"If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have
another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I'm
reelected. So we had better make damned sure that I am reelected'
http://eserver.org/govt/gulf-war/jfk-lbj-and-vietnam.txt
THE SECOND BIGGEST LIE
by Michael Morrissey
The biggest lie of our time, after the Warren Report, is the notion
that Johnson merely continued or expanded Kennedy's policy in Vietnam
after the assassination.
1. JFK's policy
In late 1962, Kennedy was still fully committed to supporting the Diem
regime, though he had some doubts even then. When Senator Mike
Mansfield advised withdrawal at that early date:
The President was too disturbed by the Senator's unexpected argument
to reply to it. He said to me later when we talked about the
discussion, "I got angry with Mike for disagreeing with our policy so
completely, and I got angry with myself because I found myself
agreeing with him (Kenneth O'Donnell and Dave Powers,
Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970, p. 15).
