The question of what John F. Kennedy might have done in Vietnam had he lived into 1964 and won a second term as president has long animated debate about America’s calamitous war in Southeast Asia. Almost from the moment in March 1965 when U.S. combat troops came ashore at Danang, countless observers have weighed in and reached wildly different conclusions about Kennedy’s intentions and the contours of that virtual history.

From a belief that JFK would have gone to war much as his successor did to a conviction that he would have withdrawn American forces after his presumed reelection, these positions frame the conversation about Kennedy and his commitment to Vietnam. The matter therefore carries enormous implications for how we understand Kennedy, the Kennedy presidency, the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, the fate of the war—even the course of American history itself.

The matter carries enormous implications for how we understand the Kennedy presidency, the fate of the war—even the course of American history itself

While it is impossible to answer “the great what if” with any certainty, it is beyond dispute that planning for the withdrawal of U.S. troops began at the midpoint of Kennedy’s 1,000 days in office. Evidentiary support for that planning is overwhelming and appears in numerous archives and documentary collections. These sources, as well as supplementary accounts in memoirs and oral histories, provide indisputable proof that the Kennedy administration undertook a sustained and systematic effort to schedule the removal of American servicemen from South Vietnam and turn the war over to the government in Saigon.

Archives provide indisputable proof that the Kennedy administration undertook a sustained and systematic effort to schedule the removal of American servicemen from South Vietnam and turn the war over to the government in Saigon

They are less helpful, however, in answering key questions about the Kennedy withdrawal, several of which are vital to the broader “what if” of Kennedy and Vietnam: When did that planning begin? Who were its major proponents? Why was it undertaken? Why did it end? Was it contingent on the course of the war? And what did it mean to those at the time?

The Kennedy Withdrawal seeks to answer these questions and others suggested by that planning. It is, therefore, not a comprehensive history of JFK and Vietnam, though it covers much of the same ground. Rather, it offers a more targeted history of the Kennedy withdrawal, a subject of enduring interest, but one without extensive scholarly treatment.

Initial chapters explore Kennedy’s deepening involvement in South Vietnam and the commitment he made to its preservation. Succeeding chapters, which become increasingly granular in scope, trace withdrawal planning from its origins in mid-1962 to its formulation, revision, and halting implementation in 1963, and on to its cancellation under President Johnson in the spring of 1964. An Epilogue considers its half-life in books and films, in retrospectives and commemorations of the Kennedy presidency, and in contemporary debates about America and its use of military force. In all, it is a study of Kennedy’s commitment to Vietnam as viewed through lens of his planning to withdraw from it.

Excerpted from THE KENNEDY WITHDRAWAL: CAMELOT AND THE AMERICAN COMMITMENT TO VIETNAM, by Marc J. Selverstone, published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2022 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved.