The latest eruption of John Kennedy
hysteria, bordering on deification, seems safely behind us now that the 50th
anniversary of his assassination has passed. Though there is much
disinformation about JFK’s legacy that could and should be discussed, two areas
stand out: his relationship to the Black Liberation Movement and his actions in
Southeast Asia.
Despite all the evidence to the
contrary, Kennedy has come to be seen as an ally of - even a hero of - the
Black Liberation Movement. In fact, he opposed both the goals and actions of
that movement from early in his term when terrorists were beating unarmed and
vastly outnumbered Freedom Riders, to the final months of his life when four
young girls were blown up in an Alabama church. When black moderates announced
plans for an action in Washington in 1963, Kennedy worked overtime to derail
it, with significant success, mainly by strong arming black moderates eager to
remain in good with the White House. As a result, the planned direct action
protest with civil disobedience morphed into a march and the moderates went so
far as to force the day’s most radical speaker, John Lewis of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to drop portions of his speech critical of
the administration.
As for Southeast Asia, many in the
mainstream have argued that Kennedy was about to withdraw U.S. troops and leave
the Indochinese to fight their own battles when he was assassinated. This
fixation on what he might have done is understandable, for the historical
record – what JFK actually did – is quite horrifying and laid the groundwork
for the decade of slaughter that followed.
First was the escalation of U.S.
aggression in Laos, accompanied by diplomatic shenanigans that undermined
coalition governments that included the Pathet Lao revolutionaries despite
their being the most popular force in the country. The goal, as always with empire, was all out
victory and the annihilation of anyone who favored national liberation.
In Vietnam, a similar approach led
to massive devastation. In the winter of 1961-62, Kennedy initiated the
full-scale bombing of those parts of South Vietnam controlled by the National
Liberation Front (all but Saigon and its immediate surroundings). The
justification that bombing was needed to defeat the revolution masked the
indiscriminate nature of the aerial assault, which resulted in casualties that
were overwhelmingly civilian. And so the tone was set for the next eleven years
of war.
It was also Kennedy who authorized
the first use of Chemicals of Mass Destruction in Southeast Asia, with napalm the
best-known and most deadly. Never had chemical warfare been used so
extensively, though the U.S. had also used napalm in Korea in the early 1950’s.
Again, the tone was established as massive amounts of phosphorous, Agent Orange
and other chemicals were used for the rest of the war, chemicals the deadly
affects of which are being felt to this day throughout Indochina.
And it was under Kennedy that the
notorious strategic hamlets were set up throughout South Vietnam. “Strategic
Hamlets” is a term worthy of Orwell at his best or Madison Avenue at its worst,
designed to induce thoughts of happy, grateful peasants gathered around a
campfire. The more accurate phrase would be Concentration Camps, as Vietnamese
by the thousands were rounded up at gunpoint and forced to live behind barbed
wire. Anyone who resisted was beaten or worse; anyone attempting to escape was
shot. The aim was to separate the people from the NLF though the result, not
surprisingly, as with the bombing and the chemical weapons, was the opposite,
as ever larger segments of the population became supporters of the revolution.
As each of these moves failed and
the NLF grew stronger, Kennedy ordered ground troops to Southeast Asia in the
spring of 1962, the number of which he gradually increased until his death.
There is no evidence to indicate any plan for withdrawal short of victory, the
myth-making of Oliver Stone, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and so many others
notwithstanding.
One
way to get a handle on the JFK withdrawal myth is to recall another
assassination in November of 1963, that of South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh
Diem. For much of 1963, Diem threatened to undermine empire’s goals by pushing
for a negotiated peace with the NLF and a U.S. withdrawal. In response, Kennedy
did what his kind frequently do in such circumstances: he ordered a hit on Diem
and replaced him with generals willing to follow orders.
For all the
wishful thinking about what Kennedy would have done in Indochina had he lived,
the inescapable truth, as opposed to the fantasy, is that he escalated the war
and initiated increasing levels of terror that eventually resulted in the
deaths of millions. Significantly, there is no mention of withdrawal short of
victory in the many Camelot memoirs, biographies and histories until after the tide had turned dramatically
against U.S. aggression. Only then did the myth of “Kennedy the Peacemaker”
emerge.
Perhaps the JFK cult can be
explained by the odious legacies of his two immediate successors, Lyndon
Johnson and Richard Nixon, both of whom massively escalated the carnage in
Indochina and ultimately abdicated in disgrace. Odious their legacies may be
but there’s no way around the fact that Kennedy’s legacy smells just as foul.
Such an explanation also obscures the fact that it was Kennedy who established
the terms for the domestic conflict that would rage throughout the 1960’s –
outraged hostility on the part of the ruling class to the democracy movements
that shook the empire to its foundations. It is those movements that will be
remembered and celebrated long after the JFK cult hopefully, eventually,
finally, finds its rightful resting place in the proverbial dustbin of history.
Andy Piascik is
a long-time activist and award-winning author who writes for Z, Counterpunch and many other publications and websites. He
can be reached at andypiascik@yahoo.com.
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