"LLoyd Bonafide" wrote
If only McArthur was allowed to invade China and if only Goldwater was
elected so we could nuke the Cong the world would be a much better place.

I know that you're pulling out collective leg but the notion that Goldwater
would have "nuked the Cong" was pure Democrat campaign propaganda. When aked by
the press, Goldwater said that, as only a senator, he lacked the intel info
needed to decide what to do about the Vietnam situation of that time - that he
would either pull the few "advisors" we had there out or quit fooling around and
win the war. LBJ seized on the last to paint Goldwater a warmonger, vowing "I
will not send your son to vietnam" - a promise he soon forgot.

It is probable that, given the way JFK had bungled situation at the time,
Goldwater would have simply left and there would never have been a Vietnam war.