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Document reopens debate on JFK's Vietnam plans

Kennedy in 1963
Kennedy in 1963
 
December 22, 1997
Web posted at: 8:46 p.m. EST (0146 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly declassified government documents support the theory that weeks before his assassination John F. Kennedy wanted his military leaders to draw up contingency plans for a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam following the 1964 presidential election.

The documents add to the historical controversy over whether the nation might have been spared the loss of 58,000 American lives in Vietnam had Kennedy not been killed.

Some historians believe that Lyndon B. Johnson, upon succeeding Kennedy, deepened the U.S. commitment out of eagerness not to be seen as the first American president to lose a war.

CNN's Ralph Begleiter reports
icon 2 min. VXtreme video

But historian Ronald Spector of George Washington University said the execution of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem three weeks before Kennedy's murder in 1963 may have been more decisive than the change at the top of the U.S. government.

American leaders soon discovered that Diem had been hiding reports from the field that showed the war was going badly for the South Vietnamese, said Spector, who teaches a course on the U.S. role in Indochina.

And Diem's successors proved even more ineffective than Diem in combating the Viet Cong.

The newly released documents did not discuss Kennedy's role in sanctioning Diem's assassination -- another contentious issue from those days.

Assassination panel releases 800 pages of records

The document on plans for a withdrawal was among 800 pages of Joint Chiefs of Staff records that were made public Monday by the government's Assassination Records Review Board. The board was created by Congress to amass for public inspection any records that might shed light on Kennedy's murder.

"All planning will be directed towards preparing RVN (South Vietnamese) forces for the withdrawal of all U.S. special assistance units and personnel by the end of calendar year 1965," said an October 4, 1963 memo from Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Taylor drafted the message for discussion by the joint chiefs. But their reaction was not reflected in the new documents.

Less than a month after Kennedy's assassination, Johnson told his commanders to plan for "increased activity" against North Vietnam, another paper showed.

Papers suggest LBJ sought to act surreptitiously

In making such plans, Johnson directed, commanders should take into consideration "the plausibility of denial," the possibility of North Vietnamese retaliation and "other international reaction" -- all suggesting Johnson wanted to act against Hanoi surreptitiously.

McNamara/file
The documents support McNamara's claims that the former defense secretary wanted to pull out of Vietnam
 

Historian George Herring at the University of Kentucky, author of "America's Longest War," said there was no doubt that American officials discussed a withdrawal by 1965 "but the question is whether you read this (document) as evidence whether Kennedy had made up his mind. I would say from earlier evidence that it was still up in the air."

Another memo showed that at a May 6, 1963 Honolulu conference Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara pressed for an initial withdrawal of 1,000 troops "in one package" by the following December.

Gen. Paul Harkins, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, agreed, the memo said, but did not want the troops to leave "with bands playing, flags flying" because "this would have a bad effect on the Vietnamese, to be pulling out just when it appears they are winning."

At the time, the United States had only 16,300 advisers in South Vietnam -- a commitment that would swell to more than 536,000 within five years.

America remained in the war until August 1973, when an agreement negotiated by the Nixon administration permitted a U.S. withdrawal. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran Saigon.

Copyright 1997   The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 
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