08-02-2014, 06:11 PM
This is so stupid. Talk about cherry picking.
I mean, McAdams used this awhile ago, in his debate with me.
First of all, unlike with Cuba, RFK was not in the middle of the Vietnam policy. By 1963, this was being run by JFK, McNamara, and to a lesser extent by State Department: Rusk, Hilsman, Harriman.
Second, RFK later contradicted this when he talked to Ellsberg in 1967. And he did so in no uncertain terms.
This is 1964, LBJ is president and RFK has ambitions to be VP. The big troop deployments have not begun yet.
What is important is not what RFK said in this oral interview, but what JFK had done as far as written instructions. And how they had been reversed by NSAM 288 in early March.
Why Blum would ignore all of that for this, that is a mystery.
I mean, McAdams used this awhile ago, in his debate with me.
First of all, unlike with Cuba, RFK was not in the middle of the Vietnam policy. By 1963, this was being run by JFK, McNamara, and to a lesser extent by State Department: Rusk, Hilsman, Harriman.
Second, RFK later contradicted this when he talked to Ellsberg in 1967. And he did so in no uncertain terms.
This is 1964, LBJ is president and RFK has ambitions to be VP. The big troop deployments have not begun yet.
What is important is not what RFK said in this oral interview, but what JFK had done as far as written instructions. And how they had been reversed by NSAM 288 in early March.
Why Blum would ignore all of that for this, that is a mystery.