[Vision2020] Presidential Rankings (2009)

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Wednesday 18 February 2009 11:11:50 Kai Eiselein wrote:
> Let's not forget JFK's additon of thousands of "advisers" to Vietnam that
> directly preceded the full scale "police action".

Yes, Kennedy sent combat troops to Vietnam in 1961, following the policy 
Eisenhower set in his first term of office to send advisers to South Vietnam 
following the Vietnamese Nationalist (and Communist-led) Vietminh army's 
victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Don't forget that recently 
Eisenhower had been Supreme Allied Commander of all European forces, 
successfully prosecuting World War II in Europe, before his promotion to 
Commander in Chief of all U.S. forces world-wide. So, attempting to pin 
today's anti-war sentiments on Navy veteran President Kennedy, who acted less 
than a generation after the end of World War II, and less than a decade after 
the Korean police action, in the wake of World War II commander Eisenhower's 
policies, is to follow the historically dangerous practice of projecting 
modern attitudes backward onto different historical eras where those 
attitudes are most likely not applicable, nor likely appreciated by those 
still living who remember those days as clearly as some more recent ones.


Ken