DR. JOHN NEWMAN joins S.T. Patrick to discuss the 2017 updated and expanded edition of his classic work, JFK & Vietnam. Dr. Newman’s work was the main inspiration for the Vietnam sections of Oliver Stone’s JFK. We recorded nearly three hours of material with Dr. Newman, but we have decided to divide the recording into two episodes – this one and an episode on JFK, Oswald Cuba, and the CIA, which we will air in October. In this episode, Dr. Newman details the situation in Vietnam that was inherited by Kennedy’s new administration, Kennedy’s intentions, the idea of Vietnam as unwinnable, the war with the Joint Chiefs, and the evolution of Dr. Newman’s relationship with Robert McNamara.
Dr. Newman can be read and contacted at www.jfkjmn.com.
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This wonderfully comprehensive interview covers the essentials of JFK’s Vietnam policy, and the changes made to his policy by LBJ immediately after his death. The interview also addresses two new topics that may be unfamiliar to those who have only read the original, 1992 cloth edition of “JFK and Vietnam:” first, the attempted suppression of the manuscript prior to publication by the Army and the NSA, and the actual suppression of the book by its own publisher, Warner Books, soon after publication; and second, John Newman’s evolving relationship with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara shortly before and after the publication of his seminal book.
Newman’s book “JFK and Vietnam” is a story of deception and dishonesty at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the national security establishment. Knowing that JFK made a final decision in November of 1961 (via NSAM 111) against the use of combat troops in Vietnam—and would not change his mind about that afterwards—the Pentagon and key Federal government civilians intentionally lied to President Kennedy about the supposed “success” of the expanded U.S. advisory effort throughout all of 1962 and most of 1963, in an attempt to prevent his early withdrawal from and abandonment of that effort. JFK, in a political ju-jitsu move, used the Pentagon’s lies about our supposed success in Vietnam throughout 1962 and 1963 to justify a concrete withdrawal order in October of 1963 (via NSAM 263). It is a shocking tale of deception and intrigue at the highest levels of government, with strong lessons for future politicians and policymakers.
Although I do not have a personal relationship with John Newman, I feel a profound intellectual kinship with him because of the integrity of his scholarship. His book “JFK and Vietnam” was a paradigm-buster, in the sense that it destroyed forever the false myth of “JFK-LBJ continuity in Vietnam policy.” Newman’s thesis was confirmed just a few years after he completed his manuscript by the publication of Robert McNamara’s Vietnam memoir.
Newman’s work on Vietnam was used as a principal source by me in Volume V of my own book “Inside the Assassination Records Review Board,” and especially in my e-book titled “JFK’s War With the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated.”
I highly recommend this succinct one-hour interview of John Newman by S.T. Patrick; send the link to all of your friends and relatives—and post it on your Facebook page.
Thanks