'The Kennedy Withdrawal'

JFK's news conference on Vietnam, March 1961

'The Kennedy Withdrawal'

A new book from the Miller Center's Marc Selverstone explores Camelot and the American commitment to Vietnam

McNamara and Kennedy in 1962

'The Kennedy Withdrawal'

A new book from the Miller Center's Marc Selverstone explores Camelot and the American commitment to Vietnam

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December 07, 2022

Kennedy and Vietnam: The great what-if

John F. Kennedy is often portrayed as a dove because plans for U.S. troops to withdraw from Vietnam began while he was president. What would have happened if Kennedy had lived?

Excerpts

JFK on the tarmac with VP Johnson in 1962
If Kennedy had lived

The great "what if" can never be known, but it is beyond dispute that planning for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam began while JFK was president
US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in Frankfurt, Germany, 1962
'No further reductions should be made'

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara recommended that the Pentagon draw down troops as part of the broader effort to train Vietnamese "to take over military functions”
LBJ in Vietnam
LBJ 'questioned the withdrawal'

The 1,000-man withdrawal, as implemented by the Johnson administration, became “an accounting exercise” as troops continued to move in and out of Vietnam as part of the normal sequence of force rotation
A portion of the book cover "Kennedy withdrawal"
About the book

Selverstone makes the case that the Kennedy administration’s plan to withdraw was a political device, the effect of which was to manage public opinion while preserving U.S. military assistance
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Marc Selverstone is the Miller Center's director of presidential studies and co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, for which he edits the secret White House tapes of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. He is the general editor of The Presidential Recordings Digital Edition, the primary online portal for transcripts of the tapes, published by the University of Virginia Press.

About the author