How about JFK sending 14000 ground troops to Vietnam, thus starting the Vietnam War.
I agree with you but the truth be told, Eisenhower got the U.S. involved in Vietnam.
[How about JFK sending 14000 ground troops to Vietnam, thus starting the Vietnam War.]
This is a bad example. The cause was just and noble. It was but one theatre of the cold war. We simply didn't fight to win. The hippy Baby Boomers got to self absorbed in their sophisticated selfish world and wimped out, therby rendering elected officials impotent.
In the end, congress wrote the rules of the war and managed it from DC rather than committing to victory and charging our mitary leaders with the responsibility of maintaining freedom for the Vietnamese. In the end, our vain efforts cost the lives and freedom of untold thousands.
Technically, they were troops but in reality they were advisers. LBJ sent in the first combat troops in 65.
I know you didn't address Johnson but his escalation of the war was not an error - it was "wag the dog" so as to divert the attention of the American people from the soon to be released Warren Commission Report - - which he had a hand in.
LBJ - the complete error - should be #1 on the list.
I think it started when we refused to allow Ho Chi Minh to take power through an election.
Or letting the French keep their Indochina colonies after WWII, which ultimately led to the Vietnam War.