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59th Anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy

Craig234

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It's common to discuss theories about the assassination, but more important in my opinion is to note the loss to the country of one of the greatest presidents, the best we've had since or since FDR.
 
I remember the shock and disbelief all in B&W too well. My mum, a veteran of WWII (a US Army Nurse) crumpled in grief when the doctors at Parkland Hospital announced Kennedy's death. Such a shock and a fright this youngster got that day. Camelot came crashing down.

Very respectfully.
Evilroddy.
 
It's common to discuss theories about the assassination, but more important in my opinion is to note the loss to the country of one of the greatest presidents, the best we've had since or since FDR.
One of the greatest presidents? I don't think so. He criticized Martin Luther King, Jr. for his impatience in demanding equality. Only Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, had the political will and muscle to force important civil rights legislation through Congress.

A popular misconception was that the assassination stopped Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam. However, his public statements gave no hint of this new policy. In a television interview September 2, 1963 with CBS's Walter Cronkite, Kennedy said, "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake . . . I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away."

Seven days later, in an interview with NBC's Chet Huntley, Kennedy repeated his position: "What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don't like events in Southeast Asia or they don't like the government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay. We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw."

In the book The Secret War Against Hanoi, Richard H. Shultz Jr. documented how Kennedy in 1961 ordered the CIA to conduct covert armed attacks against North Vietnam.
 
One of the greatest presidents? I don't think so. He criticized Martin Luther King, Jr. for his impatience in demanding equality. Only Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, had the political will and muscle to force important civil rights legislation through Congress.

And Lincoln in his time publicly declared his total opposition to equality for black people, and his dream was to send all black people to Africa. Yet he is viewed as a hero on civil rights.

You show a shallow understanding of the situation. Kennedy was a radical for civil rights - which doesn't look like it by today's standards.

There are some things to understand. One is that he won a close election at the height of the cold war, when the country had demands who it wanted for president. It had just some out of McCarthyism and would have picked Eisenhower over JFK if Republicans hadn't prevented it by limiting presidents to two terms to spitefully react to FDR. They demanded a 'cold warrior' and were hostile to more than very mild civil rights.

Kennedy had a strong Democratic majority on paper, but not in practice. The south was violently a one-issue political faction fixated on war on civil rights. Filibusters were almost exclusively for southerners to fight civil rights. The only way JFK could get any of his important legislative agenda on many issues was to unite people from non-Southern Democrats, with Southern Democrats, and/od Republicans.

And the Southerners told him directly - push a civil rights bill and they would kill all of his bills. It was a very real threat. His presidency and the national good of his agenda were under threat from that. Things from food for the country to economic policies to his most cherished bill against nuclear weapon testing and a lot more.

He did not become president intending to be a civil rights president, but he became one. Polls - I've see the Gallup polls of the time - had the country saying he was 'moving too fast' on civil rights. So he lacked both public support and votes in Congress to push a big civil rights bill. He was well aware of the political demands around the issue.

And yet he became a determined civil rights leader. The fact he wasn't right alongside King doesn't change his being a radical for civil rights. A top King aide was gay and asked King to fight for gay rights as well as black rights; King told him no, that he had enough on his plate and couldn't take on every injustice. Does that mean King was not a civil rights leader?

In that situation, after a slow start, by 1963m facing a re-election campaign, JFK did the incredible choice to push a civil rights bill anyway, despite the political harm. It's not as if he couldn't wait; he recognized that his desire to leave Vietnam had a big political threat to him, and he ordered the Pentagon to plan the withdrawal for 1965, after he was re-elected. But he didn't wait on civil rights.

The odds weren't looking good for his bill - or others with the Southerners going to war with him. JFK gave a national television address to argue to a country opposed to his civil rights push, why they should support it, putting his neck even more on the line politically and 'the first time a president had made civil rights a moral issue for the country'.

For a century after the civil war, the country had maintained discrimination. But when LBJ became president, he decided to support JFK's agenda. And he shocked people by being a Texan fighting for the civil rights bills. And he told Congress that the best way they could honor JFK was to pass them. Basically every Southern politician voted no, but most Republicans voted yes, and they passed.

It was an incredible event and JFK did incredibly at supporting civil rights, by his third year, moved during his presidency as his brother the Attorney General fought civil rights issues over and over, such as the Famous confrontation at the University of Alabama to register the first black students with Governor Wallace standing in the doorway blocking them, with Kennedy having to send the national guard.

If you just want to judge JFK by today's standards, he'll look bad; and that's absurd to do.

But he was (eventually) a historic leader on civil rights, breaking the century of inaction, arguably the strongest president on the issue in history in terms of his leadership to change the issue.
 
A popular misconception was that the assassination stopped Kennedy's plan to withdraw from Vietnam. However, his public statements gave no hint of this new policy. In a television interview September 2, 1963 with CBS's Walter Cronkite, Kennedy said, "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake . . . I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away."

Seven days later, in an interview with NBC's Chet Huntley, Kennedy repeated his position: "What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don't like events in Southeast Asia or they don't like the government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay. We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw."

In the book The Secret War Against Hanoi, Richard H. Shultz Jr. documented how Kennedy in 1961 ordered the CIA to conduct covert armed attacks against North Vietnam.

Again, you have a shallow understanding of the history. No offense - you are correct in the limited information you do have. But to understand Kennedy, you have to understand that he was very much a politician and very aware the country demanded a cold warrior president, and he was trying to be a very different leader than the country wanted, and balancing his public image as a cold warrior with his 'hidden agenda' otherwise.

I'm going to give you a little information some of which you are likely not to have. His top priority - in my opinion - becoming president was dread over Eisenhower having stripped conventional military options in Europe, putting the country on a hair-trigger for nuclear weapons as the only response to any minor conflict, as a cost-saving measure. People remember Eisenhower's farewell speech against the military-industrial(-Congressional) complex, but not its effect on Eisenhower creating that nuclear hair-trigger to limit military spending. When Kennedy took office he told McNamara to review the country's nuclear war plans. A civilian had never seen them, the Air Force felt they belonged to them and told their new boss no - McNamara had to have Kennedy order the Air Force to show him the plans.

Here's something to better understand. Kennedy talked to McNamara privately and told him that he was concerned about the possibility of error leading to a nuclear war, and that he had decided to not order retaliation with nuclear weapons if an attack were reported; by that time it was too late and he had moral issues with the killing and the possibility of error, but that had to be kept to only the two of them, as the deterrent issue of believing the US would send nuclear missiles was critical to the safety of the world. How can I tell you about a secret only the two of them knew? I watched McNamara tell the story. If it's still online I could link you to listen to a recording.
 
Again privately, Kennedy told a close aide that he was "almost a peace at any price president". But he was aware of the need to appear the cold warrior to the public. He had run on a campaign that the Republicans had been too weak standing up to the communists, infuriating Nixon on issues from a false 'missile gap' to the covert plan to attack Castro Nixon had to deny publicly.

In another private conversation - Kennedy's private versus public agenda extremely limiting who he confided in doesn't help get the history, so we have only top aide Kenny O'Donnell's report of this - Kennedy's closest Congressional ally, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield in 1962 had gone to Vietnam, and returned telling JFK he needed to withdraw. This was the period of Kennedy reaching the conclusion of the likely need to withdraw.

He told O'Donnell that he was angry with Mansfield's position against the policy to win in Vietnam - and angry with himself because he found he was agreeing. O'Donnell reports that JFK told Mansfield he agreed with the need to withdraw, but couldn't do it until 1965 after he was re-elected. After Mansfield left, he said that "In 1965, I'll be damned everywhere as a communist appeaser. But I don't care. If I tried to pull out completely now, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm re-elected." He then said they should make sure he was re-elected in order to do that.

When you better understand this, some pieces fall into place. One is that Kennedy was evolving on the issue. You need to remember that the US mindset could not understand the idea of not defeating communism in Vietnam. Less than 20 years earlier, the US had led the world to victory in WWII. Around the world - we didn't realize how much the CIA did wrong to cause it - countries were falling in line with 'total loyalty' to the US. The idea that some tiny country with a few 'peasants in pajamas' could resist the power of the US military was absurd. Kennedy's first choice WAS to win in Vietnam if he could.

But he'd had MacArthur tell him a president would be crazy to get in a land war in Asia. He had lost any faith in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA after the Bay of Pigs for the rest of his presidency. He's had trusted advisers such as Mansfield come to the conclusion we needed to withdraw, and he gradually came to that conclusion, recognizing the politics around it as noted above.

In May 1962, he ordered McNamara to have the Pentagon create plans for total withdrawal in 1965, hidden from the public. If you watch the interviews you cite, you do see him publicly continuing to support victory in Vietnam, but you see him insert messages that make little sense if that were really his position - saying that 'in the final analysis, the war was theirs to win or lose.

So he was maintaining his 'cold warrior' politics he needed to, while he laid the groundwork for looking like he was not to blame for a 'loss', but telling the country the war might be lost, pacing the blame on Vietnam if it was. His statements fit a president doing that, not one who would really go to war there. Note this interview was just weeks before Diem was assassinated - with the CIA condoning his removal in a complicated story.
 
Mr. Cronkite: Mr. President, the only hot war we’ve got running at the moment is of course the one in Viet-Nam, and we have our difficulties there, quite obviously.

The President. I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists.

We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don’t think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people.

The repressions against the Buddhists, we felt, were very unwise. Now all we can do is to make it very clear that we don’t think this is the way to win. It is my hope that this will become increasingly obvious to the government, that they will take steps to try to bring back popular support for this very essential struggle.

Mr. Cronkite. Do you think this government still has time to regain the support of the people?

The President. I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can. If it doesn’t make those changes, I would think that the chances of winning it would not be very good.

Mr. Cronkite. Hasn’t every indication from Saigon been that President Diem has no intention of changing his pattern?

The President. If he does not change it, of course, that is his decision. He has been there 10 years and, as I say, he has carried this burden when he has been counted out on a number of occasions.

Our best judgment is that he can’t be successful on this basis. We hope that he comes to see that, but in the final analysis it is the people and the government itself who have to win or lose this struggle. All we can do is help, and we are making it very clear, but I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. I know people don’t like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away.

So, Kennedy repeatedly talks about his opinion being that Vietnam, not the US, have to win or lose the war; that in his opinion, they cannot win as it's going; but he tries to avoid the political attack of looking like he's 'weak on communism' by not saying he's in favor of withdrawing our assistance, which he's not ready to publicly do yet, even as he talks about South Vietnam losing the war and it being their fault and limits on what the US would do.

When you learn the fuller history, what emerges is a clear indication that Kennedy had preferred victory in Vietnam initially, but felt it was likely he would need to withdraw, and he would publicly support victory but prepared the nation that it was Vietnam's war to win or lose, and he planned for withdrawal by 1965 whatever had happened. But this was a closely held secret.

It's supported by evidence, such as his May 1962 order to plan for a 1965 withdrawal, and his order to withdraw 1,000 of the 16,000 advisers in 1963; and by people such as McNamara saying he believed JFK was going to withdraw, and military intelligence expert John Newman, writing his findings in "JFK and Vietnam".


 
It's common to discuss theories about the assassination, but more important in my opinion is to note the loss to the country of one of the greatest presidents, the best we've had since or since FDR.
What JFK did during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Diplomacy with a big stick. Much of that at the urging of RFK.
 
It's common to discuss theories about the assassination, but more important in my opinion is to note the loss to the country of one of the greatest presidents, the best we've had since or since FDR.
Has anything new come to light in 2022?
 
Has anything new come to light in 2022?
I don't know yet. There won't be a lot new, just people commenting and the file releases, which won't show much, but will mainly document government information.

A piece of background information most don't know is that Mexico City was considered the world center of cold war espionage at the time apparently, with large KGB and CIA operations. That was coincidental to Oswald's visit, but it has come out that the President of Mexico secretly cooperated with the CIA even hidden from his own government. His successor denounced him as a CIA asset.

There are various mysteries it's unlikely to get new information, such as why supposed CIA photos of Oswald were another man, and wiretap recordings said to have been routinely destroyed but which FBI documents suggest had been listened to after they were supposedly destroyed.

It's said most of the files released this year are re-releases with minor redactions lifted. We'll have to see what's found in them if anything much beyond the Mexican President.
 
A piece of background information most don't know is that Mexico City was considered the world center of cold war espionage at the time apparently, with large KGB and CIA operations. That was coincidental to Oswald's visit, but it has come out that the President of Mexico secretly cooperated with the CIA even hidden from his own government. His successor denounced him as a CIA asset.

There are various mysteries it's unlikely to get new information, such as why supposed CIA photos of Oswald were another man, and wiretap recordings said to have been routinely destroyed but which FBI documents suggest had been listened to after they were supposedly destroyed.

It's said most of the files released this year are re-releases with minor redactions lifted. We'll have to see what's found in them if anything much beyond the Mexican President.
Somethis is fishy in this case, as it seems.
 
Somethis is fishy in this case, as it seems.
We just don't know, but I expect it's ultimately about nothing more than the CIA possibly hiding its awareness of Oswald's visit to not look bad. It was hiding collateral information, such as the President of Mexico being their asset essentially.
 

59th Anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy​


So this year there will be a special date: the

60th Anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy​

 
I remember the shock and disbelief all in B&W too well. My mum, a veteran of WWII (a US Army Nurse) crumpled in grief when the doctors at Parkland Hospital announced Kennedy's death. Such a shock and a fright this youngster got that day.
Same here .....
 
You do have to wonder what is still sensitive from the period not being released. I think it has little to nothing to do with the assassination, but is all about wanting to hide either sources, methods, or embarrassments or scandals. For example, IIRC the private secretary to the King of Jordon had been recruited - pretty sensitive (and no longer concealed).

Some they might prefer aren't ever revealed. Or, imagine there was some documentation about Kennedy's sex life that they feel would embarrass him and raise issues about how presidents are monitored. Who knows. Of course, much was destroyed also. Just starting a book about the Church investigation that will have materials on the Kennedys, "The Last Honest Man".
 
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