Oh, okay McCarthy had run his course. Then this does make the door open more for Sullivan.
McC’s across-the-aisle friend and colleague JFK took up the anti-commie mantle during his Senate career and in his Presidency, and yet also, during his Senate days, scrutinized and apparently opposed the fairly low-level US military assistance in “Lay-OS” and the rest of IndoChina.
Kennedy wasn't the only guy to go McCarthy. Reagan testified before the House and was pretty frank about some things he seemed to know about people in the industry. I think the guy was an anti-Communist through and through. Can't say as I am any different. I loathe the marxist influences on the entertainment industry.
But he did send in advisors to Vietnam. By the end of 1963, Kennedy had 16,000 military advisors there. I'm thinking they were more than advisors, but that's my impression. LINK
JFK campaigned in 1960 on the Missile Gap, wanted (and got) the same kinds of federal tax cuts that Reagan got 20 years later, and spoke of “brushfire wars” to stop commie expansion. It’s tough to argue, knowing what we now know, that Nixon would have made a better president from ‘61-’63, but we also know that LBJ was a disaster, and Nixon would have been better from ‘63-’69, and obviously wouldn’t have turned into a train wreck in the early 1970s.
Say what we want about John Kennedy, he did serve with honor in the war. He didn't get a big perk job. He was in the trenches. He was injured. Some will say because he wasn't much of a leader, but I'm not convinced of that.
I think he really screwed up the Bay of Pigs incident. He owned up to it. He didn't blame it off on someone else. He took his lumps for it, as well he should. As you have mentioned here, he was doing things we would champion today. I'm sure he did somethings we wouldn't too. Like dating and East German spy and Judth Exner. His skirt chasing was as notorious as his father's. I submit he heavily influenced another young man who was convinced real men treated women like disposable pleasure devices, namely Bill Clinton.
I do think you may have a decent point about Kennedy vs Nixon in that time frame. LBJ was a disaster. He was an effective leader of the house, but his White House years were terrible. Great society, managing the Vietham war from the Oval Office, McNamerra... good grief.
I don't know about the train wreck part of it. The media couldn't stand the idea that a Republican could be presidential, when LBJ just wasn't. I think they would have tried to take Nixon down some way, anyhow. You know, compared to Clinton and Obama, Nixon was a choir boy. Our schools have been teaching kids for decades that Nixon WAS a crook, but he didn't have dead bodies. He wasn't giving state secrets to the Chinese. He didn't have a know Chineses spy in the White House, then transfer them to anther top level agency with top level briefings.
Some of the idiocy of Johnson is just hard to fathom. Calling people in and taking a whiz in front of them to let them know who was boss? Who acts like that? What an ass.
I think he really screwed up the Bay of Pigs incident. He owned up to it. He didn't blame it off on someone else. He took his lumps for it, as well he should. As you have mentioned here, he was doing things we would champion today. I'm sure he did somethings we wouldn't too. Like dating and East German spy and Judth Exner. His skirt chasing was as notorious as his father's. I submit he heavily influenced another young man who was convinced real men treated women like disposable pleasure devices, namely Bill Clinton.
I do think you may have a decent point about Kennedy vs Nixon in that time frame. LBJ was a disaster. He was an effective leader of the house, but his White House years were terrible. Great society, managing the Vietham war from the Oval Office, McNamerra... good grief.
I don't know about the train wreck part of it. The media couldn't stand the idea that a Republican could be presidential, when LBJ just wasn't. I think they would have tried to take Nixon down some way, anyhow. You know, compared to Clinton and Obama, Nixon was a choir boy. Our schools have been teaching kids for decades that Nixon WAS a crook, but he didn't have dead bodies. He wasn't giving state secrets to the Chinese. He didn't have a know Chineses spy in the White House, then transfer them to anther top level agency with top level briefings.
Some of the idiocy of Johnson is just hard to fathom. Calling people in and taking a whiz in front of them to let them know who was boss? Who acts like that? What an ass.
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