.S. combat forces involved during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He must have been deeply affected by the Cuban missile crisis. Who wouldn’t be after being in his position? He used secret back channels to work out his deal on the Cuban missile crisis. He (after a flurry of testing by the U.S.) worked out a deal on a limited test ban treaty. There is evidence that he was using secret back channels to try to normalize relations with Cuba. The RFK demands for more action against Cuba might have been a tactic designed to give Castro an incentive. Who knows?

Right, I never got the idea that you believed in Douglass's main claim, i.e., that JFK was going or wanted to toss out the containment/Cold War policies against the communists and that he only supported them because he was forced to by the MIC/Pentagon/CIA. Who then, according to Douglass, killed him because he was going to do just that. Saying JFK wanted to "calm" relations down with Moscow, normalize the relationship as he said in the AU speech or that he tried to probe for or find a peaceful settlement of conflicts is one thing; claiming that he didn't fundamentally believe in the necessity of containment, as Douglass appears to do, is another. And as for killing JFK: sorry, one lost angry person with a cheap rifle did that. It didn't require an army of conspirators.

In his book on the Kennedy presidency, the historian Richard Reeves mentions how the Kennedys, especially JFK, liked using back channels and promoting a two track policy. That is, negotiate and pressure, pressure and negotiate. Lots of presidents have used back channel communications but JFK seemed particularly interested in using them. During the crisis with Moscow, with Castro and others. JFK really did show an intellectual independence from his advisers - from the military in particular - that led to his probing and questioning policy. We saw this most obviously in the missile crisis. I think on Vietnam he would certainly have been more willing to ignore the "Best and Brightest" than LBJ did (in one of his letters he sent from the Pacific during the war he complained: "The military fucks up everything."). Would he escaped the trap that McNamara mentioned above? We can only guess.

It's interesting that JFK's legacy - who he was - is probably fought over more than any other president. Conservatives like to say he'd be one of theirs - tax cuts, anti-communism, et cetera - while liberals say his civil rights policies and American University speech shows he belonged to them. He really did defy an easy description or characterization. He was pragmatic but idealistic; cautious but open minded. Some of the qualities of the right and left.

Douglass' claims aren't all wrong but I think to portray JFK as some critic of containment is just flat out wrong. He may not have been a hawk - as defined by the period - but he wasn't a dove either. He was probably what political scientists called an "owl." Owls believe "the greatest risks of such war come from events getting out of control." I think JFK was terribly worried about that, about events escalating into a direct US/Soviet conflict. 

On the Cuba policy: I think they took Castro personally. They wanted him dead or certainly out of power (which almost certainly required is death). JFK reportedly thought that they could turn Castro into a Tito, that is an independent communist. I think they knew otherwise; that he was a lost cause.  After going over the Cuban policy the evidence I read shows that a lot more of the covert attacks than I realized continued after JFK's death. RFK pushed most of it but it didn't all go away after 11/22/63.