JFK Foreign Policy (on Twitter, at least)

[Mark Russo]

It's not unusual (at least when JFK is the subject of conversation) to see JFK taking lumps in the left wing Twitter-sphere - hawk, nearly bungled us into nuclear war, no legislative accomplishments, etc.

And as we know here books like JFK and the Unspeakable have pushed back against some of that thinking.

I saw this tweet the other day which is an exemplar of that thinking (actually two tweets)

https://twitter.com/ZachJCarter/status/9...0037779465

John F. Kennedy's legacy includes:

Invading South Vietnam
Invading Cuba
Authorizing napalm
Coup in Iraq
Coup in Guyana
Coup in Ecuador
Coup in the Congo
Blocking Algeria's independence
Support for the Shah of Iran
Support for Mobutu

Then there are the many plans that JFK made that were ultimately carried out after his assassination by LBJ, including:

Coup in Brazil
Coup in Dominican Republic
Coup in Indonesia

One of the responders to that tweet:

Replace "Kennedy" with "CIA" and that's about right. JFK supported independence movements in countries emerging from Colonialism and started withdrawal from Vietnam. After he was murdered, LBJ reversed this policy. See John Newman's JFK and Vietnam.

And around it goes. At least someone is promoting Mr Newman in those threads.

[Phil Dagosto]

It's not unusual (at least when JFK is the subject of conversation) to see JFK taking lumps in the left wing Twitter-sphere - hawk, nearly bungled us into nuclear war, no legislative accomplishments, etc.

And as we know here books like JFK and the Unspeakable have pushed back against some of that thinking.

I saw this tweet the other day which is an exemplar of that thinking (actually two tweets)

https://twitter.com/ZachJCarter/status/9...0037779465

John F. Kennedy's legacy includes:

Invading South Vietnam
Invading Cuba
Authorizing napalm
Coup in Iraq
Coup in Guyana
Coup in Ecuador
Coup in the Congo
Blocking Algeria's independence
Support for the Shah of Iran
Support for Mobutu

Then there are the many plans that JFK made that were ultimately carried out after his assassination by LBJ, including:

Coup in Brazil
Coup in Dominican Republic
Coup in Indonesia

One of the responders to that tweet:

Replace "Kennedy" with "CIA" and that's about right. JFK supported independence movements in countries emerging from Colonialism and started withdrawal from Vietnam. After he was murdered, LBJ reversed this policy. See John Newman's JFK and Vietnam.

And around it goes. At least someone is promoting Mr Newman in those threads.

I see this kind of thing a lot in comments on left-wing blogs. There's a real dearth of knowledge about 1960's history and JFK's presidency in that milieu. Unfortunately those sites are dominated by Chomsky disciples who haven't bothered to read anything written about Kennedy by anyone else or since the releases of documents after the AARB. Demonizing Kennedy, irrespective of the facts, is just another way the left sticks their heads in the sand about the assassination. I guess they're more afraid of being labeled as "conspiracy theorists" than they are interested in changing the system.

[Jim DiEugenio]

I left a couple of tweets on the thread.

What a joker this guy is. I mean JFK and Congo? The Dominican Republic? Brazil?

I also added, you cannot invade a country if you have no combat troops there e.g. South Vietnam.

What a nut. More of the looney left.