elwaclaret wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2023 11:46 pm
Bobby like JFK were very different people to their public persona’s. There has been a lot of the American martyr mythology about the Kennedy’s. They were politicians, sometimes they got stuff right but Bobby was a Hawk… played a big role in the Bay of Pigs disaster, Laos and later Vietnam escalation (propping up puppet rulers) and as a Hawk for a time seriously considered nuking China in preparation for an invasion from Taiwan into Laos… the path set by Truman (who Mao approached for help) and Eisenhower whose constant political interference created Communists out of pot heads happy in the mountains.
They had some very good speech writers… three who were with them at all times. They were fascinating people, but they were Joe’s children… hey were hardly ‘the guys’ they were the firm.
I’ve done a couple of papers on JFK with full University Access to official archives…
Interesting and complicated family.
I have to take issue with you regarding your statements that Bobby Kennedy was a hawk in the Bay of Pigs disaster, Laos and later Vietnam escalation. I grant that RFK was Attorney General in his brother’s administration from 1961 to 1964 and was acting as an advisor to JFK during the bay of Pigs operation, but he left office in 1964 to become Senator for New York in January 1965 until his death in June 1968. Laos and the escalation of Vietnam war took place under Johnson’s administration, when RFK was on the outside looking in. Johnson hated RFK, the feeling was in fact mutual, and would not have him anywhere near his cabinet, calling him “the Kennedy runt” in private circles.
RFK was in fact a strong opponent of America’s bombing of North Vietnam in particular and made speeches to this effect in his time as Senator for New York. As as a Senator he tended to stick to domestic matters such as Gun Control, Civil Rights and the War on Poverty, when asked about the Vietnamese War he was considered a dove by the Johnson Administration. Even when JFK started to send in military advisors to Vietnam, RFK was not involved in this area of policy.
I did a quick read of his Wiki biography and will now quote directly from this....as you say yourself “only wiki but still makes the point”:
“The JFK administration had backed U.S involvement in South East Asia, but RFK was not known to be involved in discussions on the Vietnam War when he was his brother’s Attorney General.
By April 1965, as a Senator, RFK was advocating a halt to the bombing to Johnson, who himself acknowledged that Kennedy played a part in influencing his choice to temporarily cease bombing the following month. RFK publicly cautioned Johnson against sending combat troops to Vietnam as early as 1965.
In December 1965, RFK advised his friend Robert Macnamara, the Defence Secretary, that he should advise Johnson to declare a ceasefire in Vietnam and a bombing pause in North Vietnam in order to take up an offer by the Algerian government to serve as an honest broker in peace talks.
In January 1966, RFK said in a speech on the Senate Floor, “If we regard bombing is the answer in Vietnam, we are headed straight for disaster”.
In March 1968, RFK called the war “the greatest kind of error” in a speech in Corvallis, Oregon.
In an interview on June 4th just hours before he was shot dead RFK continued to advocate a total change in policy towards the war in Vietnam.”
To reiterate, RFK was not in power nor had any influence on the Johnson policy in Vietnam whilst he was was Senator from 1964 to 1968, and having lived through the Vietnam War myself, watching the news and reporting every night on TV , I can never remember RFK ever being considered a hawk on Laos, Vietnam etc, just the opposite he always advocated a rapid, peaceful settlement in Vietnam.
Dear readers, please excuse the length of this post, but clarification was needed.
