Roger Hilsman on JFK vs LBJ on Vietnam

[Paul Rigby]

Paul:

Thanks for that. I know you had to note the two bombshells in there.

1.) Bobby Kennedy wanted to negotiate out of Vietnam in 1963? Page 7

2.) JFK was thinking of recognizing China as early as 1961? Page 21

I have studied JFK's foreign policy as much as anyone. I was unaware of those two.

This is short but fascinating on China policy under Kennedy:

On the Making of U.S. China Policy, 1961-9: A Study in Bureaucratic Politics
James C. Thomson Jr.

Source: The China Quarterly, No. 50 (Apr. - Jun., 1972), pp. 220-243
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/651908

http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Thomson...Policy.pdf

p226:

One further organizational shift in early 1962 had long-term consequences for China policy. Within the Far East Bureau the China desk had continued, since 1949, to include within it men who worked on
both Taiwan and mainland China affairs. In the '50s, and in the first year of the Kennedy Administration, this arrangement tended to submergeWashington-Peking relations within Washington-Taipei relations;
mainland China specialists found it difficult to win bureaucratic struggles within the China desk, even before issues rose to the Bureau level. But by 1962 a long overdue reform was effected: mainland China was separated
off from Republic of China Affairs and was established as a new desk charged with "Mainland China Affairs." While lacking the additional bureaucratic support of an embassy in Peking (to counter Embassy Taipei), this new desk now had more independent access to the upper levels of the Bureau and the Department - and thereby potentially greater influence.