Vito wrote:
One of the most disgraceful moments in American history came when the
anti-war movement(s) blamed the military for the 'Nam war instead of the
real perp's - NcNamara, Bunker and the rest of JFK's whiz kids.

??? Hardly. The Dulles brothers stand closer to the top of that list
than them.


To refresh your memories, Ho & Co didn't know what to do after ousting the
French.

??? What alternate history is this? They did indeed know what to do:
proceed with the establishment of communist states in the rest of
Southeast Asia.

... Western democracies clearly offered their people better lives than
the USSR or China but we had ignored his pleas for help. So, at Ike's
suggestion he decided to give both a try then let the people decide -
Commist north, Capitalist south, and reunification elections in (IIRC) five
years.

Excuse me, that was not Ho's plan, that was the U.N. Ho was actively
trying to establish a communist gov't (subservient to him of course) in
the south.

Apparently you have forgotten that Ho was trained by the Soviets and was
a dedicated communist revolutionary.

... But JFK's support for the corrupt but Catholic Diem regime had
Buddists (the majority) burning themselves in protest and, by the time he
went to Dallas, polls showed Commies by a landslide.

???

Where are you getting this malarkey? The southern Vietnamese disliked
and distrusted the Communists from the git-go, and furthermore the south
was swamped with refugees fleeing Ho's gov't. The reunification
plebescite was never held in the north, and attempts to hold it in the
south were disrupted by communist guerillas.


... JFK had a rep for
letting Kruchev bitch-slap us around

umm, yeah, that's certainly the truth... not

DSK