[Pelham]

I'm reading Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, and while the subtitle leads you to believe it begins with Johnson it in fact starts with JFK.

It contains some great insights into Kennedy, who distrusted the older generation and especially the culture of the military (some of the descriptions remind me of Obama). He dismantled the national security apparatus he inherited from Eisenhower. This broke the chain of communication between JFK and the military. It played a major role in his Cuba fiasco, and also his Southeast Asia policy. He bungled Laos which set up Vietnam as the major point of conflict between the Soviet bloc and the West. Worth reading.

[editor-surveyor]

.
The US war effort in indo-china began in the mountains of Laos in about 1956.

For about half of 1955, a few hundred special ops men were trained in the languages of southeast asia at the Monterey linguistics school.

There was absolutely nothing dishonorable about any part of the military effort there, from beginning to end.

The pull-out is what was dishonorable.
.

[Ohioan]

Yes, and there is no secret that he arranged the assassinations of Vietnamese leaders whom he did not like. He also backed the UN war against Katanga, which was one of the most vicious attacks on traditional values of the era. The man was utterly contemptible.