sr71plt
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
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Attended a fascinating session at the Virginia Festival of the Book this afternoon at the Miller Center (the think tank that's transcribing the JFK presidential tapes).
It was James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, the authors of Vietnam: If Kennedy Had Lived and producers of the new documentary movie Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived. (They were similarly the book authors and producers of the 2004 Academy Award-winning domumentary The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara).
Their hypothesis is that the United States would not have entered a Vietnam War militarily (boots on ground) if Kennedy had continued in office. They have an interesting Web site on this at www.virtualjfk.com.
What was particularly fascinating about this was the Miller Center involvement, which has brought a large number of former policy wonks and political scholars to this region (and is partly why I'm here). The discussions of the event were quite deep and scholarly and on two occasions, they were settling on what did/did not occur in some JFK meeting on Vietnam. In one, they were mulling a cable coming from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in May 1963, and Don Neuchterlein piped up from the audicence and said he was in the embassy then and helped write that cable so he knew what was in it. And at another point, they were wrangling on when McNamara knew something from intell, and Rufus P___, the CIA point man on Vietnam at the time, spoke up from the audience to say that McNamara jolly well did know that information at that point because Rufus had told him that himself. Neither disputed, however, that Kennedy was dragging his feet on getting militarily involved in Vietnam right up until his death.
So, if the topic interests you, look for the book and the movie.
It was James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, the authors of Vietnam: If Kennedy Had Lived and producers of the new documentary movie Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived. (They were similarly the book authors and producers of the 2004 Academy Award-winning domumentary The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara).
Their hypothesis is that the United States would not have entered a Vietnam War militarily (boots on ground) if Kennedy had continued in office. They have an interesting Web site on this at www.virtualjfk.com.
What was particularly fascinating about this was the Miller Center involvement, which has brought a large number of former policy wonks and political scholars to this region (and is partly why I'm here). The discussions of the event were quite deep and scholarly and on two occasions, they were settling on what did/did not occur in some JFK meeting on Vietnam. In one, they were mulling a cable coming from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in May 1963, and Don Neuchterlein piped up from the audicence and said he was in the embassy then and helped write that cable so he knew what was in it. And at another point, they were wrangling on when McNamara knew something from intell, and Rufus P___, the CIA point man on Vietnam at the time, spoke up from the audience to say that McNamara jolly well did know that information at that point because Rufus had told him that himself. Neither disputed, however, that Kennedy was dragging his feet on getting militarily involved in Vietnam right up until his death.
So, if the topic interests you, look for the book and the movie.
