05-05-2011, 02:16 PM
More nonsense from Ford.
It makes you wonder if the guy reads anything.
Halberstam does not mention either NSAM 263 or NSAM 273 in his book. Which are crucial to understanding how VIetnam policy changed when LBJ came to power.
Nor does Halberstam describe the first meeting that LBJ had on Vietnam on 11/24.
Halberstam also never mentions the May 1963 Sec Def meeting in Hawaii where McNamara began to supervise Kennedy's withdrawal plan. Nor does he say that the whole trip report for the Taylor/McNamara fall 1963 Saigon visit was supervised by JFK. As a way of announcing NSAM 263.
These are all crucial in understanding just how the order of battle for Vietnam originated and how NSAM 288 came about. Because they did not exist under Kennedy. And never would have.
To say that Halberstam should have mentioned some relationship between Kennedy's death and Vietnam policy is to wish for a fantasy. Halberstam, a pure MSM guy, would never have touched that one in a millenium.
But if he had included all the above info, and other stuff I mentioned, the reader could have gotten that message implicitly.
Halberstam did not. The question then becomes, why? It is very hard to believe he missed it, because some of it is in the Pentagon Papers. Which he says he read. And if he had interviewed people like Mansfield, O'Donnell and Powers, or even Max Taylor, they would have told him that Kennedy was not going to introduce combat troops.
But Halberstam does not even list his interviews, let alone source them. Or did Ford miss Part 1?
It makes you wonder if the guy reads anything.
Halberstam does not mention either NSAM 263 or NSAM 273 in his book. Which are crucial to understanding how VIetnam policy changed when LBJ came to power.
Nor does Halberstam describe the first meeting that LBJ had on Vietnam on 11/24.
Halberstam also never mentions the May 1963 Sec Def meeting in Hawaii where McNamara began to supervise Kennedy's withdrawal plan. Nor does he say that the whole trip report for the Taylor/McNamara fall 1963 Saigon visit was supervised by JFK. As a way of announcing NSAM 263.
These are all crucial in understanding just how the order of battle for Vietnam originated and how NSAM 288 came about. Because they did not exist under Kennedy. And never would have.
To say that Halberstam should have mentioned some relationship between Kennedy's death and Vietnam policy is to wish for a fantasy. Halberstam, a pure MSM guy, would never have touched that one in a millenium.
But if he had included all the above info, and other stuff I mentioned, the reader could have gotten that message implicitly.
Halberstam did not. The question then becomes, why? It is very hard to believe he missed it, because some of it is in the Pentagon Papers. Which he says he read. And if he had interviewed people like Mansfield, O'Donnell and Powers, or even Max Taylor, they would have told him that Kennedy was not going to introduce combat troops.
But Halberstam does not even list his interviews, let alone source them. Or did Ford miss Part 1?