[mak5]

JFK was not blowing off Vietnam. That is a recent creation by the likes of Oliver Stone. Throughout Kennedy's term, the number of troops in Vietnam kept rising and he showed no signs of pulling out. He publicly denied that we had any troops there in press conferences, but troop levels went from hundreds under Eisenhower to thousands under Kennedy.

[Courdeleon02]

Well according to Robert McNamara he is convinced that Kennedy would have never escalated American involvement the way Johnson did. McNamara was a very trusted adviser to Kennedy and I tend to believe him on this issue. Kennedy had repeatedly said in private conversations that the Vietnamese would have to win the war, that the U.S. could not do it for them. He spoke about the will to fight having to come from the native population.

[beyond the sea]

baloney

[beyond the sea]

snoooze

[Howlin]

Exactly.

[Howlin]

As the threat of a communist takeover of South Vietnam and a possible later capitulation of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, and Indonesia came closer to becoming a reality, President John F. Kennedy began to increase the number of “military advisors” in South Vietnam. Military advisors were used to train and equip South Vietnamese troops. Where there had only been 700 advisors at the end of President Eisenhower’s administration in 1961, Kennedy increased that number to 12,000. Covert operations involving Special Forces (Green Berets) moved the United States closer to an open conflict with North Vietnam and the Vietcong (communist guerillas fighting in South Vietnam).