"Vietnam War: What If JFK Hadn't Been Assassinated?" Topic

"What if? That's the question that's always applied to President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated 50 years ago this month.

One of the biggest "ifs" is what would have happened regarding the Vietnam War if he had lived. The war escalated under Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and eventually claimed more than 58,000 American lives, along with countless troops from South and North Vietnam, and of course civilians…"

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Armand

Kennedy escalated Eisenhower's small involvement. I blame the evil Dulles brothers for even that.
What makes anyone think he would have de-escalated? He took the coward's way out, and "confided to friends and aides" 🙄 that he would do that AFTER he won the 1964 election.
Sure. Right. 🙄
I can't stand LBJ, but I'm not about to whitewash the saintly JFK.

There were no clean hands. No "Yeah, but he was worse!" "Tu Quoque" equivocation.

JFK was no Saint, I agree. I know the pro-Kennedy mob also claimed he was going to pull out. No president wanted to lose a country to communism and Kennedy was ardently anti-communist. He may tried something different than LBJ but I doubt he would have totally pulled out of Vietnam.

We agree on Kennedy!!!??. 😱

Mirabile dictu!

To be honest, the only "friends and aides" that said he planned to withdraw were the acolytes and High Priests of the JFK Cult.

22nd November 1963, so a while to go yet to the day, but the 50th anniversary was a few years back.

Was the "Domino theory" wrong or did the US and allied involvement limit it to Indochina in the end, at a huge sacrifice?

Was the "Domino theory" wrong or did the US and allied involvement limit it to Indochina in the end, at a huge sacrifice?

Well there are still those practicing it in the world and many advocating for it, even in the U.S. (just labeling it as something else), so not sure we can say we stopped it. 🤔

Kennedy was a dedicated Cold Warrior and his advisors were loath to appear ‘weak' prior to the 1964 election. I don't see any real difference between Kennedy and Johnson except Kennedy likely wouldn't have Johnson's compulsive micromanagement of the military.

I wish the DNC had a Kennedy today instead of all these Castros!

Stephen King wrote a novel (11.22.63) about a plan to go back in time and stop the assassination. Without giving away the plot, the end result was a much worse place than it is now, mainly because of Kennedy's hawkish nature.

John the OFM +1

Thanks

Armand

I might say that my Catholic parents and school had the most grotesque saintly portraits of St JFK.
We returned from Mass to learn that Jack Ruby had done what his Mob Bosses ordered him to do.
Me? I was always cynical. Sure I was! I guarantee it! I was 8th Grade cynical! 🙄🤷

Fundamentally no change.

JFK would not have been able to prevent the US misadventure into South East Asia.

He may, I think, have focused on Special Forces rather than conventional big war but when the the counter insurgency failed the pressure to escalate would have led to more and more troops and escalation.

LBJ did not want to get involved any more than Kennedy. But the notion of losing Vietnam as the notion of losing China was so deep in political circles that it forced his hand.

It would in my assessment have forced Kennedy's too.

"or did the US and allied involvement limit it to Indochina in the end, at a huge sacrifice?"

Vietnam didn't stop communism advancing in SE Asia. The war's result was that there were two new communist regimes- Laos and Cambodia- and a unified, communist Vietnam. The US' and its allies' involvement in Vietnam encouraged a resurgence of the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge, eventually leading to Laos and Cambodia falling to communist parties. It also allowed the Communist Parties of Thailand, Malaysia and Burma, and ethnic "freedom" groups, eg the Karen National Union (their insurgency has been going since 1948), with Chinese or USSR assistance, to ramp up their activities again. The resurgences led to the to the 2nd Malaysian Emergency (1966-1989) and Thai Communist guerilla war (1965-1983).

It may have sparked the Konfrontasi, though I think that was already planned by pro-USSR, expansionist Sukarno, well before VN ramped up (he'd already reached for Dutch New Guinea and sparked the Brunei revolt of '62).

Thanks also…

Armand

Don't get me wrong, Armand. I think that VN was necessary, even if it was just as a flag to to revolutionaries in other countries as well as the USSR and PRC, that they weren't going to get a free hand if they tried to stir up revolution in other states.

Which of course they did, and still do.

The Pentagon Papers spilled the beans on the Domino Theory. It wasn't Sino-Soviet backed insurgency they were worried about it was ANY home grown democratically supported movement that might move the resource rich or geopolitically important countries away from the US hegemony.

Vietnam had and still has negligible resources to worry about. Malaysia and Indonesia of course do have significant resources. They worried about Thailand, the Philippines and even as far away as South Korea and Japan moving away from the US sphere of influence.

Communism was just the excuse. Neither the North nor the NLF were especially communist in the 1950s but became so during the American war as the Soviet and Chinese support became more important.

The Governments the US installed and propped up to oppose the Dominoes falling were far worse in terms of human rights than any communist regime that has come since.

North Korea existed beforehand so I exclude that for this comparison.

Communism was just the excuse. Neither the North nor the NLF were especially communist in the 1950s but became so during the American war as the Soviet and Chinese support became more important.

One could say the same about Castro.

Well today is 26th July. Big day in Cuba. They all wore the date on their left upper arm. Esp on that M4A3E8 which is in my attic with so many other Shermans

Rereading the Stephen King novel and disappointed. It starts out good, but slows way down. I thought that in the end JFK was too defeatist against Communist aggression, but let me wait until the end. I am sure it will pick up and it is worth a read.

The Pentagon Papers spilled the beans on the Domino Theory.

It wasn't just the US that preached/believed the Domino Theory (DT- not the alcoholic kind), Skarper, otherwise so many allied nations wouldn't have been involved in VN. A lot of those allies also believed it, and there was enough evidence to support the DT. Although there's a concerted push to "prove" DT is a myth (and has been since the late '40's), the USSR's actions speak for themselves. The USSR did support and finance independence movements and subversion of governments, and was making diplomatic progress in Indonesia, Africa and the subcontinent. So the theory may have been wrong in detail, but it was basically correct- despite the best efforts of academics to prove otherwise and whitewash USSR interference as "Peoples' Risings".

As for some of the less-savoury governments the US installed, dictators are dictators, regardless of what political or religious beliefs they claim. I don't believe any myth about "Benign Dictators", either. The SVN government was a standout (in a crowded field), however, and probably 50% of the reasons why the world condemned the war.

Well said…

Armand

The Domino Theory was correct in the case of Indochina. If the US had not become involved, South Vietnam and Laos certainly would have fallen to the reds. Cambodia at the very minimum would have fallen under the Communist orbit. The Communist insurgency in Thailand might have turned out differently.

That said, getting involved in SE Asia was a strategic mistake for the USA. We had no significant military or economic interest there. And the proof is in the pudding….Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos all went Red and their fall had no significant impact on the USA.

But that is easier to say now than back then. One must remember the spirit of the times. The Cold War was taken very seriously by all. Two of the world's most populous countries gone Red (China & Russia), both vowing to spread their ways worldwide. Eastern Europe had fallen behind the Iron Curtin; a Red invasion of South Korea only recently defeated; and Red-influenced insurgencies around the globe.

Both JFK and LBJ were Cold Warriors. They were also both reluctant to get deeply involved in SE Asia. In the end both significantly escalated our commitment despite their doubts. In my opinion, they were wrong to get involved, and also wrong having decided to get involved for not to have played to win. Instead, their doubts led the USA to play by halves, and to have lost it all.

I don't think we will ever know if JFK would have pulled out rather than deploy ground combat troops like LBJ. By the time he died in November 1963, JFK may not have known himself. Nor had he had to face the deterioration that LBJ faced after JFK died. The deterioration came about as the result of dysfunction in the South Vietnamese government after the coup JFK had supported removed Diem, and North Vietnam's decision to escalate the conflict. LBJ's decisions in 1964-65 were based on these factors, which JFK had not had to face.

It is worth noting that LBJ kept JFK's military and foreign policy team in place, a team that, with few exceptions, supported deepening our commitment to South Vietnam. Presumably, those same people would have told JFK the same thing had he survived.

Agree…

Armand

I don't know much about either JFK or LBJ, LH, but what you say makes sense. With the same advisors JFK would probably have gone down LBJ's track. Would the confusion after Diem's "retirement" have influenced him, do you think? Thieu wasn't a real improvement.

As for VN, I agree it was economically irrelevant, but strategically it was important (more so for Oceania and south Asia than the US, I admit). It did warn the USSR and PRC that the US and its allies were going to oppose their adventures in Africa, Asia and the Muslim world. Sometimes the opposition worked (eg Indonesia post-Sukarno and Philippines), sometimes not (eg Angola and Zimbabwe). The extra resources the USSR had to deploy, to support their revolutionaries, may have helped it on its way to the eventual economic collapse.

JFK felt guilty about Diem's death, but it is impossible to say what impact that guilt might have had on US policy had JFK lived.

I don't know what the economic cost was on the USSR for supporting global revolutions, but I suspect their outlay way relatively minimal and certainly tiny compared with what the US spent to stop them. Vietnam war costs certainly had an adverse impact on the US economy. With regard to Vietnam, China bore far most costs than the USSR.

Given the disproportionate economic cost to the USA than to the Reds the adverse world public opinion the USA experienced, and the diversion of attention, I think the global revolutions were probably seen as a plus by the Communists. Fortunately, most of these efforts failed and probably for that reason the age of revolution faded.

Thanks for your thoughts, LH. That period, even the parts Aussies played, has been so laden with "rewrites" and "reinterpretations" that even school text books contain political mythology- particularly about conscription. It would be interesting to see what the history books are saying about it in another 50 years, but I'll be long gone by then.

Oh, let's hand out blame here.
John Foster Dulles
Allen Dulles
Robert MacNamara.

Why play the blame game,John? Lot of people in power- not just those in the US, either- made decisions and acted on them, for myriad reasons. There were so many people involved that the blame would need to be spread molecule-thin, if it was to be laid equitably.

I'm just trying to understand what happened (everyone needs a hobby they'll fail at), as most of the NCO, when I joined the CMF, were VN/Borneo/Malaya-Singapore veterans. Also VN was the war on TV when I was growing up. But what happened during the "Insurgency Era" is being whitewashed by both sides of politics, CYA merchants, "interested parties" and ideologues in universities- people who think they have all the answers, when they don't even know 1% of the questions. Any lessons learned (if indeed there were any that could be learned), are being lost in the rewriting and sterilisation of history.

Blame is infinite…always plenty to go around.

Blame is infinite…always plenty to go around.

It's also very slippery and, sometimes, can't stick to those who deserve it.

That is more due to those who are to blame than to the quality of the blame itself.

And since blame is infinite we can always reapply it the first coat slips off…

That is more due to those who are to blame than to the quality of the blame itself.

Too bloody true, Skarper. What's the truism- "Those most anxious to take office are generally those least suited to hold that office."?

(smile)

Armand