to assure the survival and success of liberty

 

center / foreground:  President Kennedy

at right, in white overcoat:  Vice President Lyndon Johnson

assassination of President John F. Kennedy

in 1963

I sometimes think about the idea that Kennedy was going to cut back involvement with Vietnam's civil war -- when he was still living, we only had advisors over there, right?

        And then after Kennedy's death, pretty soon there in the Sixties, America had boots-on-the-ground in Vietnam -- we were "in" the war.

I read somewhere once that Kennedy had more experience in World War II than Johnson, and was therefore much more conservative about getting involved in other countries' conflicts.  He knew first-hand the horrors of war.

        There's that moment in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, where someone -- I think it's the actor portraying Johnson -- grumbles, "I'll give you your damn war ..."

(Of course that's Stone's theory, not historical fact.)

-30-