CNN Tonight: The Assassination of JFK

[Samantha]

55. This is a discussion about JFK's assassination, not the Vietnam war, but to address your point

Eisenhower sent in the advisors, and JFK inherited a bad situation from him. Presidents say a lot of things publicly out of necessity that do not reflect their private thoughts on the matter. JFK's war was against the Viet Cong and not necessarily the Vietnamese people themselves. He wanted to teach the Vietnamese people how to ward off that threat. Below is a link his brother Robert recorded for historical purposes in 1964 for the JFK Library.

From where I sit, Johnson, who campaigned for election did so on ending the Vietnam conflict. After he was legitimately elected to the office under his own campaign, about three days later he ordered a massive escalation.

I do not know your age and you have from your own personal life any investment in this controversy, but as someone who was was ready to leave the Country to avoid seeing her husband drafted into a war which we both opposed, I am very passionate about this subject, followed it closely as it unfolded and I personally hold Johnson in deep contempt for his outright lies to the voting public -- lies which allowed him to win the White House -- a betrayal which led to the torture, wounding, and often death to many people my own age. Johnson was the war monger. Here is a passage from the link of Robert Kennedy's audio interview and the summary contained at the end:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm

"So would Kennedy have fallen into the Vietnam quagmire just as Johnson did? No one can be sure, and Kennedy supporters can certainly believe that he would have avoided Johnson's massive committment -- even though he had the same advisors as Johnson and the same desire to prevent a Communist takeover.

However, the Oliver Stone version of the Kennedy assassination, as expressed in the movie JFK, holds that Kennedy had already decided to pull out of Vietnam, and was killed for that reason. That's just not so."

Sam