Tuesday, August 9, 2011
quagmire
Thinking of the Vietnam War and what it meant, remembered someone I know saying recently, "We fought in Vietnam but they didn't appreciate it!"
(He did two or three tours, I think.)
Naturally I said, "Yes they did."
I never knew anyone personally who showed any kind of disrespect toward American fighting forces in Vietnam. And it seemed I knew very few people (maybe none) who were enthusiastic about that war.
I think the generation that fought WWII -- they certainly were not "anti-military" but they didn't necessarily see the point of -- well the Vietnam effort didn't have the definite list of objectives, and goal / end-point that Second World War had (which everyone Understood).
And I think there was a sense of -- they fought to make the world safe for democracy, and now we WON -- and then, along comes this action in Korea which went on several years, and
THEN
Johnson - Nixon - whatever wants our KIDS slogging through swamps on the other side of the world fighting deadly invisible snipers in the f-----g jungle and think there must have been an overwhelming sense, among the "middle-aged" people who for the most part were Not carrying signs or protesting Anything, but I think there must have been somewhat of a sense of -- DO WE HAVE TO BE "AT WAR" ALL THE
TIME??!!
A friend of mine who survived being a POW of the Japanese during WWII was on the draft board in the 60s and, he said, "Not everybody had to go. And that wasn't fair."
And some people questioned: is the Vietnam War being dragged out and going on seemingly forever because big military contractors are making millions?
"There's plenty of good money to be made
Supplying the army with the tools of the trade"
-- Country Joe McDonald
"Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
Trying to create a next world war,
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done --
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
and have it out on Highway 61...
-- Bob Dylan
Besides -- and before -- Bob Dylan and Country Joe and the Fish, President Dwight Eisenhower warned, in a speech before he left office, of the military-industrial complex -- the idea that a mutually profitable situation, Pentagon - business, could evolve into an entity that would protect and perpetuate itself, bureaucracy-like.
-30-
Monday, August 8, 2011
ask not
Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds --
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Huh!
Well come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die
-------------------------------
That's a song by Country Joe and the Fish -- "Fixin' to die Rag,"
They performed it at Woodstock in 1969.
I knew that.
Country Joe wrote it in 1965.
Didn't know that -- seemed surprising to me: I didn't know people were that angry about the Vietnam war, that early.
The fact that this song got good reception at Woodstock in 1969 doesn't seem surprising -- it was then a year after President Johnson declined to run again -- "If nominated, I will not run; and if elected, I will not serve" -- but I didn't know something like that would be written as early on as 1965. ---------------------------
(In the 90s, a lobbyist once startled me by beginning to sing that song in the Senate Lobby of our state capitol building. He was sitting down on one of the leather-covered antique sofas, I think: his briefcase next to him: "And it's one-two-three, what're we fightin' for? Don't ask me I don't give-a-damn -- Next stop is Vietnam..." (Little musical notes bouncing in the air around his head...) I was like, "Hmmh, OK then..."
He sang the rest of the chorus.
Later, went on to become a judge.)
-------------------------
It was a long trip in a short time
("long strange trip," as the Grateful Dead would say)
a long ways, in only 8 years -- 1961 to 1969 -- from
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"
to
"Whoopee! We're all gonna die" ...
with
"Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
chanted in between.
-30-
Friday, August 5, 2011
cold war
{excerpt, Smith / Grace and Power}----------------
After France had been driven out of Southeast Asia, de Gaulle opposed American military intervention there -- a "bottomless military and political quagmire," he called it. He was also working to build a French nuclear capability -- both to achieve superpower status and to ensure an independent defense against the Soviets. In April, France tested its fourth atomic bomb.
JFK had clashed once with the French before his presidency, when he gave his farsighted 1957 speech promoting independence for their colony in Algeria. The French establishment was "wild with fury." Over a quiet lunch, Ambassador Hervé Alphand had admonished Sen. Kennedy for interfering in France's efforts to resolve the situation. "He promised me not to pursue the question," Alphand recalled. "He kept his promise." When Kennedy fretted that he would suffer domestic political consequences for his position, his practical father assured him, "You'll be out of the woods on the Algerian statement long before the people vote."
Kennedy readied himself for de Gaulle by ploughing through history books and contemporary analyses. He studied a translation of the de Gaulle memoirs so he could cite pertinent passages, and he was briefed in the Oval Office by Raymond Aron, the contrarian political philosopher and critic of de Gaulle. Bundy and Sorensen counseled JFK to lead his discussion with de Gaulle by asking questions. In a confidential memo, New York Times columnist Cy Sulzberger urged the president to "prepare a favorable atmosphere" beginning with areas of agreement, then progressing to more thorny issues.
Kennedy relied mostly on advice from Macmillan, who took a philosophical view after a long history with his imposingly tall French counterpart, whom he nicknamed "the little pinhead." On Kennedy's behalf, Macmillan wrote to"my dear friend" de Gaulle, advising him to "talk to [Kennedy] very frankly and set out your views fully." The Englishman well understood de Gaulle's "pride, his inherited hatred of England," and "his intense 'vanity' for France." Macmillan cautioned Kennedy that "conversations with de Gaulle are quite difficult to conduct" because the Frenchman "sometimes puts his thoughts in a rather elliptical way."
[space in text]
Far more challenging to Kennedy was the summit with the sixty-six-year-old Khrushchev, whom the American President had met fleetingly when the Soviet leader visited the Senate in the fall of 1959. At that time, Khrushchev had pegged the Massachusetts senator as a man on the rise. The first overtures for a summit meeting had come just weeks after the January 1961 inauguration, but the Bay of Pigs seemed to scuttle all prospects until Khrushchev surprisingly issued an invitation less than a month later. In one of his first forays into foreign policy as a back-channel operative for his brother, Bobby Kennedy met secretly with a Russian intelligence agent named Georgi Bolshakov, who led him to believe that Khrushchev might be ready to discuss a possible ban on nuclear weapons tests.
The nuclear menace lay at the heart of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, but the magnitude of that threat took on new meaning in 1957, when they launched the Sputnik rocket into space and served notice that they could deliver nuclear weapons across the oceans in a half hour. JFK fanned American fears by harping on the "missible gap" during the presidential campaign. In fact, each superpower then possessed significant "overkill" -- 18,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal and a smaller but still substantial amount on the Soviet side.
Even as the two superpowers raced to amass nuclear arms, they (along with Britain) had voluntarily suspended atomic weapons tests since 1958 and had also engaged in arms control talks in Geneva. ...
The possibility of engaging Khrushchev on arms control seemed a worthy goal for the Vienna summit.
Kennedy had no shortage of tactical advice on ways of approaching the Soviet leader. From India, Ken Galbraith relayed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's warning that the Soviet premier was "a man of exceedingly fast responses." Walter Lippmann, who had recently returned from the Soviet Union, observed that Khrushchev used deceptively simple language to connect with the average Russia, sometimes speaking in fables to make his points. CIA analysts warned that Khrushchev (who had shocked the world the previous year by brandishing his shoe during a speech at the United Nations) "is more aggressive when he's tired." Sixty-nine-year-old Averell Harriman, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, cautioned against taking Khrushchev's pugnacity too literally or trying to debate him. Rather, President Kennedy should try to deflect theSoviet leader's bluster with humor.
--------------------- {end Excerpt.
Grace And Power, by Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright 2004. Random House. New York.}
Floating in the background behind these ping-ponging efforts --
BUILD UP ARMS --
(TRY TO BE FRIENDS) --
BUILD UP NUCLEAR CAPABILITY --
(DISCUSS BANNING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS) --
was the de Gaulle-named (then only potential) "quagmire" of Vietnam.
This was spring 1961.
Three years later, August 1964, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Congress allowed Pres. Johnson to wage war without war being declared,
and nearly
EIGHT
years after
THAT,
end 1972 --
by-now-President NIXON is sending Henry Kissinger out, as Candidate George McGovern said, "kept him in orbit for weeks ahead of the election," saying that "peace was at hand"...
And -----------------{Excerpt, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72, Hunter Thompson}: "President Nixon will be sworn into office for a second term today....Mr. Nixon will once again take the oath on a temporary stand outside the east front of the Capitol....It will be the President's first statement to the American people since his television appearance on November 6, election eve. Since then the peace talks have collapsed, massive bombing of North Vietnam has been instituted and then called off, and the talks have resumed without extended public comment from Mr. Nixon... -- San Francisco Chronicle, January 20, 1973
-30-
After France had been driven out of Southeast Asia, de Gaulle opposed American military intervention there -- a "bottomless military and political quagmire," he called it. He was also working to build a French nuclear capability -- both to achieve superpower status and to ensure an independent defense against the Soviets. In April, France tested its fourth atomic bomb.
JFK had clashed once with the French before his presidency, when he gave his farsighted 1957 speech promoting independence for their colony in Algeria. The French establishment was "wild with fury." Over a quiet lunch, Ambassador Hervé Alphand had admonished Sen. Kennedy for interfering in France's efforts to resolve the situation. "He promised me not to pursue the question," Alphand recalled. "He kept his promise." When Kennedy fretted that he would suffer domestic political consequences for his position, his practical father assured him, "You'll be out of the woods on the Algerian statement long before the people vote."
Kennedy readied himself for de Gaulle by ploughing through history books and contemporary analyses. He studied a translation of the de Gaulle memoirs so he could cite pertinent passages, and he was briefed in the Oval Office by Raymond Aron, the contrarian political philosopher and critic of de Gaulle. Bundy and Sorensen counseled JFK to lead his discussion with de Gaulle by asking questions. In a confidential memo, New York Times columnist Cy Sulzberger urged the president to "prepare a favorable atmosphere" beginning with areas of agreement, then progressing to more thorny issues.
Kennedy relied mostly on advice from Macmillan, who took a philosophical view after a long history with his imposingly tall French counterpart, whom he nicknamed "the little pinhead." On Kennedy's behalf, Macmillan wrote to"my dear friend" de Gaulle, advising him to "talk to [Kennedy] very frankly and set out your views fully." The Englishman well understood de Gaulle's "pride, his inherited hatred of England," and "his intense 'vanity' for France." Macmillan cautioned Kennedy that "conversations with de Gaulle are quite difficult to conduct" because the Frenchman "sometimes puts his thoughts in a rather elliptical way."
[space in text]
Far more challenging to Kennedy was the summit with the sixty-six-year-old Khrushchev, whom the American President had met fleetingly when the Soviet leader visited the Senate in the fall of 1959. At that time, Khrushchev had pegged the Massachusetts senator as a man on the rise. The first overtures for a summit meeting had come just weeks after the January 1961 inauguration, but the Bay of Pigs seemed to scuttle all prospects until Khrushchev surprisingly issued an invitation less than a month later. In one of his first forays into foreign policy as a back-channel operative for his brother, Bobby Kennedy met secretly with a Russian intelligence agent named Georgi Bolshakov, who led him to believe that Khrushchev might be ready to discuss a possible ban on nuclear weapons tests.
The nuclear menace lay at the heart of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, but the magnitude of that threat took on new meaning in 1957, when they launched the Sputnik rocket into space and served notice that they could deliver nuclear weapons across the oceans in a half hour. JFK fanned American fears by harping on the "missible gap" during the presidential campaign. In fact, each superpower then possessed significant "overkill" -- 18,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal and a smaller but still substantial amount on the Soviet side.
Even as the two superpowers raced to amass nuclear arms, they (along with Britain) had voluntarily suspended atomic weapons tests since 1958 and had also engaged in arms control talks in Geneva. ...
The possibility of engaging Khrushchev on arms control seemed a worthy goal for the Vienna summit.
Kennedy had no shortage of tactical advice on ways of approaching the Soviet leader. From India, Ken Galbraith relayed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's warning that the Soviet premier was "a man of exceedingly fast responses." Walter Lippmann, who had recently returned from the Soviet Union, observed that Khrushchev used deceptively simple language to connect with the average Russia, sometimes speaking in fables to make his points. CIA analysts warned that Khrushchev (who had shocked the world the previous year by brandishing his shoe during a speech at the United Nations) "is more aggressive when he's tired." Sixty-nine-year-old Averell Harriman, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, cautioned against taking Khrushchev's pugnacity too literally or trying to debate him. Rather, President Kennedy should try to deflect theSoviet leader's bluster with humor.
--------------------- {end Excerpt.
Grace And Power, by Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright 2004. Random House. New York.}
Floating in the background behind these ping-ponging efforts --
BUILD UP ARMS --
(TRY TO BE FRIENDS) --
BUILD UP NUCLEAR CAPABILITY --
(DISCUSS BANNING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTS) --
was the de Gaulle-named (then only potential) "quagmire" of Vietnam.
This was spring 1961.
Three years later, August 1964, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Congress allowed Pres. Johnson to wage war without war being declared,
and nearly
EIGHT
years after
THAT,
end 1972 --
by-now-President NIXON is sending Henry Kissinger out, as Candidate George McGovern said, "kept him in orbit for weeks ahead of the election," saying that "peace was at hand"...
And -----------------{Excerpt, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72, Hunter Thompson}: "President Nixon will be sworn into office for a second term today....Mr. Nixon will once again take the oath on a temporary stand outside the east front of the Capitol....It will be the President's first statement to the American people since his television appearance on November 6, election eve. Since then the peace talks have collapsed, massive bombing of North Vietnam has been instituted and then called off, and the talks have resumed without extended public comment from Mr. Nixon... -- San Francisco Chronicle, January 20, 1973
-30-
Thursday, August 4, 2011
do something positive
{Excerpt: Grace And Power}
--- The first major reverberation from the Bay of Pigs was in Southeast Asia. Macmillan worried that "the failure of the covert action in Cuba might lead to the Americans insisting upon overt action in Laos." In fact, the opposite reaction occurred. "I was ready to go into Laos," Kennedy told Hugh Sidey. "Yes, we were going to do it. Then because of Cuba I thought we'd better take another look at the military planning for Laos." Kennedy still believed, as he told Lem Billings, that if the communists prevailed in Laos, "Vietnam would be next. Then Thailand, et cetera." Yet when "we began to talk about maybe going into Laos," Kennedy recalled, "all the generals and other people disagreed about this, and you don't know whom to believe and whom to disbelieve."
Kennedy was asking those generals tougher questions than he had before Cuba, and the unsatisfactory answers steered him away from intervention -- mainly because he realized the United States lacked enough conventional troops to win. "I just don't think we ought to get involved in Laos," Kennedy told Richard Nixon, citing the possibility of fighting "millions" of troops "in the jungles." Moreover, said Kennedy, "I don't see how we can make any move in Laos, which is 5000 miles away, if we don't make a move in Cuba, which is only 90 miles away."
JFK's skepticism was reinforced by Bobby, as well as Sorensen, who favored a peaceful resolution. For public consumption, Kenedy continued to make warlike noises, keeping 10,000 marines in readiness on Okinawa. But he also pushed a face-saving political alternative -- a cease-fire followed by the creation of a coalition government including the Pathet Lao, with the country's neutrality guaranteed by an international conference.
By early May the Pathet Lao comfortably controlled half of Laos. The Soviets helped organize a cease-fire, and a conference convened in Geneva to work out the terms of a newly configured neutralist Laos. The solution was expedient and flawed, placing communists in numerous government positions and failing to prevent the Pathet Lao from continuing to quietly secure more territory. It seemed unlikely that Laos would achieve independence, but at least the United States couldn't be accused of abandoning the country to outright communist rule.
Chapter Sixteen.
Two weeks before the Bay of Pigs defeat, William Shannon wrote in the liberal New York Post that Kennedy was like "a lithe young diver on the high board bouncing conspicuously but never quite taking the plunge." With his foreign adventure ending in a belly flop, Kennedy sought new ways to make a more graceful impression. On May 25, JFK effectively started his presidency all over again, giving what he called his "second State of the Union address," speaking for forty-seven minutes to a joint session of Congress and a national television audience. As before, he presented a laundry list of domestic and foreign initiatives.
This time [the president] grabbed attention with a bold proposal to spend nearly $700 million ($4.2 billion today) as the first step in a $9 billion ($54 billion today) effort to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Space exploration, he declared, could "hold the key to our future on earth." Previously, Kennedy had viewed the space program as an unnecessary expense, although Lyndon Johnson, whom Kennedy had designated his point man on space issues, had long been a forceful advocate.
The president changed his mind in April after Russia successfully sent a manned spacecraft into orbit around the earth for ninety minutes. Three weeks later the United States conducted its own space launch, televised live for maximum effect by the president's order. Astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. soared 115 miles into the upper atmosphere, then emerged safely after his capsule landed 302 miles out in the Atlantic. It was a risky enterprise -- scientists had estimated a 75 percent chance of success -- but it paid off handsomely for the new administration. "With Shepard rode the hopes of the U.S. and the whole free world in a period of darkness," Time observed. The Soviets still held the technological lead, so the moon exploration plan was a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
...
A more promising effort to jump-start the Kennedy presidency was his first official trip overseas. In early April he announced a visit to Paris to confer with French president Charles de Gaulle; in mid-May he added Vienna to the itinerary for a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev. These consultations, and the pomp surrounding them, would be a major part of Kennedy's aggressive image-making.
The prospect of a Paris visit caught the public imagination instantly. Press accounts speculated that Jackie would serve as her husband's translator. Kennedy had a middling knowledge of French, telling Nicole Alphand, wife of the French ambassador, that he understood "about one out of every five words but always the words 'de Gaulle.'" The White House hastened to clarify Jackie's role, saying that instead of translating, she would be "tied up in other official good will duties." But Jackie's special French expertise -- her linguistic fluency, Bouvier heritage, sojourns in Paris, knowledge and affinity for the history and culture -- offered unmatched opportunities to burnish the image of the United States.
...
De Gaulle had been a source of special fascination for Jackie since World War II, when she had named her poodle Gaullie because her dog, like the French general, was "straight and proud with a prominent nose..." her stepbrother Yusha recalled. Later she read de Gaulle's Mémoires in French; during a primary campaign swing in Wisconsin, she had appeared with volume two at her side. ...
To prepare for her return to the City of Light, Jackie brushed up her language skills with a tutor from the French Embassy, read briefing papers prepared by the State Department, and organized a wardrobe of continental sophistication. She hewed to the now celebrated -- and widely imitated -- "Jackie look" of classic, simple tailoring, with an emphasis on what Oleg Cassini described as "sumptuous fabric, unusual color and distinctive details" to please the Parisian cognoscenti. ...
To President Kennedy, de Gaulle was a "great and gloomy figure" -- the hero of the French resistance during World War II, and as president since 1958 the apotheosis of French national pride. Kennedy knew, according to Sorensen, that the seventy-year-old de Gaulle could be "irritating, intransigent, insufferably vain, inconsistent and impossible to please."
After France had been driven out of Southeast Asia, de Gaulle opposed American military intervention there -- a "bottomless military and political quagmire"...
-----------------------
{author: Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright, 2004.
Random House. New York.}
-30-
--- The first major reverberation from the Bay of Pigs was in Southeast Asia. Macmillan worried that "the failure of the covert action in Cuba might lead to the Americans insisting upon overt action in Laos." In fact, the opposite reaction occurred. "I was ready to go into Laos," Kennedy told Hugh Sidey. "Yes, we were going to do it. Then because of Cuba I thought we'd better take another look at the military planning for Laos." Kennedy still believed, as he told Lem Billings, that if the communists prevailed in Laos, "Vietnam would be next. Then Thailand, et cetera." Yet when "we began to talk about maybe going into Laos," Kennedy recalled, "all the generals and other people disagreed about this, and you don't know whom to believe and whom to disbelieve."
Kennedy was asking those generals tougher questions than he had before Cuba, and the unsatisfactory answers steered him away from intervention -- mainly because he realized the United States lacked enough conventional troops to win. "I just don't think we ought to get involved in Laos," Kennedy told Richard Nixon, citing the possibility of fighting "millions" of troops "in the jungles." Moreover, said Kennedy, "I don't see how we can make any move in Laos, which is 5000 miles away, if we don't make a move in Cuba, which is only 90 miles away."
JFK's skepticism was reinforced by Bobby, as well as Sorensen, who favored a peaceful resolution. For public consumption, Kenedy continued to make warlike noises, keeping 10,000 marines in readiness on Okinawa. But he also pushed a face-saving political alternative -- a cease-fire followed by the creation of a coalition government including the Pathet Lao, with the country's neutrality guaranteed by an international conference.
By early May the Pathet Lao comfortably controlled half of Laos. The Soviets helped organize a cease-fire, and a conference convened in Geneva to work out the terms of a newly configured neutralist Laos. The solution was expedient and flawed, placing communists in numerous government positions and failing to prevent the Pathet Lao from continuing to quietly secure more territory. It seemed unlikely that Laos would achieve independence, but at least the United States couldn't be accused of abandoning the country to outright communist rule.
Chapter Sixteen.
Two weeks before the Bay of Pigs defeat, William Shannon wrote in the liberal New York Post that Kennedy was like "a lithe young diver on the high board bouncing conspicuously but never quite taking the plunge." With his foreign adventure ending in a belly flop, Kennedy sought new ways to make a more graceful impression. On May 25, JFK effectively started his presidency all over again, giving what he called his "second State of the Union address," speaking for forty-seven minutes to a joint session of Congress and a national television audience. As before, he presented a laundry list of domestic and foreign initiatives.
This time [the president] grabbed attention with a bold proposal to spend nearly $700 million ($4.2 billion today) as the first step in a $9 billion ($54 billion today) effort to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Space exploration, he declared, could "hold the key to our future on earth." Previously, Kennedy had viewed the space program as an unnecessary expense, although Lyndon Johnson, whom Kennedy had designated his point man on space issues, had long been a forceful advocate.
The president changed his mind in April after Russia successfully sent a manned spacecraft into orbit around the earth for ninety minutes. Three weeks later the United States conducted its own space launch, televised live for maximum effect by the president's order. Astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. soared 115 miles into the upper atmosphere, then emerged safely after his capsule landed 302 miles out in the Atlantic. It was a risky enterprise -- scientists had estimated a 75 percent chance of success -- but it paid off handsomely for the new administration. "With Shepard rode the hopes of the U.S. and the whole free world in a period of darkness," Time observed. The Soviets still held the technological lead, so the moon exploration plan was a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
...
A more promising effort to jump-start the Kennedy presidency was his first official trip overseas. In early April he announced a visit to Paris to confer with French president Charles de Gaulle; in mid-May he added Vienna to the itinerary for a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev. These consultations, and the pomp surrounding them, would be a major part of Kennedy's aggressive image-making.
The prospect of a Paris visit caught the public imagination instantly. Press accounts speculated that Jackie would serve as her husband's translator. Kennedy had a middling knowledge of French, telling Nicole Alphand, wife of the French ambassador, that he understood "about one out of every five words but always the words 'de Gaulle.'" The White House hastened to clarify Jackie's role, saying that instead of translating, she would be "tied up in other official good will duties." But Jackie's special French expertise -- her linguistic fluency, Bouvier heritage, sojourns in Paris, knowledge and affinity for the history and culture -- offered unmatched opportunities to burnish the image of the United States.
...
De Gaulle had been a source of special fascination for Jackie since World War II, when she had named her poodle Gaullie because her dog, like the French general, was "straight and proud with a prominent nose..." her stepbrother Yusha recalled. Later she read de Gaulle's Mémoires in French; during a primary campaign swing in Wisconsin, she had appeared with volume two at her side. ...
To prepare for her return to the City of Light, Jackie brushed up her language skills with a tutor from the French Embassy, read briefing papers prepared by the State Department, and organized a wardrobe of continental sophistication. She hewed to the now celebrated -- and widely imitated -- "Jackie look" of classic, simple tailoring, with an emphasis on what Oleg Cassini described as "sumptuous fabric, unusual color and distinctive details" to please the Parisian cognoscenti. ...
To President Kennedy, de Gaulle was a "great and gloomy figure" -- the hero of the French resistance during World War II, and as president since 1958 the apotheosis of French national pride. Kennedy knew, according to Sorensen, that the seventy-year-old de Gaulle could be "irritating, intransigent, insufferably vain, inconsistent and impossible to please."
After France had been driven out of Southeast Asia, de Gaulle opposed American military intervention there -- a "bottomless military and political quagmire"...
-----------------------
{author: Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright, 2004.
Random House. New York.}
-30-
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
live and learn
{excerptgraceandpowerbysallybedellsmithcopyright2004randomhousenewyork}
----------------------- When he returned to Washington on April 4, Kennedy didn't disclose the substance of his Florida discussions. But Mac Bundy and Schlesinger detected a toughening of Kennedy's attitude and suspected that Joe Kennedy, Earl Smith, and Smathers were responsible. On April 5, JFK approved the CIA plan. Bundy was not yet comfortable enough in their relationship to say to the President, "What the hell has happened to you on the weekend?" Bundy recalled. "But I didn't say that. I said, 'Yes, sir.'" ...
Although there had been a surprising number of press accounts on the CIA training in Guatemala, journalists were strikingly timid on reporting the invasion plans. ...
Charley Bartlett had the story...and censored himself. Bartlett had been tipped by no less than Ernesto Betancourt, Castro's representative in the United States who had just returned from Florida. "In Miami everyone is talking about the invasion, Bay of Pigs," Betancourt told Bartlett. "It will be a disaster." Bartlett refrained from telling Kennedy because "I thought, 'Why add to his burdens?" Instead, Bartlett told Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, who denied the account.
...
Kennedy had doomed the invaders even before they landed, leaving them vulnerable to attack by air. "Kennedy understood part of the plan, but he never understood that the navy planes were essential to the plan," said Douglas Dillon, who had been involved in the Cuba operation under Eisenhower. After a day of fighting, the refugee force was surrounded by 20,000 Cuban troops, and more than 1,000 were taken prisoner. It was a humiliating rout -- and the biggest failure of Kennedy's life.
...In his public statements, Kennedy appropriately took full responsibility for the debacle, and the American press and citizenry were in a forgiving mood. Two weeks after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy's approval rating registered at 82 percent. ...
But the Bay of Pigs snapped the Kennedy spell and altered the course of his presidency. "Before the Bay of Pigs everything was a glorious adventure, onward and upward," Spalding said. "Afterwards it was a series of ups and downs with terrible pitfalls, suspicion everywhere, [with him] cautious of everything, questioning always."
...
Even more consequential was Kennedy's immediate expansion of the duties of Ted Sorensen and Bobby Kennedy, placing them at his side for all further foreign policy deliberations. Bobby had appeared at an early briefing on the Cuba plan two days after the inauguration and again five days before the scheduled landing, but otherwise he had been out of the loop. "I need someone who knows me and my thinking and can ask me the tough questions," Kennedy told Sorensen...According to Lem Billings, JFK knew that "Bobby was the only person he could rely on to be absolutely dedicated....From that moment on, the Kennedy presidency became a sort of collaboration between them." ...
------------ The first major reverberation from the Bay of Pigs was in Southeast Asia.
-30-
----------------------- When he returned to Washington on April 4, Kennedy didn't disclose the substance of his Florida discussions. But Mac Bundy and Schlesinger detected a toughening of Kennedy's attitude and suspected that Joe Kennedy, Earl Smith, and Smathers were responsible. On April 5, JFK approved the CIA plan. Bundy was not yet comfortable enough in their relationship to say to the President, "What the hell has happened to you on the weekend?" Bundy recalled. "But I didn't say that. I said, 'Yes, sir.'" ...
Although there had been a surprising number of press accounts on the CIA training in Guatemala, journalists were strikingly timid on reporting the invasion plans. ...
Charley Bartlett had the story...and censored himself. Bartlett had been tipped by no less than Ernesto Betancourt, Castro's representative in the United States who had just returned from Florida. "In Miami everyone is talking about the invasion, Bay of Pigs," Betancourt told Bartlett. "It will be a disaster." Bartlett refrained from telling Kennedy because "I thought, 'Why add to his burdens?" Instead, Bartlett told Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, who denied the account.
...
Kennedy had doomed the invaders even before they landed, leaving them vulnerable to attack by air. "Kennedy understood part of the plan, but he never understood that the navy planes were essential to the plan," said Douglas Dillon, who had been involved in the Cuba operation under Eisenhower. After a day of fighting, the refugee force was surrounded by 20,000 Cuban troops, and more than 1,000 were taken prisoner. It was a humiliating rout -- and the biggest failure of Kennedy's life.
...In his public statements, Kennedy appropriately took full responsibility for the debacle, and the American press and citizenry were in a forgiving mood. Two weeks after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy's approval rating registered at 82 percent. ...
But the Bay of Pigs snapped the Kennedy spell and altered the course of his presidency. "Before the Bay of Pigs everything was a glorious adventure, onward and upward," Spalding said. "Afterwards it was a series of ups and downs with terrible pitfalls, suspicion everywhere, [with him] cautious of everything, questioning always."
...
Even more consequential was Kennedy's immediate expansion of the duties of Ted Sorensen and Bobby Kennedy, placing them at his side for all further foreign policy deliberations. Bobby had appeared at an early briefing on the Cuba plan two days after the inauguration and again five days before the scheduled landing, but otherwise he had been out of the loop. "I need someone who knows me and my thinking and can ask me the tough questions," Kennedy told Sorensen...According to Lem Billings, JFK knew that "Bobby was the only person he could rely on to be absolutely dedicated....From that moment on, the Kennedy presidency became a sort of collaboration between them." ...
------------ The first major reverberation from the Bay of Pigs was in Southeast Asia.
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Tuesday, August 2, 2011
swine bay backstory
{Excerpt from Grace And Power, by Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright 2004. Random House. New York.}-----------------------
--------------------------- Macmillan didn't prevail in their Key West meeting, however, as Kennedy insisted on keeping the military option open in Laos. The President had already made a tough televised statement and moved troops and warships into position. JFK's plan was to secure the Laotian capital of Vientiane with several battalions of American soldiers joined by troops from regional allies such as Pakistan and Thailand. Although Kennedy "pressed very hard," Macmillan couldn't offer British forces, explaining that he needed cabinet approval for such a commitment. "Kennedy obviously thought this was an excuse," said Henry Brandon, Washington correspondent for London's Sunday Times. Against his better judgment, Macmillan agreed that Kennedy might have to take action out of political necessity "in order not to be 'pushed about' by the Russians."
=============
Privately, Kennedy assured dovish aides such as Schlesinger that his maneuvers were more theatrical than real -- bluffs intended to convince the Soviets to support a cease-fire. Kennedy thought Laos was not "worthy of engaging the attention of great powers," Schlesinger wrote. But the hawks on his staff believed Kennedy intended to proceed. In Walt Rostow's view, "Kennedy was ready to fight in Laos to hold the Mekong Valley" -- the strategic linchpin of the country.
A crucial factor in Kennedy's thinking had nothing to do with Southeast Asia. By late March he was immersed in plans for an American-backed invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro -- the infamous landing at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. The scheme had been hatched during the Eisenhower administration by the CIA, which trained Cuban exiles in Guatemala for what was known as Operation Pluto.
The numerous mistakes Kennedy made in authorizing and directing the ill-conceived invasion resulted from inexperience and over-confidence. In dismantling Eisenhower's national security apparatus, Kennedy had intended to broaden his sources of information for decision-making. Yet the ultimate irony of the Bay of Pigs was that Kennedy limited himself to advice that he couldn't test or analyze. "He tried to keep it very secret, and he succeeded too well," said Douglas Dillon. JFK's susceptibility to a covert preemptive operation also hearkened back to themes in Why England Slept, in which he argued that the cautious nature of democracy could hamper a nation's response to totalitatian aggression.
Having taken a stand as an anti-communist fighter committed to oust Castro, Kennedy considered several options. The simplest was to help a small cadre -- perhaps several hundred men -- infiltrate Cuba to strengthen an indigenous resistance movement. The most ambitious was a full-scale invasion including American troops, which was unacceptably imperialistic. JFK compromised on what Macmillan called "a complete muddle" -- an amphibious landing of 1,400 men that was expected to provoke a popular uprising against Castro. ...
Kennedy had serious doubts from the start; he questioned the likelihood of mass uprisings, for example. "He couldn't quite bring himself to trust his own sense," wrote Stewart Alsop. But a greater concern was that he would seem the appeaser -- the ghost of his father's legacy -- if he derailed the plan, handing the Republicans "the issue forever," said Rostow.
[Ambassador Joseph Kennedy had wanted to appease Hitler and avoid war. ('Mon over here Adolf, & sit b'side me. Set-a-spell.) -- I'm just making up that quote, but that was the -- that was -- Yikes. That was something the Ambassador never lived down, & here was his son trying to live it down for him. ... ]
Kennedy and George Smathers had visited Cuba together at the end of 1957....They stayed at the U.S. Embassy as guests of Kennedy's longtime friends Ambassador Earl Smith and his wife, Flo. On December 23 the two senators were honored at an embassy Christmas party, followed by gambling at the Sans Souci casino...."Kennedy wasn't a great casino man," said Smathers, "but the Tropicana nightclub had a floor show you wouldn't believe. . . . Kennedy liked Cuba. He liked the style."
Many in the State Department dismissed Earl Smith as a lightweight, but Kennedy gave him more credit....Said Charley Bartlett..."Earl had a very sharp mind, was a very good investor, a bit of a gambler. Earl had good judgment and was shrewd." A graduate of Yale who was fluent in three languages, Smith had been visiting Cuba since 1928 and had made many friends there before arriving in Havana as ambassador in July 1957, seven months after Castro landed with a guerrilla force he had trained while exiled in Mexico.
For the next eighteen months, Smith tried to manage an increasingly explosive situation as Castro gathered strength and Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's longtime president, tightened his dictatorial grip. Unlike Smith's predecessor, Arthur Gardner, who was friendly enough with Batista to play canasta with him several times a week, Smith kept his distance and reached out to an alternative "anti-Batista element" in the intelligentsia, middle class, and Catholic Church. Smith recognized early that Castro was an avowed Marxist, which the State Department and influential reporters such as Herbert Matthews of the New York Times...chose to ignore.
Shortly after Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959 and Castro seized power, Earl and Flo returned to the United States. Within the next year, Castro declared himself a communist and ally of the Soviet Union, prompting the Eisenhower administration to impose economic sanctions. The U.S. government viewed the close proximity of a Soviet client state as a significant military threat, not only to Latin American countries but to the United States as well. While Smith's warnings about Castro were vindicated, State Department mandarins continued to belittle the former ambassador. ...
[In 1961] Kennedy spent the long Easter weekend in Palm Beach, where he had more than three hours of private meetings with Smith at his friend's beachfront home. The topic, according to Earl Smith Jr., was the proposed attack on Cuba. "My father said they were talking about how could one remove the threat without an all-out military exercise," said Smith. "Kennedy said, 'What happens if we get bogged down?' My father said, 'Don't undertake it unless you do it 100 percent.' Jack Kennedy said, 'There are things at hand you are not aware of.'"
When he returned to Washington on April 4, Kennedy didn't disclose the substance of his Florida discussions. But Mac Bundy and Schlesinger detected a toughening of Kennedy's attitude and suspected that Joe Kennedy, Earl Smith, and Smathers were responsible.
On April 5, JFK approved the CIA plan.
-30-
--------------------------- Macmillan didn't prevail in their Key West meeting, however, as Kennedy insisted on keeping the military option open in Laos. The President had already made a tough televised statement and moved troops and warships into position. JFK's plan was to secure the Laotian capital of Vientiane with several battalions of American soldiers joined by troops from regional allies such as Pakistan and Thailand. Although Kennedy "pressed very hard," Macmillan couldn't offer British forces, explaining that he needed cabinet approval for such a commitment. "Kennedy obviously thought this was an excuse," said Henry Brandon, Washington correspondent for London's Sunday Times. Against his better judgment, Macmillan agreed that Kennedy might have to take action out of political necessity "in order not to be 'pushed about' by the Russians."
=============
Privately, Kennedy assured dovish aides such as Schlesinger that his maneuvers were more theatrical than real -- bluffs intended to convince the Soviets to support a cease-fire. Kennedy thought Laos was not "worthy of engaging the attention of great powers," Schlesinger wrote. But the hawks on his staff believed Kennedy intended to proceed. In Walt Rostow's view, "Kennedy was ready to fight in Laos to hold the Mekong Valley" -- the strategic linchpin of the country.
A crucial factor in Kennedy's thinking had nothing to do with Southeast Asia. By late March he was immersed in plans for an American-backed invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro -- the infamous landing at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. The scheme had been hatched during the Eisenhower administration by the CIA, which trained Cuban exiles in Guatemala for what was known as Operation Pluto.
The numerous mistakes Kennedy made in authorizing and directing the ill-conceived invasion resulted from inexperience and over-confidence. In dismantling Eisenhower's national security apparatus, Kennedy had intended to broaden his sources of information for decision-making. Yet the ultimate irony of the Bay of Pigs was that Kennedy limited himself to advice that he couldn't test or analyze. "He tried to keep it very secret, and he succeeded too well," said Douglas Dillon. JFK's susceptibility to a covert preemptive operation also hearkened back to themes in Why England Slept, in which he argued that the cautious nature of democracy could hamper a nation's response to totalitatian aggression.
Having taken a stand as an anti-communist fighter committed to oust Castro, Kennedy considered several options. The simplest was to help a small cadre -- perhaps several hundred men -- infiltrate Cuba to strengthen an indigenous resistance movement. The most ambitious was a full-scale invasion including American troops, which was unacceptably imperialistic. JFK compromised on what Macmillan called "a complete muddle" -- an amphibious landing of 1,400 men that was expected to provoke a popular uprising against Castro. ...
Kennedy had serious doubts from the start; he questioned the likelihood of mass uprisings, for example. "He couldn't quite bring himself to trust his own sense," wrote Stewart Alsop. But a greater concern was that he would seem the appeaser -- the ghost of his father's legacy -- if he derailed the plan, handing the Republicans "the issue forever," said Rostow.
[Ambassador Joseph Kennedy had wanted to appease Hitler and avoid war. ('Mon over here Adolf, & sit b'side me. Set-a-spell.) -- I'm just making up that quote, but that was the -- that was -- Yikes. That was something the Ambassador never lived down, & here was his son trying to live it down for him. ... ]
Kennedy and George Smathers had visited Cuba together at the end of 1957....They stayed at the U.S. Embassy as guests of Kennedy's longtime friends Ambassador Earl Smith and his wife, Flo. On December 23 the two senators were honored at an embassy Christmas party, followed by gambling at the Sans Souci casino...."Kennedy wasn't a great casino man," said Smathers, "but the Tropicana nightclub had a floor show you wouldn't believe. . . . Kennedy liked Cuba. He liked the style."
Many in the State Department dismissed Earl Smith as a lightweight, but Kennedy gave him more credit....Said Charley Bartlett..."Earl had a very sharp mind, was a very good investor, a bit of a gambler. Earl had good judgment and was shrewd." A graduate of Yale who was fluent in three languages, Smith had been visiting Cuba since 1928 and had made many friends there before arriving in Havana as ambassador in July 1957, seven months after Castro landed with a guerrilla force he had trained while exiled in Mexico.
For the next eighteen months, Smith tried to manage an increasingly explosive situation as Castro gathered strength and Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's longtime president, tightened his dictatorial grip. Unlike Smith's predecessor, Arthur Gardner, who was friendly enough with Batista to play canasta with him several times a week, Smith kept his distance and reached out to an alternative "anti-Batista element" in the intelligentsia, middle class, and Catholic Church. Smith recognized early that Castro was an avowed Marxist, which the State Department and influential reporters such as Herbert Matthews of the New York Times...chose to ignore.
Shortly after Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959 and Castro seized power, Earl and Flo returned to the United States. Within the next year, Castro declared himself a communist and ally of the Soviet Union, prompting the Eisenhower administration to impose economic sanctions. The U.S. government viewed the close proximity of a Soviet client state as a significant military threat, not only to Latin American countries but to the United States as well. While Smith's warnings about Castro were vindicated, State Department mandarins continued to belittle the former ambassador. ...
[In 1961] Kennedy spent the long Easter weekend in Palm Beach, where he had more than three hours of private meetings with Smith at his friend's beachfront home. The topic, according to Earl Smith Jr., was the proposed attack on Cuba. "My father said they were talking about how could one remove the threat without an all-out military exercise," said Smith. "Kennedy said, 'What happens if we get bogged down?' My father said, 'Don't undertake it unless you do it 100 percent.' Jack Kennedy said, 'There are things at hand you are not aware of.'"
When he returned to Washington on April 4, Kennedy didn't disclose the substance of his Florida discussions. But Mac Bundy and Schlesinger detected a toughening of Kennedy's attitude and suspected that Joe Kennedy, Earl Smith, and Smathers were responsible.
On April 5, JFK approved the CIA plan.
-30-
Monday, August 1, 2011
haven't figured it out
Toward the end of Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, there's a conversation between candidate George McGovern and HST (Hunter Thompson) --
McGovern: No, and I still haven't figured it out. I mean, I still haven't really figured out the dimensions of it. I think the war thing had a big impact at the end there, the fact that Kissinger was able to say that peace was at hand, just give us a few more days. It almost looked like if we threw them out it would disrupt all this effort that has gone on over the last months. You know, they kept him in orbit for weeks ahead of the election. I think that had an impact.
----------------------
Reading that I thought, Nixon had already been president for four years -- 1968 to 1972. He had four years to get busy and end our involvement in Vietnam. Suddenly in -- Hello, October 1972, right before the election ("coincidentally") -- suddenly "peace is at hand." Aahhh.
--------------------------------
[Excerpts from Grace And Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House]:
The public euphoria of Kennedy's first hundred days masked concerns in the West Wing over communist encroachments in Southeast Asia and Cuba. The first flashpoint was tiny (population an estimated two million) Laos, which, according to Schlesinger, occupied more of Kennedy's time than anything else during his first months in office. After the expulsion of French colonial forces from Southeast Asia by the communists in 1954, Laos had survived as a weak neutralist kingdom, bolstered by $300 million in American aid over five years. Now, with Pathet Lao guerrillas (backed by both the Soviet Union and North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, the victor over the French) poised to overrun the country, Kennedy was developing plans to intervene with the U.S. military.
Events in Laos also affected neighboring South Vietnam. Communist Viet Cong guerrillas, who relied on North Vietnam for men and materiel, would benefit greatly from unfettered supply routes through Laos. "The President was watching this thing," recalled Walt Rostow. "He knew that he had inherited a disintegrating situation." If the pro-Western governments in both Laos and South Vietnam fell, according to the prevailing "domino theory," the communists could gain control of Southeast Asia before extending their reach to India and possibly the Middle East.
Among those Kennedy consulted in his deliberations was Sir William David Ormsby Gore....They [Kennedy and Ormsby Gore] had first met when Joe Kennedy was ambassador to Britain, and Jack and David were students at Harvard and Oxford. ...
JFK admired Gore as an exemplar of what Schlesinger described as "English political society, with its casual combination of wit, knowledge and unconcern." ...They shared a sense of the ridiculous, and an impatience with long-winded or self-important bores.
Both men were sons of dogmatic fathers, and were touched by the tragedy of losing a beloved older brother in his youth. Kennedy and Gore gave the appearance of being laid-back and unemotional in the stereotypical English manner. Recognizing aspects of himself in Kennedy, Gore observed, "I think he had deep emotions, but he very much disliked the display of them"....
As they matured, the two friends recognized the extent of their political and intellectual compatibility. A member of Parliament since 1950, Gore was a Tory -- but of the "wet" or liberal variety, an advocate of the sort of policies Kennedy supported. ...
In that spirit, Gore and JFK had dinner in late February at the White House. "Speaking with the bluntness of an old friend," wrote Schlesinger, Gore "offered a caustic picture of American policy in Laos." The British government opposed military intervention, advocating instead a cease-fire negotiated by an international commission. But Kennedy leaned nevertheless toward using American troops to keep at least part of Laos in friendly hands.
A month later, in a state of "deepest anxiety," Kennedy sought advice directly from [British Prime Minister] Harold Macmillan [a relative of the Kennedys by marriage] in a hastily convened meeting at Key West, Florida. ...Macmillan...possessed "a sharp, disillusioned mind," wrote Schlesinger, and "a vivid sense of history."
...At age sixty-six, Macmillan was close to Eisenhower, a contemporary whom he had known since World War II. He and Eisenhower had "common experiences," Macmillan said at the time. "Now there is this young cocky Irishman. . . . How am I going to deal with him?"
Macmillan disliked Joe Kennedy and feared the possibility of his malevolent influence. The British prime minister had also been alerted by Eisenhower's ambassador to Britain, Jock Whitney, about JFK's flaws. "Kennedy must be a strange character," Macmillan wrote in his journal after Whitney's post-election briefing.
...When Kennedy and Macmillan met for the first time in Florida,...Macmillan later told Jackie, ..."We seemed to be able (when alone) to talk freely and frankly to each other (as if we had been lifelong friends) and to laugh (a vital thing) at our advisers and ourselves."
...Their shared irreverence provided a level of comfort neither man had anticipated....Kennedy's bond with Macmillan was his most important among America's allies, and he would repeatedly tap the elder statesman's judgment in international crises. They would meet seven times in three years.
Macmillan didn't prevail in their Key West meeting, however, as Kennedy insisted on keeping the military option open in Laos. {end Excerpts}------------------
Fear / Loathing. Hunter Thompson. 1973.
Grace / Power. Sally Bedell Smith. 2004.
-30-
McGovern: No, and I still haven't figured it out. I mean, I still haven't really figured out the dimensions of it. I think the war thing had a big impact at the end there, the fact that Kissinger was able to say that peace was at hand, just give us a few more days. It almost looked like if we threw them out it would disrupt all this effort that has gone on over the last months. You know, they kept him in orbit for weeks ahead of the election. I think that had an impact.
----------------------
Reading that I thought, Nixon had already been president for four years -- 1968 to 1972. He had four years to get busy and end our involvement in Vietnam. Suddenly in -- Hello, October 1972, right before the election ("coincidentally") -- suddenly "peace is at hand." Aahhh.
--------------------------------
[Excerpts from Grace And Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House]:
The public euphoria of Kennedy's first hundred days masked concerns in the West Wing over communist encroachments in Southeast Asia and Cuba. The first flashpoint was tiny (population an estimated two million) Laos, which, according to Schlesinger, occupied more of Kennedy's time than anything else during his first months in office. After the expulsion of French colonial forces from Southeast Asia by the communists in 1954, Laos had survived as a weak neutralist kingdom, bolstered by $300 million in American aid over five years. Now, with Pathet Lao guerrillas (backed by both the Soviet Union and North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, the victor over the French) poised to overrun the country, Kennedy was developing plans to intervene with the U.S. military.
Events in Laos also affected neighboring South Vietnam. Communist Viet Cong guerrillas, who relied on North Vietnam for men and materiel, would benefit greatly from unfettered supply routes through Laos. "The President was watching this thing," recalled Walt Rostow. "He knew that he had inherited a disintegrating situation." If the pro-Western governments in both Laos and South Vietnam fell, according to the prevailing "domino theory," the communists could gain control of Southeast Asia before extending their reach to India and possibly the Middle East.
Among those Kennedy consulted in his deliberations was Sir William David Ormsby Gore....They [Kennedy and Ormsby Gore] had first met when Joe Kennedy was ambassador to Britain, and Jack and David were students at Harvard and Oxford. ...
JFK admired Gore as an exemplar of what Schlesinger described as "English political society, with its casual combination of wit, knowledge and unconcern." ...They shared a sense of the ridiculous, and an impatience with long-winded or self-important bores.
Both men were sons of dogmatic fathers, and were touched by the tragedy of losing a beloved older brother in his youth. Kennedy and Gore gave the appearance of being laid-back and unemotional in the stereotypical English manner. Recognizing aspects of himself in Kennedy, Gore observed, "I think he had deep emotions, but he very much disliked the display of them"....
As they matured, the two friends recognized the extent of their political and intellectual compatibility. A member of Parliament since 1950, Gore was a Tory -- but of the "wet" or liberal variety, an advocate of the sort of policies Kennedy supported. ...
In that spirit, Gore and JFK had dinner in late February at the White House. "Speaking with the bluntness of an old friend," wrote Schlesinger, Gore "offered a caustic picture of American policy in Laos." The British government opposed military intervention, advocating instead a cease-fire negotiated by an international commission. But Kennedy leaned nevertheless toward using American troops to keep at least part of Laos in friendly hands.
A month later, in a state of "deepest anxiety," Kennedy sought advice directly from [British Prime Minister] Harold Macmillan [a relative of the Kennedys by marriage] in a hastily convened meeting at Key West, Florida. ...Macmillan...possessed "a sharp, disillusioned mind," wrote Schlesinger, and "a vivid sense of history."
...At age sixty-six, Macmillan was close to Eisenhower, a contemporary whom he had known since World War II. He and Eisenhower had "common experiences," Macmillan said at the time. "Now there is this young cocky Irishman. . . . How am I going to deal with him?"
Macmillan disliked Joe Kennedy and feared the possibility of his malevolent influence. The British prime minister had also been alerted by Eisenhower's ambassador to Britain, Jock Whitney, about JFK's flaws. "Kennedy must be a strange character," Macmillan wrote in his journal after Whitney's post-election briefing.
...When Kennedy and Macmillan met for the first time in Florida,...Macmillan later told Jackie, ..."We seemed to be able (when alone) to talk freely and frankly to each other (as if we had been lifelong friends) and to laugh (a vital thing) at our advisers and ourselves."
...Their shared irreverence provided a level of comfort neither man had anticipated....Kennedy's bond with Macmillan was his most important among America's allies, and he would repeatedly tap the elder statesman's judgment in international crises. They would meet seven times in three years.
Macmillan didn't prevail in their Key West meeting, however, as Kennedy insisted on keeping the military option open in Laos. {end Excerpts}------------------
Fear / Loathing. Hunter Thompson. 1973.
Grace / Power. Sally Bedell Smith. 2004.
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