Letters to the Editor
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History (according to History)
"Kennedy authorized America's most embarrassing foreign policy debacle of the last century with the failed invasion of Cuba, [and] began the escalation of the our involvement in SE Asia. Kennedy's legacy is a triumph of image over substance." -- ikuiku
1. The Bay of Pigs was set up by the CIA under Ike, and handed off to JFK. Criticize JFK for not standing up to the CIA in his first few days in office if you must; but don't you dare try to tell me how 9/11, eight months into Bush-Cheney, was Bill Clinton's fault.
2. JFK continued, but did not begin, the escalation of American involvement in Southeast Asia. That, too, began under Ike, and specifically under Dulles (the diplomat, not the spy), who backed the Bao Dai govt in Saigon, following the partition of Vietnam into North and South at Geneva in '54. The American military presence grew steadily through the 50's and early 60's until JFK, fed up with Diem, decided to pull the plug on U.S. involvement-- a decision the fact of which was incidentally confirmed by McNamara in the documentary "The Fog of War." Instead, Diem and JFK were both assassinated in November '63.
In the August following JFK's assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" was fabricated; the Senate voted 98-2 to authorize retaliation; and in early '65 the Marines stormed the beach at Da Nang and the Vietnam War As We Know It began. (The Marines incidentally were greeted on the beach by pretty girls dressed in ao-dais with Hawaii-style flower leis, much to the embarassment of their officers.)