Kennedy Had a Plan for Early Exit in Vietnam

December 23, 1997

New York Times

Pentagon documents declassified today may rekindle the still-smoldering argument over whether President John F. Kennedy would have pulled American forces out of Vietnam.

The documents show that shortly before Kennedy was assassinated, the nation's top military leaders were going forward with his plan to withdraw American advisers from Vietnam.

''All planning will be directed towards preparing Republic of Vietnam forces for the withdrawal of all United States special assistance units and personnel by the end of calendar year 1965,'' reads an Oct. 4, 1963, memorandum drafted by Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and discussed that day by the Chiefs.

''Execute the plan to withdraw 1,000 United States military personnel by the end of 1963,'' the memorandum continues.

No one will ever know whether these plans would have been carried out had Kennedy lived. The United States had 16,300 advisers in South Vietnam at the time. By the end of 1968, it had more than 500,000 soldiers in the country.

Historians know that Kennedy directed the Pentagon to devise the withdrawal plans. But some believe they were a political facade erected for the 1964 elections; others think they were based on overly optimistic battlefield reports; still others see them as a device to force South Vietnam's corrupt Government to change.

And Kennedy's public pronouncements on withdrawal were utterly different from his private plans. In public, he was firmly opposed to withdrawal. ''I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw,'' he told the CBS News reporter Walter Cronkite on Sept. 2, 1963. ''That would be a deep mistake.''

The documents also show that the Joint Chiefs were unhappy with the idea. Gen. Paul D. Harkins of the Army warned that it ''would have a bad effect on the Vietnamese, to be pulling out just when it appears they are winning.''

In fact, the situation in South Vietnam was deteriorating in the fall of 1963. But South Vietnam's President, Ngo Dinh Diem, was deceiving his American patrons about the progress of the war, and United States military and political leaders were deceiving themselves and one another about the conflict, many historians say.

Members of the Joint Chiefs believed that the United States should go to war against North Vietnam. But, as one newly declassified memorandum shows, the Chiefs knew that ''proposals for overt action invited a negative Presidential decision.'' Accordingly, they pressed for covert operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency, the documents show, and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara promised C.I.A. officers ''whatever is necessary to accelerate their efforts.''

Presidents Diem and Kennedy were both assassinated in November 1963. Within days after taking power, the documents show, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered ''intensified operations against North Vietnam'' both overt and covert, covering ''the full spectrum of sabotage, psychological and raiding activity.'' Mr. McNamara told the Chiefs there was ''an urgent need'' to put ''increasing pressure on North Vietnam.''

The 800 pages of Joint Chiefs records were made public today by the Assassination Records Review Board, which by law has the power to declassify secret Government records bearing on Kennedy's death.