哪位總統對美國捲入越南戰爭負有最大責任？
像 Jon Mixon 和其他人一樣，我也說 John F. Kennedy。
Jim Bishop
FDR's Last Year
罗斯福最后一年
我在這篇文章中詳細介紹：
蒂姆霍姆斯對越南戰爭期間美國入侵越南的原因是什麼的回答？
他不僅在殺死 Diem 的過程中留下了他的指紋（實際上我們只是屈服於策劃者並表示我們會在之後支持他們，IIRC。之前有陰謀和未遂政變，但普通策劃者擔心美國會開小差他們。）但肯尼迪和他的兄弟也知道 LBJ 成為總統是多麼糟糕，完全不合適。這是在他於 1960 年被選為副總統競選夥伴之前。我們稱之為政治權宜之計，肯尼迪在 1960 年代在任期間對 LBJ 對越南所做的一切，至少應承擔 50% 的責任。
=================================
他在越南直接做的主要是委派人們，對他們的所作所為不夠關心，特別是關於小亨利卡博特洛奇 - 維基百科以及逮捕和暗殺 Ngo Dinh Diem 的一些下屬（包括 George Ball 和 Averell Harriman） - 維基百科.
以下是沃爾特·克朗凱特 (Walter Cronkite) 的敘述（雖然比較公平，但比較自由），發表在他的書《記者的生活》中，該書於 1996 年出版，第 388 頁大字版：
“就在 [克朗凱特] 採訪前一周，肯尼迪的越南智囊團 [原文如此] 向我們的駐越南大使亨利·卡博特·洛奇 (Henry Cabot Lodge) 發送了一條信息，該信息幾乎與此類外交指示一樣明確：
'美國政府不能容忍權力掌握在 Nhu 手中的情況。吳廷琰必須有機會擺脫 Nhu 和他的小圈子，並用可用的最優秀的軍事和政治人物取而代之。如果儘管我們付出了所有努力，但吳廷琰仍然頑固拒絕，那麼我們必鬚麵對吳廷琰本人無法保存的可能性。
實際上，智囊團包括副國務卿喬治鮑爾和[遠東事務助理國務卿和前總統候選人] W. Averell Harriman - 維基百科，當它的三個關鍵人物——迪恩·魯斯克、羅伯特·麥克納馬拉和總統 [JFK] 本人——不在城裡時，起草了這條信息……
…當三人組回到華盛頓時，根據臘斯克的回憶錄，他們試圖軟化對洛奇的指示，但在洛奇的鷹派觀點中，他們的努力來得太晚了。[Lodge] 回電：“我們走上了一條沒有值得尊敬的回頭路，即推翻吳廷琰政府的道路。” “
所以，得到這個。就像杜魯門在 1951 年推遲擺脫麥克阿瑟一樣，這種令人髮指的不服從已經持續了足夠長的時間。肯尼迪和朋友們做了什麼？沒有什麼。肯尼迪的總統口號是什麼？肯尼迪領導力。現在他說的是哪種領導，懶惰領導還是兔子領導？
在做了上述一個國家領導人被處決的行為之後，似乎是美國下令或可能這樣做的，世界上大多數新國家可能認為美國是不值得信任的。南越是美國的客戶國 - 維基百科. 簡而言之，美國現在擁有了這個問題，而包括歐洲在內的大部分自由世界現在都在積極鼓勵失敗。哈巴，哈巴肯尼迪。
東南亞條約組織——維基百科是在南越參與下成立的，是東南亞為數不多的幾個國家之一（另一個是菲律賓，另一個當時與美國幾乎有殖民安排的國家）。
“SEATO 旨在成為北大西洋公約組織的東南亞版本 (NATO) in which the military forces of each member would be coordinated to provide for the collective defense of the members' country. “
Ok, so what does an American president do? Has the US collude with internal elements to overthrow a sitting leader — who was subsequently killed. Isn’t this exactly what the KGB had massive whispering campaigns about since 1945?
Enough already. Here is some more of Cronkite (pgs 89–90):
“In his memoirs Rusk notes that as the coup got under way he instructed Lodge to offer Diem arrangements to get him out of the country. ‘But in hopes of finding military unites that would support him,’ Rusk wrote, ‘Diem rebuffed this offer, was captured and killed. Had we been as actively involved in the coup as others suggest, we could at least have prevented Diem’s death.’ Note the former Secretary’s qualifying word ‘actively’. “
In short, a very big SNAFU - Wikipedia which JFK’s political heirs have been actively doing overtime to pass the buck and explain away all the details. No, Kennedy was directly responsible. Lodge was probably appointed for political reasons to get him out of America. (Henry was the VP candidate on the Nixon 1960 ticket, and also from Massachusetts. )
According to the NY Times October 30,1994 article, the CIA has in its files that JFK ordered a CIA coup of PM Jagan of Guyana within hours of meeting with the same man in October 25, 1961.
But State Department and C.I.A. officials refuse to release them, saying it is not worth the embarrassment. Some one did leak the content to the reporter, however.
Cheddi Jagan, a son of the colonial plantations, an American-educated dentist and an admirer of the works of Karl Marx.
“Though many Presidents have ordered the C.I.A. to undermine foreign leaders, they say, the Jagan papers are a rare smoking gun: a clear written record, without veiled words or plausible denials, of a President's command to depose a Prime Minister.“
More has been declassified since, yet I could not find this ‘smoking gun’. As of 2000, there still were classified documents in this regard, and it is guessed this is still so. CIA Covert Operations: The 1964 Overthrow of Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana
=============
Dark Side of Camelot, by Seymour Hersh on pgs. 265–267 mull on the ugly side, that after an amiable meeting only hours earlier, JFK flat out said pull a coup. Hersh continues in this vein stating point blank that Kennedy “behaved in the Oval Office like a bully at the beach, flinging sand in the face of a weaker man.”
Further, he suggests that Jagan was a surrogate for the real target of presidential obsession — Fidel Castro.
At the previous meeting, all he said is that he believed in state planning. Kennedy’s response, according to Schlesinger, was gracious: “We have often helped countries which have little personal freedom, like Yugoslavia, if they maintain their independence. So long, as you do that, we don’t care if you are socialist, capitalist, pragmatist or whatever.”
Jagan did not get his money, and hours later JFK pulled the plug. Weeks later CIA men inside the labor movement triggered the riots, funneled CIA money to new radio stations, and produced phony newspaper stories. He teetered for a few years and fell in 1964.
Point is, this sounds an awful like the ruthlessness of 1963 South Vietnam Coup. While in that case Kennedy vacillated, yet still had his fingerprints all over the job. McGeorge Bundy, Cabot-Lodge, and others were also responsible, but the president was alternately absent or fully invested, depending upon the hour of day.
———————————————————-
In short, most of the blame : 25% (JFK term) + 50%/2 (1/2 JFK responsibility for advancing a known incompetent to a heartbeat away from office) = 50%
It should be much higher, IMO, but enough is concrete to clearly state JFK was the responsible party.
By the way, the quote might be questionable ““Now we have a problem in trying to make our power credible, and Vietnam looks like the place.” —President John Kennedy in a June 1961 interview with the New York Times reporter James Reston.”
RESTON MEMOIR RESOUNDS WITH HISTORY AND INSIGHT
DEADLINE; By James Reston; Random House; 525 pages; $25. Sometime back in the 1970s, Time magazine ran a cover story on James (Scotty) Reston captioned, ``The World's Greatest Reporter.'' The reason this reviewer cannot give the exact date of the remarkable tribute is that it is not even…
https://www.deseret.com/1991/11/10/18950862/reston-memoir-resounds-with-history-and-insight
“[Kennedy] told Reston that "Khrushchev thought that anybody who had made such a mess of the Cuban invasion (the Bay of Pigs) had no judgment, and . . . no guts." Kennedy's next comment cast long shadows of future danger and disaster:
"It was now essential to demonstrate our firmness, and the place to do it, he remarked to my astonishment, was Vietnam! . . . If he had said he was going to run the Communist blockade into Berlin, I might have understood, but the reference to Vietnam baffled me." This was from the Reston memoir.
=====================
In support, according to Dish (Jeannette Walls 2000, pg 56) this was repeated informally by Scotty Reston at a New York Times writer’s party of the later 1960’s. Attended the Times as a reporter Sidney Zion - Wikipedia , “I couldn’t believe my ears. I said, ‘You’ve got to write that story, dammit’. There were all sorts of wild conspiracies going on as to why we were in Vietnam … I said, … ‘You owe it to your readers.’ There were other reporters kicking me under the table trying to make me shut up. Kennedy was so popular among the press that betraying him printing the truth was absolutely unthinkable.”
Now that should be shared everywhere, but is not. Much more detail on that page. More if requested.
The Water's Edge » The Vietnam War in Forty Quotes
He was also said to joke “It’s just like Eisenhower, the worse I do, the more popular I get.” (Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian, Chapter 13, 2nd page — I got this online so no direct page available). How I take it is that Jack wanted company in misery, so diminished Ike’s work, and to lesser degree, mistakes. That is poisoning the well, though it was apparently done in private.
It may well be that in 1972 when the liberal reporter wrote that book that he was getting sloppy. For example:
Halberstam’s ‘Best-Brightest’ Blunder-2
And in My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoir: John H. Richardson: 9780060510367: Amazon.com: Books the liberal and former druggie author (of that book) confronts Halbertam who apologized about the slurs he wrote of Richardson’s then deceased father (of his CIA duties and actions during the coup against Diem). Halberstam then did a 180 degree change and said extremely nice things of John Richardson, Sr. Looks like Halberstam had an ax to grind in 1972 like so many liberals then. (e.g. Pentagon Papers Daniel Ellsberg writing a public paper telling Nixon to back off and let us handle the democrats who got us into this mess of Vietnam circa 1971.)
Try the 14:00 minute to 25:00 minute mark, to show what the Presidents were up against. This information is said to have come directly from the Hanoi Archives, with permission. The Library of Congress - Wikipedia sponsored the video, and incredibly only 739 people have watched it since 2014 to 2018! It describes the most important details, in particular that of Kennedy and Johnson.
I am not saying it would be easy, but largely the two presidents really misjudged the issue. It would have taken an astute leader to navigate those rocks and shoals, perhaps, only perhaps Nixon. Not sure who else, but certainly not JFK, LBJ, Ford, Rockefeller, Humphrey, Robert Kennedy, or, ugh, Wallace.
————————————————-
Finally, FDR could be called the most responsible for Vietnam War, in a stretch. The reason? He died without telling his VP (Truman) just about anything, including the existence of the atomic bomb project, much less FDR’s copious conclusions that it was time to give Vietnam its independence:
Roosevelt (FDR) was clearly and firmly opposed to returning Vietnam to France. In fact he was outright adamant about it. For some reason he took exceptional care to lay this out, going out of his way to point to this effect. Note the following from the book FDR’S LAST YEAR, April 1944 — April 1945, by Jim Bishop (1974), with the bold highlights being mine:
Pg. 29–30 April 1944 [Assistant Secretary Secretary of Stat, Edward Stettinius wrote in his private notes, “ When the President told Churchill that China does not want IndoChina [including Vietnam], Churchill had replied, “Nonsense.” The President replied, “Winston, this is something …”
Pg 340 February 1945 [after discussing Korea, FDR] “diverted Stalin’s attention to Indochina … China didn’t want it. And yet he felt it was a trouble spot. ‘The people … are not warlike.’ France … had done nothing to improve the country.” De Gaulle was asking for ships to return there. Stalin had no comment on Indochina, but also said he was “not backing the Communists” in Greece or China either, both outright lies in months to come.
Pg 421 Feb. 1945 Some reporters were asking FDR about the last time he appeared before Congress in person. “Last Year” ‘Are you sure …?’ “Yes, there was the question about Frances’s interest in Indochina.” So, he was testifying in Congress, only about that subject, which indicates considerable legislative interest as well as presidential. FDR then started a story:
“This is very much off the record. For two whole years I have been terribly worried about Indochina. I talked with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo, Stalin in Teheran. They both agreed with me.” [The French have] “for every dollar they have put in, they have taken out ten … With the Indochinese, there is a feeling they ought to be independent but are not ready for it.”
“I suggested at the time, to Chiang, that Indochina be set up a trusteeship — have a Frenchman, one or two Indochinese, and a Chinese and a Russian because they are on the coast [in Siberia, far to the north], and maybe a Filipino and an American — to educate them for self government… Stalin liked the idea, China liked the idea. The British don’t like it.”
Pg450 March 1945 FDR in a conversation with General Wedemeyer determinedly steers the conversation from China to Indochina. “The people of Indochina, he insisted, deserved their independence. He wanted them free of France…The President ordered him to not hand over any supplies — any supplies at all — to the French forces operating in Asia… The French were determined to get back in there, and FDR would keep them out.“ Except for the issue of dying, he would have.
Pg 473 Also March 1945 another FDR/Wedemeyer conversation, again telling him he wanted to hear about Indochina, and the “President wanted to know what Wedemeyer could do to arm the resistance groups opposed to French rule.
Pg 497 Leahy 海軍上將，“對所有軍事事務的知情，注意到法國海軍上將 Fenard 已經‘再次’打電話……Leahy 將這次訪問視為允許法國在戰後收回印度支那作為殖民地的專利手段……Leahy 沒有向法國承諾。 ”
人們認為法國以同樣的方式哄騙杜魯門，這一次是有效的。正如你和其他人所寫的那樣，杜魯門不知道先前的理解或可能過度統治它，完全與法國人合作，以支撐歐洲的微妙局勢。同樣，羅斯福甚至沒有告訴杜魯門原子彈的事，更不用說諸如印度支那政策之類的細微差別了。
杜魯門與肯尼迪約於 1961 年在白宮會面。
比爾·莫爾丁（Bill Mauldin）描繪的印度人哈里·杜魯門（Harry Truman）以像徵性的姿態割開肯尼迪的一點頭皮。
每個總統在越南戰爭中的作用是什麼？
留言
張貼留言