WI: Lee Oswald Makes It To Trial

I think if we are no longer talking about the POD in question, or even JFK, we should probably end the thread and move the Bush discussion to Chat.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Agreed, but my point was it goes both ways. From his POV it could well look too dangerous to not do anything. 20/20 hindsight is easy and it is also easy to blame someone for having an emotional reaction when you aren't going through the same thing. It is far easier said then done to put aside the fact someone tried to kill your relative.

The same was said by Germany and Austria before WWI, and not many people are as forgiving about them as you are about the American presidents. They shouldn't be, neither should you. When you say you are in an emergency that requires open violation of international law, you better be right, period.
 
Vincent Bugliosi speculated in his book Reclaiming History that JFK might not have gone to Vietnam (basing it on JFK's World War II experience, among other things).

What does he mean? JFK escalated the number of US advisors in South Vietnam to 17,000.

Eh, it's sketchy what happened with Vietnam. I don't have my Kennedy books/notes with me so I can't find the specifics but Kennedy never wanted to sent ground troops to Vietnam. Since Bay of pigs he was engaged in a battle with the CIA and pentagon over his entire military strategy. Vietnam is a prime example of Kennedy being torn between his cold war warrior and 'peace at all costs president'. I certainly can't see JFK going as far as LBJ


Most of these points have been rebutted already up thread and require censoring of other events.

1 He orded he invasion
2. Yeah the not made public part shows he wanted to be seen as the persona of brinksmanship. .
3.And he wasn't going to withdraw until it didn't effect the war effort and in fact he greatly increase emphasis on it.
4. Every leader in the cld war had summits. And there isn't proof the embargo was going to be lifted by him. Most Castro assassinations attempts occurred with his watch
5. Because the plan he approved didn't work (Bay of Pigs) and he blamed the CIA.

This is lazy lazy lazy analysis. If your referring to cuba, JFk didn't order it. Nixon and Ike signed it off, and the CIA told him that it would work-they said it wouldn't need any assistance from the US.

American University Speech shows very much, he didn't believe in brinkmanship, or the Eisenhower approach.

There is a lot of proof-Dick Goodwin did a fair bit of diplomacy, through the alliance for progress along with Lisa Howard who was lobbying for some sort of agreement. Again it would be likely that JFK would in 1968 lift the economic embargo and reach a further agreement.

They occurred on his watch, but did he approve them? And eh-the CIA fucked up bay of pigs. They lied to JFK and expected him to bail them out-not only did Castro know the date but he knew the location. The CIA hoped it would push JFK to invade to save face
 
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