Who is the greatest president ever? I think it is probably F.D.R, the man who led America out of the depression, and through most of the war. He was the man who made America the greatest nation on Earth.
He was against using US troops as fighters in the war itself instead of for training and advising:
Kennedy's policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diem and his forces must ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences." -here
Millard Fillmore gave us video games, cellphones, and anime. All your arguments are invalid :|
And now children are addicted to all three. It's a conspiracy I tells ya!
When hasn't that come with the job? It seems like a rite of passage. Johnson wasn't exactly open about Vietnam. A more transparent leadership during that time would've been nice: "The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as Johnson later admitted.[97]"
And so? The main point here is that a war was started, for no good reason other than the fact that the Cubans were considered to be messing about in America's sphere of influence. That hardly qualifies as a great president material, especially taking account the fact that the invasion was a rousing failure.
And he planned on reducing it:
"As President, Lyndon Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM No. 273 on November 26, 1963.[94][95][96] Johnson expanded the numbers and roles of the American military following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident" "By the end of 1964, there were approximately 23,000 military personnel in South Vietnam." "By 1968, over 550,000 American soldiers were in Vietnam"
In 1961, Kennedy agreed that America should finance an increase in the size of the South Vietnamese Army from 150,000 to 170,000. He also agreed that an extra 1000 US military advisors should be sent to South Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese Army.
Yes, he did advocate withdrawing, but that does not indicate a scaling down of operations in Vietnam. In fact, by sponsoring the Vietnamese army, and becoming more entangled in Vietnamese polices (Strategic Hamlet Initiative for example), it indicates a greater amount of interference and escalation. Training, financial and logistical support does not amount to a scaling down of operations.
Furthermore, his Vietnam policy was a failure. The Strategic Hamlet program was rushed, badly planned and badly executed. Peasants were forced into hastily built, ''secure'' compounds to deny the NLF support and supplies; destroying their traditional village life, and sending them straight into the arms of the communists.
