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- [00:01]
Don Wildman
Yeah, sure thing.
- [00:02]
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- [00:04]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, sold it to Carvana.
- [00:06]
Advertiser 1
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- [00:09]
Frederick Logavel
The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months. Yeah, no. Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient. Just like that? Yeah.
- [00:22]
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- [00:23]
Frederick Logavel
None.
- [00:24]
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- [00:30]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:35]
Don Wildman
The weather had changed that day from overcast gray to a bright, beautiful autumn sun. Gleeful crowds lined the streets in downtown Dallas as the film spools forth. The motorcade is seen gliding around the corner slowly and the young President John Kennedy, side by side with his wife in the rear seat of the limousine, bathed in sepia tones in the last flush of a more hopeful era, smiles and begins to wave. We all know what happened next. We all know how the world changed that day, how history followed a new course afterwards and forevermore. But what if it had gone differently that tragic day in November 1963? What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed or his gun jammed or a dozen other possibilities? What then? What if JFK hadn't died? Hello, everybody, I'm Don Wildman. Welcome back to American History hit. Thanks for listening. Today we are in the realm of the counterfactual, asking the burning question, what if President John Kennedy had lived? What if Dallas never happened? What if those shots had missed? Of all the forks in the road that appear on that fateful day, one of the big questions seems to be, would Kennedy have started a war in Vietnam? Many people argue this point, questioning whether he would have or would have not. But we have an excellent guest today to discuss this interesting question in the person of Frederick Logavel, historian at Harvard, a leading authority on JFK and the Vietnam War. His 2013 book Embers of the Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam won the Pulitzer Prize. Wow. He is currently working on a three volume biography of jfk. The first volume, Coming of Age in the American century, published in 2020. Volume two is out next year. Dr. Logavel is a former guest on American History hit back in 2023 and here back again. Thank you very much for joining us.
- [03:52]
Frederick Logavel
Oh, I'm pleased to be with you, Don.
- [03:54]
Don Wildman
Counterfactuals I know can bother established historians, so thank you for indulging us today.
- [04:00]
Frederick Logavel
Well, I'm happy to do it. I should tell you right off the top that to my students I make the argument, and I should really also make this argument to my colleagues, some of whom are skeptical. But to the students I say counterfactuals. Actually, if you do them carefully and there are some ground rules, help us better understand what did happen in history. In other words, they have real utility. It's not just a parlor game of, you know, suppose Napoleon had had nuclear weapons at Waterloo. No, we can actually learn more about what happened in history. And so they have real importance.
- [04:31]
Don Wildman
Well, it's very kind of poignant actually in the case of JFK because he was so young. And it's a interesting to question what he would have done with the second half of his life, never mind with these critical decisions. For the purpose of this discussion, which is all about Vietnam, let's walk through a bit of the timeline that many Americans, even our listeners, are unfamiliar with or forget about, which is that the American war in Vietnam was really part two of a conflict that had been going on since really the 40s. That begins really from 1946 until 54 when France, which was the colonizing force in Vietnam, was fighting the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, for the control of Vietnam. That's where it begins. Can you walk us through the real headlines at that point?
- [05:17]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I think you've summarized the key points very well. France having been humiliated in World War II, losing to the Germans in six weeks, then seeing Japan swoop in and basically take Indochina. France was determined after World War II to reclaim Indochina. It was going to be a jewel in the empire and that's what they set out to do. The war, as you said, really begins in earnest in late 1946 against Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary forces. And it's an epic war lasts almost eight years. The French win more battles than they lose, but over time they lose ground. And what happens in 1954 is a climactic, epic battle at Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam, at which the French are defeated. It's symbolically, I think, the end of the war. And then the United States faces a very important choice because Vietnam is divided into, supposedly temporarily, the 17th parallel with a non communist government in the south under Ngo Dinh Diem and Ho Chi Minh's government in the north and the US Under Eisenhower faces a very important decision. What do we do? And they make the fateful choice to try to build up and to sustain this southern bastion. And that sets us on our way to what becomes later an insurgency. And then as that insurgency builds, a fellow named John F. Kennedy is taking office as America's 35th president.
- [06:47]
Don Wildman
The Domino theory has been cited as the reason for this stand we're making there, which really goes back to Truman. Vietnam was seen as the domino that would fall and off we go to the Philippines and so forth. And it was important, vital that we make our stand here fateful. What's the difference between Viet Minh and Viet Cong?
- [07:07]
Frederick Logavel
So the Viet Minh is the name given really to what is formally known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, that is to say Ho Chi Minh's government. So we could refer to the Viet Minh as the military arm, if that helps, of the drv. And then Viet Cong is a derogatory term really coined by Diem's government in South Vietnam to refer to the Vietnamese Communists. So you could think of it as a shortening of Vietnamese Communists.
- [07:34]
Don Wildman
Oh, interesting.
- [07:35]
Frederick Logavel
So they're not quite the same, but from an American perspective, from a non communist South Vietnamese perspective, they are in a sense the same, or at least they are. One is a continuation of the other.
- [07:47]
Don Wildman
That's really interesting. It's very important to sort of see this in three parts, I guess, that you have the French war there and then the American sort of in between this from 1960 onward until really 1965, which is when LBJ commits new troops to this thing and everything gets escalated right through the later part of the 60s into the 70s. That's really important to understand because this period we're going to talk about, the counterfactual we've introduced really determines whether or not we go or we don't, based on JFK's outlook of things.
- [08:20]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I think that's a very good way of putting it. I've referred to the period after the French Defeat as a kind of interregnum, which I think is consistent with what you're saying with this second phase. And it's often, if not forgotten, understandably, it's not given very much attention a lot of the time because people are eager to get to 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin or let's say 63 under Kennedy and then the coup against Diem. We can talk about all of this. But I think you're right to see, in a sense, three phases of the struggle.
- [08:51]
Don Wildman
So what were JFK's views of this issue in real life in around 1951? He goes to Vietnam, doesn't he?
- [08:58]
Frederick Logavel
He goes. It's so interesting, Don, he goes there with his brother Bobby and their sister Patricia. He's a congressman still wet behind the ears. Really goes there in 51. So this is in the midst of the French war. He meets with French officials, he meets with their South Vietnamese supporters. And what's so fascinating about this to me, and I've written about this, including in volume one of the biography, he's a skeptic. He determines that, you know, Western military might is not going to be a match for Ho Chi Minh's revolution. Especially now that Ho can depend on support from the Chinese. Let's remember that Mao's communist forces have won the Chinese civil war. So now Ho and the DRV can count on substantial support from the Chinese. It's not going to match what the Americans give to the French, not even close. But Kennedy, young Congressman Kennedy is just skeptical that there is a military solution here, not just for the French, I suggest, but for any Western power. And so what happens is that Kennedy, during the course of the 1950s, doesn't, it seems to me, abandon this skepticism. In other words, it's always there under the surface. But he's now running for President. He knows that staunch anti Communism is a requirement if you're running for President, especially if you're a Democrat, because the Republicans are very good at beating you over the head with the soft on Communism club. And so it's fascinating to see him again, not, it seems to me, abandon his private misgivings about a military solution in Vietnam, but begin to speak a different public message. So he's very supportive of Ngo Dinh Diem, who's a fellow Catholic, and tones down his apprehensions about defending South Vietnam.
- [10:51]
Don Wildman
What is the actual purpose of the journey there? I mean, he's going there on a fact finding mission, I suppose, right?
- [10:57]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, he's taken a massive tour of the type that Congressmen used to be able to take in those days, they no longer do. I think they were gone for five or six weeks in various countries in South Asia and East Asia, Southeast Asia. So it was a long trip. He was gearing up for a Senate race the next year against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. He needed to show his foreign policy credentials. That meant traveling and they hit these countries. But I suggest even at the time, even at the time, Kennedy understood that Indochina was going to be more important than these other places. And of course, he turned out to be right about that.
- [11:36]
Don Wildman
It's pretty extraordinary to think that especially John Kennedy, a famous war hero From World War II, at this time of supreme American power, would have questioned whether or not we could win against a small country like this. How did he find this out? How did he develop this feeling? Were the French failing so badly at that point?
- [11:54]
Frederick Logavel
No. I mean, I think that in broad terms they were steadily losing ground, but they were not actually failing. They had a very dynamic French commander in General de Lattre who was actually scoring some successes. I think it went back to Kennedy's experience in World War II. He had served as you know, in the South Pacific. I think even though he understood that the United States was going to come out of the war, Second World War, as the supreme power in the world, he had no doubt about that. He also, however, I think, concluded, and this is evident from his letters home, that he had a pretty low view of the military brass. He wasn't sure, in fact, that you could use military technology to solve political problems. He was skeptical of that even during the war. And I think that that emerges afterwards. The other factor I would add is that he comes to believe by 1950, 51, that revolutionary nationalism, that the ferment in the colonial world is going to be incredibly powerful. And not only the United States, but other Western powers, including the colonial powers themselves, needed to understand this, needed to understand the power that people like Ho could have in arguing for Vietnamese, in this case Vietnamese independence.
- [13:11]
Don Wildman
How much was Korea playing a role in this at this point?
- [13:14]
Frederick Logavel
Korea, I think, matters, of course, greatly. It matters maybe somewhat less in Kennedy's formulation, but I think by the time we get into 1953, 54, and let's note this in 1954, which I talk about in embers of war, the United States, I argue, comes pretty close to intervening militarily to try to save the French position at Dien Bien. For if Eisenhower had been able to do that, we would be talking about an American born Vietnam that began a decade earlier than it did. Korea matters there. Because I think one reason why Kennedy and other senators are skeptical is because they don't really want another Korea. They don't want US Ground forces or maybe even US Air power involved in this case in Indochina so soon after the truce in Korea, which happened in 1953.
- [14:10]
Don Wildman
There are those even today who consider Vietnam not the disaster that everyone thinks of it as. You know, that this was a chess game being played and that we contained them one way or the other from spreading onward. Did JFK subscribe to the idea of this strategy or not?
- [14:29]
Frederick Logavel
That's a really good question. I think to a degree he did. It's, of course, connected with the domino theory that you referred to earlier. I think for a time he subscribed to that theory. The idea being that if one country falls, then all the countries around it will eventually fall, like in a row of dominoes famously articulated by Eisenhower. Though, as you pointed out, Don, it really existed, the thinking existed before the theory was articulated. I think over time, Kennedy became more, and certainly by the time he was president, became more skeptical about this thing called the domino theory. He thought it was too mechanistic. Rightly, in my view. He thought really what happens in one country depends on the conditions in that country, not what's happening next door. So it was there. And I think this idea that the United States was helping to save countries around South Vietnam, to some degree, I think he bought into that, at least for a time.
- [15:24]
Don Wildman
I'm tempted to imagine that he would have been one of those who understood the difference between a World War II victory in which is total unconditional surrender versus this sort of police action type of stuff, which is, I guess, what the American military was seeing our role in the world becoming, you know, with a dominant theory that we'd be taking part in smaller wars elsewhere and not declaring them ourselves.
- [15:47]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I think that's a really good summation, and I think he did buy into this. He wanted, in fact, when he became president, he wanted what was called a flexible response. He wanted the United States to have the means, the capacity to intervene in smaller conflicts. He thought that Eisenhower was too dependent on nukes, on massive retaliation, as it was called. And so some have suggested that this means that Kennedy was eager as president to get the United States involved in these police actions, as you call them. I don't think that's quite right, because there's always this underlying skepticism about using military means, especially against nationalist forces. I think he was dubious about that. So there's a certain Tension in his thinking on this point.
- [16:36]
Don Wildman
So is it fair to say he comes home from this more than month long trip with a negative view of the US presence or possible presence in Vietnam?
- [16:46]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I think that's correct. I think he makes very clear, he gives public speeches. So by the way, this is not just private stuff. He gives a speech in Boston, here in Boston, in which he basically says that it would be a mistake in so many words for the United States to ally itself to the forces of colonialism. We would be on the wrong side of history if we did this.
- [17:07]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [17:07]
Frederick Logavel
He does not think that the French can prevail even with American help. That's my reading of that period.
- [17:14]
Don Wildman
Well, he's certainly right about the French. And by 1961 when he is in office, he's faced with that fateful decision over whether or not to go to war in a Southeast Asian country falling on the brink of communism. Tell us about Laos. You know, we talk about Vietnam as if it's an isolated thing. We have Laos and Cambodia and all the rest of it. But that really played a role in this, didn't it?
- [17:37]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, Laos, as you say, we often forget about it. It's really important. When Kennedy takes office In January of 1961, Eisenhower tells him that in fact Laos is the keystone in the arch. Laos is the key to this whole thing. And what's happening in Laos is that there's a communist insurgency. It's more and more powerful. It looks possible that it's going to fall, if you will, and that, that. And then the United States is going to be left holding the bag. It's going to have to send forces to LA and indeed in 61, under John F. Kennedy, senior advisers tell him, Mr. President, we really think we should commit ground forces to Laos. So he's getting that pressure even from his own aides, and he refuses. He opts instead to seek a negotiated settlement. I don't think he's under any illusions that the various sides will respect the negotiated settlement, but it'll take the pressure off. And indeed there is a solution at Geneva and that removes Laos, in a sense from top of the list, if I can put it that way. And then South Vietnam steadily assumes this greater importance.
- [18:49]
Don Wildman
Negotiating with whom?
- [18:50]
Frederick Logavel
Negotiations between the forces, the non communist forces and the communist forces, but also involving the great powers. And so it's a Geneva settlement that is reached basically to have for the indefinite future a negotiated settlement in Laos that both sides begin, including the Pathet Lao, which is the. The communist force begin to violate and so Laos never really has a holding peace, if I can put it that way, in the. In the years to follow.
- [19:23]
Don Wildman
Yeah. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [19:32]
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- [19:55]
Frederick Logavel
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- [20:02]
Don Wildman
Forever.
- [20:03]
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- [20:52]
Frederick Logavel
After Dark Myths, misdeeds and the Paranormal is a podcast that.
- [20:56]
Don Wildman
Delves into the dark side of history.
- [20:59]
Frederick Logavel
Expect murder and conspiracy, ghosts and witches. I'm Anthony Delaney.
- [21:05]
Don Wildman
And I'm Maddie Pelling. We're historians and the hosts of After Dark. From History Hit, where every Monday and.
- [21:12]
Frederick Logavel
Thursday we enter the shadows of the past, discover the secrets of the darker side of history. On After Dark from history Hit wherever.
- [21:21]
Don Wildman
You get your podcasts. JFK meets with Khrushchev. I was surprised and had to be reminded of this. 1961 in Vienna. What happens in that conference?
- [21:40]
Frederick Logavel
Well, he's new to the office during the campaign against Nixon, which is just an absolutely fascinating presidential campaign that I've been writing about. During that campaign, not just Republicans, but even Democratic allies are saying, is this guy too young? Does he have what it takes? Will he be able to stand up to the Kremlin, et cetera. And so I think Kennedy feels pressure. Add to this the fact that he's just had the Bay of Pigs disaster, this effort, as you know, to overthrow Castro's government, it's just an embarrassment, complete disaster. This adds to the stakes of this Vienna summit conference with the Soviet leader. You know, it's sometimes said that Kennedy was ill prepared for that summit. I don't think that's true. John F. Kennedy was always prepared. But I do think the bullying that Khrushchev engaged in was something that he was not expecting. So he was on his heels in a certain way. And I think he came out of that with a sense that he needed to prove the United States needed to prove its commitment to the west, to the Cold War. And South Vietnam was a place where, I think he determined he needed the show. It was available to him, if I can put it that way, as a place to show this American commitment, at least to some degree affected by this Vienna summit meeting.
- [23:10]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Summer of 1963, between 61 and 63, their advisors have been sent in. There is a beginning of an American presence there. The war is not going well. There's been a worldwide condemnation based on very famously, these monks who've been self immolating in the streets there. Those pictures were horrifying. A lot of protest has been going on about what is happening here as the United States inflicts itself upon this land. Kennedy comes up with a withdrawal plan or not?
- [23:40]
Frederick Logavel
Oh, very good question. One thing we should say very quickly here is that 1962 is critical because it's in 62 that this skeptical Kennedy, if I'm right about him, and I think I am this skeptical Kennedy, nevertheless, notwithstanding that skepticism, expands U.S. involvement quite substantially. 1962 is a critical year because that's where you see a lot more advisors sent aircraft, ammunition, weaponry and so on in 62. And then, as you say, 63 comes in and we've got the Buddhist crisis that you refer to and a lot going on. I think he is interested in having some means by which the United States can withdraw. So I think there is the beginnings at least of a withdrawal plan. And there are people who have latched onto this and said, ah, you see, he had begun a withdrawal even before his death. I'm not persuaded. I think that argument goes too far. I think it was a kind of contingency plan. He had no desire to be in Vietnam long term. I think he liked the idea of having a plan to get out. Robert McNamara, famously a hawk on the war in many respects. McNamara told him, we need to have a plan to get out of this. McNamara, I think, was not the true believer that many people suggest. So it's a long way of saying, Don, that I think there is a general inclination. Maybe that's the way of putting it, to find a way out. But I think it's dependent upon. This is the key point. It's dependent upon the South Vietnamese military turning this around with American assistance and being able to hold down its defenses without U.S. involvement.
- [25:36]
Don Wildman
November 1963, obviously, is the critical moment. We remember it as the assassination. But something else happened in there. Another assassination in South Vietnam. The leader is killed. How much do the. I mean, this. Now you begin to creep into the conspiracy theory. You know, it seems pretty incredible that these two major events of two world leaders being being killed in the same month are not related in some way. That's where you. That's where you can take off. So let's discuss, first of all, what is that assassination? The real facts of it.
- [26:08]
Frederick Logavel
Well, for several months, the United States in so beginning really in the summer, during the Buddhist crisis, secret US Deliberations, top levels of the American government are debating do we need to get a new leader? Do we need to replace Diem? They're very concerned also about his brother, who's highly influential. So it's really the two no brothers that are a concern for the United States. Little by little, Kennedy commits himself to a change in government. This is a fascinating story, but it culminates, as you say, on November 1st in a coup against Diem and his brother. The following day they are brutally killed. And the United States has given the green light, as it say, as the saying goes to these coup plotters who are dissident members of the South Vietnamese military.
- [27:02]
Don Wildman
So the rationale.
- [27:04]
Frederick Logavel
The rationale is that the war can't be won under Diem, that he's losing ground, that he lacks popular support, that his brother in particular is a problem. There's a side little note, which is that Nu, the brother, has made some noises about perhaps negotiating a settlement to end the war. That also makes the United States nervous. Put all of this together and you get ultimately this agreement to approve the coup. One large question here, Don, is did John F. Kennedy anticipate that Tsiam Nhu would be killed? It's impossible to know. It would have been rather naive of him not to expect that that could happen. It is notable that Henry Cabot Lodge, the Saigon ambassador, offered Diem a safe passage out of Vietnam as the coup was starting. Diem refused. What everyone might say about Ngo Dinh Diem. He did not lack personal courage. So he said, no, I'm going to restore the situation. I'm staying here. On the 4th of November, in a remarkable Dictation of the type that John F. Kennedy sometimes did. Kennedy speaks into a recorder, reflecting. This is just two days after reflecting on what happened. He says, we bear a good responsibility, a deal of responsibility for this. And of course, we listening to this tape, which is available on the Web, we know that he himself is gonna be killed in about two weeks. I mean, it's just an extraordinary moment.
- [28:36]
Don Wildman
It makes you tremble. It really does. It's so weird. And irony is the weakest word of it all, but it's an incredible lineup of events. So now we move into this counterfactual land, as you say. Three weeks later, JFK himself is killed. There are many, as I mentioned at the top of the show, who draw a direct link between his position and decisions about Vietnam, where it's all heading, and his assassination. Where do you think JFK was on the question of whether to escalate the war at that point, when he died? Exactly.
- [29:11]
Frederick Logavel
My argument is that he was opposed to a drastic escalation at the time of his death. And I've written about this in a few different places. And I argue that that skepticism that we saw already in 1951, as we discussed earlier 12 years before, had never really gone away. And I think he believed at the time of his death that the United States could be of assistance to South Vietnam. But they were the ones, as he himself put it, they're the ones who were going to have to win this war. I think he was still committed to that proposition, which just sort of underscores this counterfactual question, given how critical the timing was of his death right after Diem had been killed. An insurgency that is exploding in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong are becoming stronger and stronger. It just raises the question for us, the inevitable question, what, you know, if. If. If the bullets had missed and he had returned from Dallas, what would have happened?
- [30:13]
Don Wildman
That quote is from an interview with Walter Cronkite, as I understand it, which is three months earlier, in September 63. He says, actually, in the final analysis, it is their war. If we withdrew, they are the ones who have to win it or lose it. But I skipped to the next part of the quote, which is, if we withdrew from Vietnam, the Communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya would go. I mean, he is as on the fence as the entire nation is. You know, this is the problem for America. As you thrust yourself forward as the superpower we've now become. We're caught in the middle of a lot of stuff, and this is the problem.
- [30:48]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I Mean, I play that interview with Cronkite, which is available on YouTube, and of course, one can read the printed version. But I play it for my students because in the same interview, in fact, within minutes of that, in the middle of that interview, he says it would be a mistake for us to withdraw, and yet they are the ones who have to win this. So he's. I don't think it's a contradiction, but it does speak to his ambivalence at this key moment in time.
- [31:15]
Don Wildman
I think it really kind of boils down to what would happen in 1965, JFK versus LBJ. You know, that's kind of the moment. Would he have gone the way LBJ does, which is to send in more troops or not, is the question. And it really dates back to 64. The election. @ that point, you know, once he wins the election, he's going to have more political momentum to do what he needs to do. It'll be a second term, all that.
- [31:38]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah. I mean, this is where we get to the heart of the counterfactual. And one of the reasons, by the way, why I think this one works, this particular counterfactual exercise works, is that it adheres to certain ground rules, one of them being that we're talking about a short period of time between the branching point, that is, the time that we depart from the historical reality and the climactic moment. So in this case, we're talking about 18 months, roughly from the time of Kennedy's assassination to the big Americanization decision under Johnson. Short period of time. It also helps us that the cast of characters mostly remains the same. It's not as though Johnson puts in a whole new cast of advisors. He keeps them. So they're all mostly still there. What I think is key here, and you alluded to this, is that for a surviving John F. Kennedy, the key decisions on Vietnam would have happened in his second and final term, when he could no longer run for reelection. I think that matters. Johnson could run for reelection in 1968, and I think he sees all of his Vietnam options as I've written about. I think Johnson sees them all through the lens of 1968 and certainly through the lens of domestic politics. So one of the reasons why I think there is a difference between these two men, and therefore the counterfactual plays out differently, is precisely for the reason you mentioned. Yeah, the 1964 election and then the 1968 election.
- [33:11]
Don Wildman
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [33:18]
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- [33:51]
Don Wildman
It's Holy Week in Jerusalem. The people want a messiah. Their leaders want an execution.
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- [34:00]
Don Wildman
Coming soon to theaters. The chosen Last Supper. Get your tickets now. Cynical as it is, JFK can afford to lose the war or at least be seen as withdrawing from the war. LBJ can't if he's going to win in 68.
- [34:22]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, the other thing I would say is that there, and this is a fascinating part of this is that and there's good evidence for this, Don. They're both, in fact, privately skeptical of the war. We have lots of quotes from Johnson. I don't believe it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out is one of the classic quotes from Johnson. A chilling quote from May of 1964. And there are others we could give. So both of them are, I think, skeptical of a military solution. And yet Johnson proceeds anyway. It's a fascinating part of this. I do think that Kennedy's doubts go deeper than Johnson's about Western military power and what it can accomplish. But the fact that they're more similar than different I think is interesting. One might think that Johnson must be gung ho, he must be a super hawk. He must be relishing the thought of a war quote. Quite the contrary.
- [35:20]
Don Wildman
Yeah. If listeners are waiting for us to talk about the counterfactual of the assassination, that's not what we're on today. We're talking about the counterfactual of JFK and his outlook on Vietnam. Why do you think JFK is such a good subject for counterfactual? I mean, I'll answer my own question. A young man still at that time, still forming opinions, still in a sort of dynamic moment in his life.
- [35:45]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, well, there's so much to this. And you know, he's forever frozen in our because the assassination was filmed by Zapruder. He's also kind of forever frozen in our minds as this 46 year old prime of life. I think many of us would say even Though he had had health challenges, he himself wasn't sure that he'd lived that long. But nevertheless, I think you're absolutely right. This young, vibrant president who had accomplished a great deal, who people hoped would accomplish a lot more, it feeds this idea that we need to grapple with this, we need to better understand this. Add to that what I said earlier, which is that the Kennedy counterfactual on Vietnam meets key ground rules for counterfactual analysis. You put those two things together and then a third thing, which is that this is a critical moment in the war and they're at sort of a fork in the road and it just enhances the historical importance of this moment. Hence, we want to consider the unrealized possibilities.
- [36:51]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it's very interesting to imagine that this president, who had been sent through such a torturous moment with the Cuban Missile crisis, never mind the Bay of Pigs as he came into office, sees the futility of all of this. The negotiation is necessary. And a relationship with the Soviet Union, as opposed to traditional domino theory.
- [37:11]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I mean, I think you allude to a very important, broader point, which is that Kennedy and Khrushchev, I give them both credit for this. They're beginning to rethink the Cold War, at least to a degree. They're beginning to realize that the kind of danger that the world was in during the Cuban Missile Crisis is something that can't be repeated. Steps have to be taken, that we're not in that kind of a position again.
- [37:37]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [37:37]
Frederick Logavel
And if you're beginning to rethink the Cold War, then various theaters of that Cold War, if we want to put it that way, including Southeast Asia, should also perhaps be rethought. Or should they? Maybe what it, maybe what it means is that the superpower relationship is going to be less tense, but the competition in the so called Third World will only ramp up in importance. That's another way of interpreting this.
- [38:03]
Don Wildman
Hindsight is 20 20. I mean, we see how it really worked out. Yes, we did develop a, you know, detente under Nixon. Presidents, you know, who probably learned a lot from how he remembered jfk. All of that happens. We end up with a failure in Vietnam that ends up being a relationship with Vietnam. It's incredibly. We can be very wise looking back. So true. Let's talk about JFK himself. What was the power of Camelot, had it been realized already? Where would he have gone had he lived onward?
- [38:36]
Frederick Logavel
Well, I'm thinking about this, obviously, as I start serious work on volume three of the biography, because I want to talk about that, Don, even though it's in the realm of speculation to a large degree. But there's no doubt that partly through Jackie, his wife's efforts, there was a special power in this Kennedy White House. I'm originally from Sweden, and though I was born in the year of his death, my parents, my late parents, would tell me about the Kennedys and the degree to which Swedes were just mesmerized by this couple and by the glamour of the White House. But not just the glamour, by the rhetoric that John F. Kennedy articulated, by his, in other words, his speech making, his idealism. When he says in his inaugural address, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, etc. That resonates not just in the United States, but in translation in countries around the world. And so it's a very powerful thing that I need to try to write about. And I do think it speaks to our subject today in terms of how he's going to make if he survives, if he comes back from Dallas, how will he confront the great decisions both in domestic politics and foreign policy later? 63, then 64, and then in a second term, I do think he would have won a second term. Signs are good for him for 64, but large questions for sure.
- [40:15]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Well, the effect of his charisma alone, let alone the wisdom of his words, had an effect after his death, for sure. I mean, my sister, for one, went right into the Peace Corps, which he had thought of during that campaign. And that generation of people, that baby boom generation, had a lot of little brothers and sisters. I being one of the youngest of that family. And here I am today. This is how long Kennedy has lasted through his effect on other generations. I would suggest that we are at the end of the Kennedy effect right now. It's lasted more than 50 years. It is a very pregnant moment, I suppose, we're talking about with the JFK files coming out. Thanks to all the rhetoric from the Trump administration, who knows what will really happen? But are you hopeful for more truth, or where do you think this will land?
- [41:06]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, I mean, I am hopeful for more truth. We should all be more hopeful for more truth. We should all hope for the release of all files, because the keeping of files under lock and key only fuels more conspiracies.
- [41:18]
Don Wildman
Sure.
- [41:19]
Frederick Logavel
I'm skeptical, I guess, that the files in question, which total now about 6,000, roughly speaking, because there were about 3,000 that were already being kept. And then we Learned that the FBI had all of a sudden found 2,400 more files. Oops. So we put those two together.
- [41:38]
Don Wildman
When you're talking about files, you're literally like boxes of papers that are on the shelves.
- [41:43]
Frederick Logavel
Boxes of papers on the shelves. It's possible that those 2,400 are copies of ones that they already had. So who knows? But, you know, I'm skeptical that the materials, when we do get them, will overturn our understanding of what happened in Dallas. I don't think there's a quote unquote smoking gun in there. But it's still very helpful to get this material. It won't end the conspiracy theorizing that's going to continue forever. But we could learn more about Oswald's whereabouts. We could learn more about what the CIA knew about his whereabouts. In other words, there could be useful information in this material and regardless, we should get it.
- [42:22]
Don Wildman
Yeah. Obviously what we're talking about throughout this whole conversation is the possibility that his position on Vietnam had a lot to do with him being taken out, presumably by dark forces within the military who didn't like that kind of strategy. But I doubt we're going to find anything in those files that says anything like that because that would have been definitely removed, in my opinion.
- [42:44]
Frederick Logavel
Yeah, no, I'm with you. And I'm also, I think, skeptical of that argument anyway, that Oliver Stone, for example, put forth in his movie and that others have put forth that somehow Kennedy's dovishness on Vietnam, that his determination to end the war, in fact, the argument is he'd already started to end it. Yeah, I just don't see evidence for that argument, which is separate from the question of what he would have done had he survived. My argument is that the best answer to the counterfactual, even if we can never be sure because it's a counterfactual. But the best argument is that a surviving John F. Kennedy would have avoided a large scale war in Vietnam. So I'm with Stone and others to that extent in terms of what he would have done had he returned.
- [43:27]
Don Wildman
And if the Cold War had ended, my goodness, how differently the next whole generation of folks would have been. Dr. Frederick Logvel is a historian at Harvard. Such a pleasure to have you back on the show. A real honor, actually. He is a leading authority on JFK and the Vietnam War, as you have already understood. Get the book Embers of the Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. But there's more to come. Currently he is at work in a three volume biography of JFK we've discussed already. One is already out a JFK coming of age in the American Century 2020 volume two out next year and then the third beyond that. Oh my goodness, we have a lot to look forward to.
- [44:08]
Frederick Logavel
Well, it's been just great to be with you. It's so easy don to chat with you and one could continue for hours.
- [44:14]
Don Wildman
But I don't know a lot. So it makes you feel very wise. Thank you so much, Fred. Nice to see you again.
- [44:20]
Frederick Logavel
My pleasure. Take care.
- [44:23]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me. Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.
- [44:58]
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