15-06-2018, 05:56 PM
Mr. Lateer:
Here is my review of the Shaw book,
https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...the-senate
How you can say that all Kennedy did in the senate is the Landrum bill, and the picking of the five top senators, after all that is really kind of puzzling. Shaw himself stated that Kennedy's most notable achievement while there was the mapping out of an alternative way of looking at America's position in the Third World during the Cold War. Kennedy's railing against the Dulles/Nixon plan to nuke Dien Bien Phu in 1954 is one good example of it. All those speeches and radio addresses he gave upon returning from Vietnam in 1951 is another. Stevenson wiring him to shut up because his 1956 speeches were too radical is another. And how you can say the great Algeria speech was about Africa, i mean have you read the speech? Its not really about Algeria although that is the specific topic. Its really about America aiding a European colonial power trying to hang on to a failing empire, while France was splitting apart over the issue. He said the USA should be helping France to get out of the Third World not send her aid in weapons.
When JFK entered the Senate, there really was no Democratic alternative to the Dulles/Nixon Cold War extremism. I mean Acheson was really not much of a switch from Foster Dulles. It was really Senator Kennedy who managed to recognize that anti communism was not really a solution to the problems in Indochina. You could not stop nationalism with guns and bullets and screaming, The Russians are Coming. This is why JFK bought a hundred copies of The Ugly American, and gave them to each senator. As president, he helped get the film made. That was a perceptive book about the failings of the State Department in the Third World, specifically Indochina. It said that American policy consisted of little more than being against communism without recognizing anything that America was supposed to be for. I mean do you really think anyone else in the senate was doing that in 1957? I mean LBJ was the majority leader.
This should have been an important point on the show because it prefigures the split between LBJ on one side of the Vietnam issue, and JFK and RFK on the other. And it would have explained why the war escalated out of control after the assassination of JFK. It also would have shown why Nixon continued it for four years after and expanded it into Cambodia and Laos. Now that would have been educational and insightful to a mass audience. Which I think is why they did not go there at all and when they did deal with Vietnam, they misrepresented the issue with that hack Evan Thomas.
And BTW, you also ignore the things he did domestically which Shaw points out, like in housing, home rule for D.C,. and the economic front, like the St. Lawrence Seaway project, and education. Kennedy even wanted to lower the voting age to 18. And he was so obsessed with housing that he returned to the senate during his 1960 campaign to make a speech about it.
Another thing Shaw points out is that Kennedy also tried to make some headway with Russian satellites in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland. One of the first to do that also.
Anyway, this show was a real bummer. Better no one doing these specials than more baloney like this. It just makes everyone stupider.
Here is my review of the Shaw book,
https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kenne...the-senate
How you can say that all Kennedy did in the senate is the Landrum bill, and the picking of the five top senators, after all that is really kind of puzzling. Shaw himself stated that Kennedy's most notable achievement while there was the mapping out of an alternative way of looking at America's position in the Third World during the Cold War. Kennedy's railing against the Dulles/Nixon plan to nuke Dien Bien Phu in 1954 is one good example of it. All those speeches and radio addresses he gave upon returning from Vietnam in 1951 is another. Stevenson wiring him to shut up because his 1956 speeches were too radical is another. And how you can say the great Algeria speech was about Africa, i mean have you read the speech? Its not really about Algeria although that is the specific topic. Its really about America aiding a European colonial power trying to hang on to a failing empire, while France was splitting apart over the issue. He said the USA should be helping France to get out of the Third World not send her aid in weapons.
When JFK entered the Senate, there really was no Democratic alternative to the Dulles/Nixon Cold War extremism. I mean Acheson was really not much of a switch from Foster Dulles. It was really Senator Kennedy who managed to recognize that anti communism was not really a solution to the problems in Indochina. You could not stop nationalism with guns and bullets and screaming, The Russians are Coming. This is why JFK bought a hundred copies of The Ugly American, and gave them to each senator. As president, he helped get the film made. That was a perceptive book about the failings of the State Department in the Third World, specifically Indochina. It said that American policy consisted of little more than being against communism without recognizing anything that America was supposed to be for. I mean do you really think anyone else in the senate was doing that in 1957? I mean LBJ was the majority leader.
This should have been an important point on the show because it prefigures the split between LBJ on one side of the Vietnam issue, and JFK and RFK on the other. And it would have explained why the war escalated out of control after the assassination of JFK. It also would have shown why Nixon continued it for four years after and expanded it into Cambodia and Laos. Now that would have been educational and insightful to a mass audience. Which I think is why they did not go there at all and when they did deal with Vietnam, they misrepresented the issue with that hack Evan Thomas.
And BTW, you also ignore the things he did domestically which Shaw points out, like in housing, home rule for D.C,. and the economic front, like the St. Lawrence Seaway project, and education. Kennedy even wanted to lower the voting age to 18. And he was so obsessed with housing that he returned to the senate during his 1960 campaign to make a speech about it.
Another thing Shaw points out is that Kennedy also tried to make some headway with Russian satellites in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland. One of the first to do that also.
Anyway, this show was a real bummer. Better no one doing these specials than more baloney like this. It just makes everyone stupider.