Rethinking Camelot: Jfk, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture

Rating:
Summary: Chomsky does it again.
Review: Although I do not always find Chomsky's political analyses persuasive, this book is a well-presented, sharp rebutal to the theory that JFK planned to pull the US out of Vietnam. Chomsky examines the evidence to support this theory, clearly demonstrating the circumstantial and ambiguous nature of that evidence. He then proceeds to present well-documented information which indicates Kennedy's commitment to avoid losing Vietnam to the Communists. In addition, Chomsky raises a number of critical questions about the nature and intent of the policies which JFK was pursuing during the months prior to his assassination (particularly the coup against Diem), and asks how these can be reconciled with the withdrawal theory. This book should be read by anyone who has read the arguments (e.g. Newman, Prouty) in support of the "Kennedy was going to withdraw" theory before they make up their minds. At the very least Chomsky raises serious questions which must be answered by anyone claiming that John Kennedy had already decided to pull the US out of Vietnam, but was assassinated before being able to do so.

Rating:
Summary: Chomsky Critiques Camelot!
Review: Excellent overview of the relationship between American political/corporate culture and the origens of the Vietnam War. In this case, Chomsky looks at the historical revisionism that clouded the discourse on the assassination of JFK. The book does not debunk the notion that a conspiracy in Dallas occurred; rather the emphasis is on how JFK simply continued (and, in some cases,expanded) the basic thrust of American foreign policy. Using mostly the internal record, Chomsky details JFK and his virulent hawkish and anti-communist ideology, a fact which Camelot propogandists attempt to hide or minimize. Once again, the point is to highlight the reality: a single political party exists today to do the bidding for the corporate sector (of which the military-industrial complex is a large component). Remember, JFK had increased defense spending and forced through a great deal of pro-corporate legislation (while also dragging his heels on Civil Rights legislation and scolding the Warren Court for its progressive leanings) prior to the assassination. All in all, another worthy contribution from one of the great American intellectuals of the 20th century.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed bag
Review: Just finished reading this book and found the portion
debunking JFK idolators' revisionist history to be well done,
although rather long winded. The rest of the book is pure paranoia - I was alive during the Vietnam buildup and well remember the motives that led to intervention. Surprisingly,
Chomsky attributes dark motives to practically everything
the US did during those times, and virtually never touches on the motives most often at play - the defeat and containment of Communism, which at times looked as though it was going to win.
Chomsky seems to think that Communism was essentially just a sort of ultra socialism. That is his biggest error in the book:
a severe naivete about what Communism was and why much was sacrificed to ensure that it didn't envelope the planet. In other words, he displays an extreme case of tunnel vision.

Rating:
Summary: Closer to Insanity
Review: What is missing from Chomsky's book is the notion that if anyone told JFK right to his face precisely what the United States was going to do in Nam for the following ten years (I think George Ball tried to do this), the president himself wouldn't have believed it, and could have told him, "You're crazy . . . " (as I remember this, the president expressed himself with an expletive) and really meant it. Anyone who thinks that American policy in Vietnam ever made sense is underestimating the ability of the government to lie whenever it is trying to picture what its national honor adds up to in evens and odds. I knew that something was crazy when I read in Rethinking Camelot that John Newman had written a letter to "The Nation" in which he said, "Let's get serious." Actually, the policy always begged to be compared with some outrageous joke, and "The Nation" has been great at coming up with jokes (I have even read the admission by Calvin Trillin that he used jokes in his column) to match such situations. Possibly the funniest thing that I ever read just showed up again in the April 10, 2000 issue of "The Nation," in a book review by John Leonard. "It's worth recalling that when Freud finally got permission to leave Vienna in 1938, the Gestapo obliged him to sign a certificate saying that he had been well treated by the authorities. He added a sentence of his own: 'I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone.'" (p. 26) American policy in Vietnam was always a dream of imposing that kind of order in a country in which a majority of the people were not Americans, and might even try to kill Americans, if you want to know the truth. I can name one Kennedy adviser who was willing to tell LBJ in November, 1965, that the odds were about even that things were getting worse in Vietnam, and were going to get a lot worse as the plans at that stage were implemented, but he wouldn't have even been keeping his job if he told everybody what he thought. I'm actually glad McNamara didn't resign in protest, because he knew that other people could do his job worse than he could, and he was willing to sacrifice himself to save the country from the kind of stupidity that was assumed for anyone in his position, of which he was highly aware.