23-01-2014, 04:18 AM
(This post was last modified: 23-01-2014, 12:03 PM by Jim DiEugenio.)
Mr. Norwood:
Did you read my whole review, with the click throughs?
Dallek is a trenchant researcher on Vietnam?
Oh really? And he never mentions the Sec Def meeting of May 1963? He never says that it was JFK who actually wrote the Taylor McNamara report? Can't bring himself to type the words NSAM 263? And does not describe the plot behind the sending of the Saturday Night Special?
And to top it all off, he does not name Edmund Gullion in over a thousand pages?
Can you please explain to me how this qualifies as "trenchant"?
To me, John Newman is a trenchant researcher on Vietnam. As is Gordon Goldstein. As is Jamie Galbraith. I would never put Dallek anywhere near that class.
Secondly, unless I missed something, Dallek is never as absolute about Kennedy's intent to withdraw as you make him out to be. He does come down on the side that its most likely he would have not gotten bogged down in a land war. But he specifically based this on conversations Kennedy had. Not on the documents which he ignores. He also attributes any withdrawal intent to McNamara, not Kennedy. And he says this was not really a plan anyway.
As per your other two comments, I mean, if you really mean those as attributes by Dallek to Kennedy, then I think we lost. If that is the best that Dallek can do, then heck, he earned his NY Times paycheck ten fold.
Dallek and Sabato and Reeves have done such yeoman work camouflaging Kennedy, that when I actually presented who JFK really was e.g. in Pittsburgh at the Wecht Conference, people were literally stupefied and gave me a standing ovation. They then asked where i got the information. Because, thanks to hacks like Dallek, they never saw it before.
Did you read my whole review, with the click throughs?
Dallek is a trenchant researcher on Vietnam?
Oh really? And he never mentions the Sec Def meeting of May 1963? He never says that it was JFK who actually wrote the Taylor McNamara report? Can't bring himself to type the words NSAM 263? And does not describe the plot behind the sending of the Saturday Night Special?
And to top it all off, he does not name Edmund Gullion in over a thousand pages?
Can you please explain to me how this qualifies as "trenchant"?
To me, John Newman is a trenchant researcher on Vietnam. As is Gordon Goldstein. As is Jamie Galbraith. I would never put Dallek anywhere near that class.
Secondly, unless I missed something, Dallek is never as absolute about Kennedy's intent to withdraw as you make him out to be. He does come down on the side that its most likely he would have not gotten bogged down in a land war. But he specifically based this on conversations Kennedy had. Not on the documents which he ignores. He also attributes any withdrawal intent to McNamara, not Kennedy. And he says this was not really a plan anyway.
As per your other two comments, I mean, if you really mean those as attributes by Dallek to Kennedy, then I think we lost. If that is the best that Dallek can do, then heck, he earned his NY Times paycheck ten fold.
Dallek and Sabato and Reeves have done such yeoman work camouflaging Kennedy, that when I actually presented who JFK really was e.g. in Pittsburgh at the Wecht Conference, people were literally stupefied and gave me a standing ovation. They then asked where i got the information. Because, thanks to hacks like Dallek, they never saw it before.