When Kennedy became President in January 1961 he had already as simulated his own ideas and views on where America was going wrong in its foreign policy. His views could be seen to be moulded, from a family friend Senator Jospeh McCarthy who was fanatically anti- communist. Kennedy believed communism had to be contained by America and firmly believed in Eisenhower's domino theory. Kennedy was not a stranger to condemning past Presidents of there polices, such as Truman who he blamed for losing China in 1949 and Eisenhower's for losing his initiative in foreign policy.
This condemnation of policies, speeches and actions would come back to haunt Kennedy as historians now gather information on his own pitfalls during his administration. Due to Kennedy's young age he did not have a vast amount of experience, this ultimately in many ways led Kennedy into becoming a prisoner of his own Cold War campaign rhetoric-designed to win votes. This inevitably dug himself a hole, as he had promised America that he would seek and destroy communism with his dynamic foreign policy he was duty-bound to increase defence expenditure and foreign involvement.Many historians would agree that another reason why Kennedy got involved with Vietnam was that he was only to aware of previous Presidents who had failed to spot potential problems in their early stages and end up losing their faith of the American public.
Kennedy was under pressure from not only his own beliefs but also the promises made to the American people, and so in sense had to make a name for himself that he was up to the job.This eagerness to impress at the start of his presidency was clearly evident with him displaying signs of impatience, which were criticised by his own brother on the way the President sough to seek advice on foreign affairs with him preferring to seek advice from in his close circle of friends within the Defence Department such as Robert McNamara, rather than the State Department. Coincidentally these two departments had different ideas on how to cope with situations, with the defence department preferring a military solution.During Kennedy's Presidency he had many advisors at his disposal but there are many, which were more influential than others. These advisors gave the information for which ultimately increased Kennedy's involvement and belief that any involvement in Vietnam would be successful.
An advisor like Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was seen as a valuable asset by Kennedy and was handpicked by Kennedy to be offered the job of Defence Secretary.The character of Robert McNamara was that he was dynamic; tough talking, fluent, competent and down to earth, McNamara was the only cabinet member to become part of the charmed social circle around the president. He was also a good friend with Bobby Kennedy who said he is "the most dangerous man in the cabinet because he is persuasive and articulate". This could be argued for the reason which tipped the scales for Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam, as McNamara statistically had everything in control and published his findings to Kennedy on what would be enough to win in guerrilla war fare.
Robert McNamara could also been seen as a pitfall to Kennedy as statistically McNamara failed to eliminate the fact that poorly armed Viet Cong would be willing fight to the death for independence. When looking at the Secretary of State Dean Rusk we begin to realise how dominant Kennedy was in his quest to personally achieve successes in foreign policy. This was purely a position, which had to be filled, and Kennedy felt that by filling it with the self-effacing Rusk seemed a good choice. Dean Rusk found how dominant Kennedy was when they met for the first time he told a friend "Kennedy and I simply found it impossible to communicate.He didn't understand me and I didn't understand him". Dean Rusk was irritated that his position seemed to carry no weight at all as when he produced finding s of options and opinions they wee not listened to.
Rusk felt this was totally amateurish as his boss preferred to listen to his brother rather than State Department Experts. Already we can see how Kennedy was developing very one sided views on options of his foreign policy which clearly did not open his eyes to all of the options which were available and the most importantly would it have led to so much involvement in Vietnam.This essay so far has established how Kennedy has been persuaded to approach Vietnam policy combined with a very bias and non-sceptical approach of the likely hood of anything going wrong and the possible back up scenarios. We must remember that Kennedy's most trusted advisors were military ones which would go in the line of the precedent of any battles within America's foreign policy would be military ones.
With Kennedy's rhetoric in the domino theory, he had to show the American people that he was willing to back up his rhetoric with action.This action was known as the Bay of Pigs, which occurred in Cuba 1961. This Bay of Pigs fiasco bore many of the characteristics of the subsequent Vietnam experience. In Cuba, as in Vietnam, Kennedy felt compelled to support an enterprise to which his predecessor had committed America and which took the form of military opposition to a popular nationalist leader who was also a Communist.
As always there was dissent within the Kennedy administration over Cuba as over Vietnam.This ultimately led to their actions being neither systematically though out, nor exhaustively discussed by all who may have contributed to the idea. This failure at the Bay of Pigs naturally had an impact on US policy toward other Third World countries, including Laos. When Kennedy started to look at the Military options the alarm bells have started to ring as even when Kennedy stepped up financial aid to enable Diem to increase his army, he was still losing ground to a mere 12,000 Vietcong's compared to his quarter of a million soldiers.
It seemed this guerrilla warfare was working very well and was going to take more soldiers than a quarter of a million to dispose of this 12,000. This kind of warfare baffled the Americans as they tried various ways of getting the better of these Vietcong's from using napalm and defoliants on trees to enable better aerial observation. Kennedy supported Diem as he felt that he could bore the front of any human casualties for which South Vietnam would take. Whilst America would bear the financial costs.This agreement was clearly not working between the two and was not moving as fast as Kennedy would have liked. America offered advice to Diem to which most of the time he ignored or were poorly put into practice.
Most memorable of these was the policy in 1962 of "strategic hamlets", which were for villages to be fortified and hopefully Vietnamese peasants would be isolated. This idea was put into practice by Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who ignored the US advice whilst establishing these hamlets.Thus in doing so within a year they had been overrun and the Vietcong had gained American Arms. This policy although very clever did not really take into consideration that people are more willing to support someone for whom they are pleased, and so with these towns being fortified they lost their ancestral land and farms.
It was also made apparent that Diem's brother had purposefully made these towns easy to be overcome, as at heart he was a communist. When looking at Kennedy's support of Diem we can see that they did have many things in common particularly their faith (Catholics).It was also made clear by Kennedy to a journalist friend that he would fail to be re-elected if he did not have any success in Vietnam after so much time and money and been spent. This friendship could have been seen as no more than convenient as it built a bridging ground between the two leaders, but nothing more. Diem's refusal to cooperate with the French and little progress made with the Americans, was unforgivable, this made little shock to Kennedy when he was assassinated.
This ironically would be the way that Kennedy would meet his end to. It has become apparent that these two men's failures to negotiate an outcome caused their untimely deaths. When looking at President Kennedy's first term of presidency he had not really achieved much, he had merely trundled over ground previous Presidents had made and added to their mistakes. His first term of Presidency I feel showed his lack of experience and inability to listen and base and all round judgement of what was going on around him.
This one-eyed way of looking at things clearly did not give him the clear picture, which was needed. This string of unsuccessful events starting with the Bay of Pigs did not really portray his envisaged picture at the start of his campaign of making the world a free and democratic one. Person ally this is why I feel it is unlikely that he would have pulled out of Vietnam as he could not have possibly been elected again if he failed in Vietnam, and also would have been slammed for being as bad as Truman and Eisenhower causing him to be a hypocrite in his own right.In conclusion Kennedy had the passion and enthusiasm to do a great job, unfortunately his lack of experience and stature did not really scare many people thus not really matching the title of President of America and promoter of the free world. He increasingly became reliant on his unorthodox sources, which allowed him to be dragged into the vortex of the Vietnam War.
In hindsight it is easy to be critical of a President but it is even easier to do so when a President is totally one minded and not open-minded.
