Book & Film Review: Virtual JFK

The book is called "Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived:Virtual JFK" and the documentary based on it is called "Virtual JFK". The authors argue that John F. Kennedy would have pulled out of Vietnam had he lived. Has anyone read/seen it and how has it been received? Is it influential or is it discredited?
 
I remember reading the book some time ago (via Google books where surprisingly nearly all of the book was there, or at least it was at the time). I remember the pro-involvement in Vietnam side of the people they talked to for the book coming across as very ignorant to me, as their reasoning pretty much came across as "it happened so it was meant to happen and was going to happen". A more fact supported reasoning would have been ok with me, but I do remember feeling that they were just saying it was going to happen because it did happen, and that annoyed me when I was reading their side of it.
 
Haven't seen or read it, so I can't comment on the argument they make, however...

...Teh googles say the producers adapted the title of Nial Ferguson's 'Virtual History' for this?!

That should lose them points, regardless of what one thinks about their thesis.
 
The film is very well-produced and thought provoking. I've come to disagree with it's thesis, which is largely grounded on "Kennedy repeatedly avoided conflict with the Soviet Union, so he wouldn't have escalated the war in Vietnam." It sounds good, but then you have to remember the context of the time and the evidence surrounding Johnson's decision. At that point, it's hard to imagine a scenario where Kennedy dosen't commit American ground troops to defend the South.
 
Top