JFK: America's Last Real President

JFK was the first president that I ever voted for. Back then the media wasn't in the bedroom of people every night. Since JFKs death, we have learned a lot more than I believe we had a need to know. I don't think of the Kennedys as the mythical Camelot, they were/are just rich folks that had extrodinary opportunities given them by a rum runnig grandfather. JFK wasn't in the WH long enough to know what he would really have done. I don't have bad memories of JFK, but the last great president? I don't think so. IMO, Ronald Regan is.

I think to encapsulate the Kennedy presidency you would have to pronounce Camelot with the long a.......

and I think Reagan was an a$$hole.....

To each his own....

I hate to knock an icon, but to me, JFK was "all sizzle, and no steak". He was the first president whose popularity was media driven.

At least he saved us from Nixon for a few years.

JFK sizzled alright. He directly took on America's arms merchants. Some sizzling JFK style, he fired Allen Dulles from Director of CIA. He implemented a Blueprint for Peace Race designed to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He ordered the bulk of American personnel out of Vietnam by 1965 and had begun the withdrawal. And he took away from the Federal Reserve the right to print money, restoring that right to Congress and the Treasury Department. He had issued US Notes backed by silver and started the withdrawal of Fed Notes backed by nothing virtually eliminating the Fed Reserve. Big doings.

A bit of revisionist history there. McNamara advused Kennedy to send 200,000 troops into Vietnam, Kennedy SENT 16,000, he was not withdrawing. LBJ sent the bulk of US troops to Vietnam.

LoneStarMadam, history as officially recorded. NSAM #263 though very brief, was critical in setting down exactly what President Kennedy had begun to implement with regard to getting the U.S. out of the conflict in Vietnam. Although this Memorandum is short, it directly refers to and builds from the Taylor/McNamara report of October 2, 1963 (document 167 which follows this post) as well as document numbers 179 and 181 (following 167).
NSAM #263 was signed by McGeorge Bundy, JFK's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs. Bundy's role was very heavy in the Kennedy administration in ways JFK, apparently, was not aware of. His signature is also the only one at the bottom of NSAM #273, approved by LBJ just 4 days after JFK was murdered. NSAM #273 was the first evidence of changes in the policies President Kennedy had been putting into place. It did not take long for the new administration to begin to alter JFK's policies, even though LBJ's favorite and most commonly use catch-phrase in the days and months after the assassination--as well as during his own 1964 campaign--was "let us continue," the implication being that Johnson's only interest was in continuing the policies and agendas set forth by his predecessor.

--ratitor



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194. National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 [1]
Washington, October 11, 1963.



TO
Secretary of State
Secretary of Defense
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

SUBJECT

South Vietnam

At a meeting on October 5, 1963,[2] the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam.
The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.
After discussion of the remaining recommendations of the report, the President approved an instruction to Ambassador Lodge which is set forth in State Department telegram No. 534 to Saigon.[3]

McGeorge Bundy

_______

Source: Department of State, S/S-NSC Files: Lot 72 D 316, NSAMs. Top Secret; Eyes Only. The Director of Central Intelligence and the Administrator of AID also received copies. Also printed in United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967, Book 12, p. 578. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FRUSno194.html National Security Action Memorandum No. 263

this is the 10/11/63 NSAM that recorded JFK's approval of withdrawing 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963, as well as other recommendations from the Taylor/McNamara Memo (document #167, 10/2/63, listed below) which included withdrawal of "the bulk of U.S. personnel by . . . the end of 1965."
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