I tend to agree with Reston. Kruschev would never have tried to put nukes into Cuba if he hadn’t thought JFK was weak.
I agree that LBJ expanded the Vietnam war manyfold. His tapes are replete on what he did and why he did it.
But JFK cast the die and took us to the point of no return.
i think of the ~16000 advisors as relatively small potatoes. it’s clear in historical record that jfk was winding down the war in late 1963, and in fact the usa troop count did reduce by ~1000 in december 1963, no doubt due to bureaucratic momentum that lbj could not change. if we were consisent with jfk’s oct, 1963 nsam 263, all troops would have been pulled out by 1965. in short, jfk was actively winding down us involvement, so it was not a slippery slope, at least as of nov 22, 1963. since jfk called for and accomplished reductions before the 1964-1965 troop buildup, it seems disingenuous to blame the massive consequences of the massive troop buildup and escalated role on jfk when in fact jfk was taken out of the picture, and lbj was in charge at that time. one possibility is that jfk died trying to reverse couse and implement peace. if that is considered part of the slippery slope then the blame lies elsewhere, unless we consider jfk indirectly responsible for his own assassination..
also it seems fairly clear from the record that multiple independent and divergent players were involved in driving us foreign policy wrt vietnam in the early 1960s. the usa was propping up the diem regime via advisors. diem was losing popular support. the cia recommended a coup and sought jfks approval. jfk approved but not the assassination of diem. ambassador lodge took the final call from diem to the usa asking what to do, but apparently did not relay diem’s concern to jfk, who was surprised by news of diem’s subsequent assassination by the coup leaders paid by the cia. the cia never presented the possibility of an assassination to jfk. this no doubt fed into jfks earlier belief that the cia was out of control. the assassination of diem deepened us involvement in vietnam. but it seems fair to say that jfk was not warned of contingencies and collateral damage by the cia when there were opportunities to do so. so the reponsibility for involvement in vietnam could legitimately be considered to be shared between the cia and their bedfellows in the pentagon, state department and so on, and jfk who evidently was not being kept fully apprised of matters under his nominal control.