Roger Hilsman on JFK vs LBJ on Vietnam

[Jim DiEugenio]

David Giglio found this fine interview with Hilsman from 1983, ten years before John Newman's book JFK and Vietnam was published.

In this respect it is even more startling that the book was so shocking. I attribute it to the media and academia more than anything. Ignorance and axe grinding.

https://kennedysandking.com/videos-and-i...etnam-1983

[Paul Rigby]

David Giglio found this fine interview with Hilsman from 1983, ten years before John Newman's book JFK and Vietnam was published.

In this respect it is even more startling that the book was so shocking. I attribute it to the media and academia more than anything. Ignorance and axe grinding.

https://kennedysandking.com/videos-and-i...etnam-1983

Hilsman's May 1969 interview for the Foreign Affairs Oral History Project:

https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Hilsman,%20Roger.toc.pdf

[Jim DiEugenio]

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.

[James Lateer]

I have followed the above discussions about JFK and Vietnam and his foreign policy in the Congo, Indonesia etc. My curiosity has been raised about the reaction of Mr. DiEugenio to the book The Skorzeny Papers and JFK foreign policy.

Do any of the JFK foreign policy gurus think that The Skorzeny Papers sheds any new light into the foreign policy issues of the JFK administration? I am particularly intrigued with the dispute about the theory of author Ganis regarding the motive behind the assassination. In the major review of the Ganis book, the theory of Ganis about the motive of Skorzeny and those who employed him is questioned.

What does anybody else think about this? As many people know, I believe that it was the policy of JFK toward the issues in central Europe which got him into hot water, more than his Vietnam policy.

James Lateer

[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.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Thanks Paul.

That is really interesting.

[James Lateer]

It's no surprise that China could have reared it's head as an issue for JFK behind the scenes. It is well known that Dean Rusk was heavily involved in the center of the Korean War situation. He had a long history working on the side of UK interests and policy.

I think that Rusk had been part of the decision to declare Korea as "outside the zone of US vital interests" as well as the decision not to bomb the bridges on the Yalu River to prevent Chinese intervention in Korea.

Rusk had served in the Burma Theater in World War II and thus, his career was extremely intertwined with the UK. This could have lead Rusk to anger the China Lobby and the pro-Taiwan dinosaurs of the right-wing.

Senator James O Eastland spent years investigating the secretive Amerasia issue. Also the totally secretive Institute of Pacific Relations (about which there is still little information publically available).

Any, of course, the German spy agency BND under former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen was much more involved in the Far East than anyone would imagine. And you could add in the mysterious FOI of Richard Case Nagell/Lee Harvey Oswald and the Charles Willoughby involvement in Japan and the Far East.

It's easy to see why any potential opening to China would totally upset the applecart. That also might have been the poison pill for Nixon and the Watergate problem.

But I would still estimate the confrontation with the Soviets in central Europe as outweighing the Asian problems for JFK.

James Lateer

[Paul Rigby]

It's no surprise that China could have reared it's head as an issue for JFK behind the scenes. It is well known that Dean Rusk was heavily involved in the center of the Korean War situation. He had a long history working on the side of UK interests and policy.

I think that Rusk had been part of the decision to declare Korea as "outside the zone of US vital interests" as well as the decision not to bomb the bridges on the Yalu River to prevent Chinese intervention in Korea.

Rusk had served in the Burma Theater in World War II and thus, his career was extremely intertwined with the UK. This could have lead Rusk to anger the China Lobby and the pro-Taiwan dinosaurs of the right-wing.

Senator James O Eastland spent years investigating the secretive Amerasia issue. Also the totally secretive Institute of Pacific Relations (about which there is still little information publically available).

Any, of course, the German spy agency BND under former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen was much more involved in the Far East than anyone would imagine. And you could add in the mysterious FOI of Richard Case Nagell/Lee Harvey Oswald and the Charles Willoughby involvement in Japan and the Far East.

It's easy to see why any potential opening to China would totally upset the applecart. That also might have been the poison pill for Nixon and the Watergate problem.

But I would still estimate the confrontation with the Soviets in central Europe as outweighing the Asian problems for JFK.

James Lateer

I agree with your last point, and it points to a vast gap in our knowledge of Kennedy's intentions and actions with respect to the neutralisation of Central-Eastern Europe. It is perhaps the greatest failure of serious JFK studies.

As for the IPP, I can only suggest reading the passages on Richard Sorge within Donald Gibson's outstanding work, The Kennedy Assassination Cover-Up. Like so much else in this great work, it's a refreshingly intelligent and cold-eyed reappraisal of what passes for consensus "truth".