An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963

by Robert Dallek

  AS THE SOUTH HEATED UP, Kennedy saw no easing of the international problems that had confronted him in the first fifteen months of his term. If anything, they were even more troubling than before. In March the journalist William Haddad, who had joined the United States Information Agency, told Kennedy that he doubted if the United States “[could] ever have a ‘policy’” for Latin America. “At best,” he said, “we will have a country-by-country, crisis-by-crisis standard.” An Inter-American Development Bank official advised Kennedy that without “a massive information program” to mobilize Latin American public opinion, the president would never reach his goals. Despite spending a billion dollars in a year, “not a single Latin American nation is embarked on a development program under the Alliance for Progress.” As to why not, the explanation was “the political instability of Latin American countries, their inability to concentrate on development, [and] their ingrained cynicism about the U.S. . . . But even within these very real and important political limitations things have not gone as well as they should.”

  That instability was far from hidden. At the end of March, a military coup against Argentina’s President Arturo Frondizi was a serious setback to democratic hopes in the hemisphere, and it caused discouraging speculation that a Washington-sponsored austerity program to stabilize the economy had helped provoke the military’s action. “The International Monetary Fund has had a complete lack of success in stabilizing economies in Latin America without the Government falling from power,” Schlesinger told the NSC on April 2. In May, Teodoro Moscoso, an Agency for International Development official and Alliance coordinator, advised the president that the Alliance was “facing stormy weather.” Latin leaders simply saw the program as “a money-lending operation. . . . And no money-lender in history has ever evoked great enthusiasm.” Moreover, the Alliance had in no way been wedded to Latin American nationalism; it looked “‘foreign’ and ‘imported’ . . . a ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ product.”

  In public, Kennedy continued to speak hopefully about the Alliance, but privately he doubted that it could generate enough progress in the near term to sustain congressional commitments to “necessary funds.” In July, the Peruvian military added to Kennedy’s skepticism by overturning an election it described as fraudulent and arresting President Manuel Prado. Although Kennedy withheld recognition of the junta for a month, he eventually accepted its promises of future free elections and a return to constitutional government as reason for the resumption of diplomatic relations. But publicly describing the coup as “a grave setback to the principles agreed to under the Alliance for Progress,” the administration delayed the reinstatement of full military assistance to Lima until a crisis with Cuba in October compelled a need for hemisphere “solidarity.”

  British Guiana remained another troubling problem. By February 1962, the state department was expressing doubts that “a working relationship [could] be established with Jagan which would prevent the emergence of a communist or Castro-type state in South America.” In March, Schlesinger told Kennedy that both the State Department and the CIA were “under the impression that a firm decision has been taken to get rid of the Jagan government. . . . British Guiana has 600,000 inhabitants. Jagan would no doubt be gratified to know that the American and British governments are spending more man-hours per capita on British Guiana than on any other current problem!” Although London did not see any “communist threat to British Guiana,” the administration persisted in believing that after independence it “would go the way of Castro” and that the United States needed to support “a policy of getting rid of Jagan.” In the summer of 1962, the CIA was hard at work on covert plans to oust him from power. Because chances of carrying out “a really covert operation” seemed so small, however, the administration discouraged the British government from giving Guiana independence until Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan could further discuss the issue in 1963. Despite any certainty as to Jagan’s course, exaggerated fears of what another radical regime in Latin America—however limited its reach—might mean led Kennedy to favor a policy of ousting Jagan, ignoring all the administration’s professions of regard for national self-determination throughout the hemisphere.

  But it was Brazil, potentially the most important Latin member of the Alliance, that concerned Kennedy more than any other hemisphere country aside from Cuba. In 1961, Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek described his country as “the playboy of economic development.” Impressive increases in national output were accompanied by destabilizing graft and inflation. Jânio Quadros, who replaced Kubitschek as president in 1961, promised more measured expansion, but he disappointed such hopes by resigning in August in a ploy to extract greater executive authority from the Brazilian Congress. Instead, the Congress accepted Vice President João Goulart, a member of Brazil’s Labor party, as the new president. The Brazilian military saw Goulart as a dangerous leftist and refused to sanction his succession. Despite his own doubts about Goulart, Kennedy announced that this was “a matter which should be left to the people of Brazil. It is their country, their constitution, their decisions, and their government.” Brazil’s Congress resolved the crisis with a constitutional amendment creating a parliamentary system that included both a president and a strong prime minister. The compromise allowed Goulart to assume the presidency, and Tancredo Neves, a fiscal conservative, to become prime minister.

  By November 1961, American defense officials warned of a distinct leftward shift in Rio. A shake-up in the Brazilian military, which had replaced anticommunist officers with men “suspected of being Communist sympathizers or even secret agents,” paralleled the “infiltration of the civilian branches of the government” with possible pro-communist officials. These developments foretold a possible “foreign policy oriented increasingly toward the Soviet bloc in world affairs and toward the Castro regime in inter-American affairs.” The expropriation in February 1962 of American-owned International Telephone & Telegraph (IT&T) property by the state of Rio Grande do Sul strengthened the conviction that Brazil was drifting to the left and would be unreceptive to better relations with the United States and a principal role in the Alliance. In April, however, despite misgivings, Kennedy agreed to release $129 million in funding for a Brazilian stabilization program that he hoped could increase U.S. influence over Brazil’s domestic politics.

  During the summer and fall of 1962, White House concerns that Goulart was trying to subvert Brazil’s parliamentary system and use October elections to expand his power provoked covert intervention. At a July 30 meeting with Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon described Goulart’s reach for greater control through an anti-American and anti-Alliance strategy. Because “the elections really could be a turning point,” Kennedy agreed to have the CIA spend “$5 million funding the campaigns of anti-Goulart candidates for 15 federal seats, 8 state governorships, 250 federal deputy seats, and some 600 seats for state legislatures.” He was also receptive to letting the Brazilian military know that the administration would support a coup against Goulart if it were clear that he was “giving the damn country away to the—Communists.” Although he believed that Goulart was more of a populist dictator and an opportunist than a communist, Kennedy saw him as a menace to stability in the hemisphere and an imperfect partner in trying to advance the Alliance.

  Cuban efforts to export communism to other hemisphere countries gave further urgency to problems with Brazil. Cuban intelligence officers under the direct supervision of Castro were providing three- to five-day courses on subversion to radicals from Venezuela, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The objective was “to train a large number of guerrillas in a hurry.” Concerned that Soviet military representatives in Cuba would try to restrain Havana from a program that could further unsettle relations with the United States, Castro hid as much of this operation as possible from Moscow.

  In December 1962, Kennedy told President Jorge Alessandri of Ch
ile that some people think “the Alliance for Progress has not been successful . . . that the problems in Latin America have become more serious, that the standard of living of the people has not risen.” Kennedy publicly acknowledged hemisphere problems as “staggering.” But he waxed optimistic about the future, urging against “impatience with failure” and seeing no reason to “desist because we’ve not solved all the problems overnight.”

  Privately he knew better. An August 1962 State Department survey of American business communities in Latin America had revealed that “virtually nothing is being done in the name of the Alliance for Progress.” Moreover, how could he have much hope for hemisphere democracy when military chiefs in Argentina and Peru had taken the rule of law into their hands and leaders like Quadros and Goulart refused to respect Brazil’s constitution? And how could he square professions of self-determination—a central principle of the Alliance—with the reality of secret American interventions in Cuba, Brazil, British Guiana, Peru, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and every country that seemed vulnerable to left-wing subversion? (And that was just the beginning: A June National Security directive approved by the president had listed four additional Latin American countries “sufficiently threatened by Communist-inspired insurgency”—Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Venezuela—as requiring the attention of the “Special Group” responsible for counterinsurgency.) In its brief eighteen-month life, the Alliance had become an imperfect cover for traditional actions serving perceived U.S. national security.

  THE NOVEMBER 1961 NEUTRALITY AGREEMENT on Laos, which required a coalition government to become effective, fell apart in the winter of 1961-62. General Nosavan Phoumi, America’s client in the struggle between the pro-communist Pathet Lao and centrist Prince Souvanna Phouma, resisted sharing power with his two rivals. Despite threats of reduced U.S. aid, Phoumi, who believed that Washington would not abandon him, provoked a battle with Pathet Lao forces at Nam Tha, near the border with Thailand. There he was completely routed. The U.S. adviser on the ground, putting the best possible face on the defeat, advised Washington, “The morale of my battalion is substantially better than in our last engagement. The last time, they dropped their weapons and ran. This time, they took their weapons with them.”

  Although U.S. officials believed that Phoumi might have contrived his retreat as a way to increase American involvement, the White House did not believe it could abandon Phoumi or simply leave Laos to the communists. Kennedy agreed that a failure to do anything would encourage the Pathet Lao, but he insisted that U.S. action not “provoke the Viet Minh or the Chinese into large-scale counter-action, but rather . . . suggest to them that we [are] prepared to resist encroachments beyond the cease-fire line.”

  Possible public pressure from Eisenhower to intervene especially worried Kennedy. Eisenhower had said in April that “he might make a public statement under some conditions. If it is so, we will be in a tough position,” Kennedy told George Ball. Kennedy told other advisers that an Eisenhower statement would put domestic pressure on him for military action leading to a possible war, or, if he resisted sending troops and Laos fell, it would politically embarrass him. A conversation between Eisenhower and CIA director John McCone added to Kennedy’s concern. Eisenhower said that if the United States sent troops to Laos, it needed to follow up “with whatever support was necessary to achieve the objectives of their mission, including—if necessary—the use of tactical nuclear weapons.”

  In response, the president sent McCone, McNamara, and Lemnitzer to see Eisenhower. They informed him that Kennedy was ordering units of the Seventh Fleet into the South China Sea toward the Gulf of Siam and would deploy some eighteen hundred men plus two air squadrons in Thailand on the border with Laos. Eisenhower, who believed the loss of Laos jeopardized South Vietnam and Thailand, “indicated both his support of a dynamic effort and a willingness to try to influence [the] political leadership of his party from entering into public debate on the question.” He also promised that “he would not at this time privately or publicly urge moving U.S. combat troops into Laos.”

  Eisenhower thus under wraps, Kennedy now encouraged press and public uncertainty about U.S. intentions toward Laos. He wanted “to maintain vis-a-vis the Communist bloc an attitude of ‘veiled ambiguity,’” he told his advisers. He also wanted Phoumi to understand that the administration had no confidence in him and would not intervene in Laos on his behalf. “All United States moves,” Kennedy said, “should be designed (a) to bring Phoumi to the conference table, and (b) to have the desired effect on the Soviets and on the Chinese.” But he wanted no irreversible commitments that might drag the country into an unwanted war. He “wished to retain the element of reversibility in all military actions. He wanted no public announcement of landings until after he had ordered such landings. Furthermore, he wanted it again made clear to the Lao that we were undertaking no new commitments toward them.” Compared to Latin America, where fears of Cuban subversion throughout the hemisphere had agitated Kennedy into anticommunist excesses, policy toward Laos was a model of sensible restraint.

  U.S. military threats produced a quick response. Since Moscow and Peking had no intention of risking a wider war for control of Laos, the Pathet Lao responded to American troop movements by immediately resuming negotiations. On June 12, after the Laotian factions agreed to form a coalition government under Souvanna Phouma, Khrushchev wired Kennedy: “Good news has come from Laos.” The political accommodation seemed likely to serve both the Laotian people and peace in Southeast Asia. The result also strengthened the conviction that other unresolved international problems might yield to reasonable exchange. Kennedy answered Khrushchev: The Laotian solution “will surely have a significant and positive effect far beyond the borders of Laos.”

  Khrushchev reiterated his enthusiasm for the settlement in a message through Georgi Bolshakov, the ostensible Soviet embassy press officer in Washington. To take advantage of JFK’s wish to bypass his own national security bureaucracy, Khrushchev used Bolshakov, really a high-ranking military intelligence agent, to speak to the president through Bobby Kennedy, with whom Bolshakov met every couple of weeks. A report in the Times of London that the CIA was “actively opposing US policy in Laos and working against a neutral government” may have moved Khrushchev to tell Kennedy that “the settlement in Laos was an extremely important step forward in the relationship of the Soviet Union and the United States.” JFK valued Khrushchev’s message, which he hoped signaled an interest in other agreements. The Times account of CIA opposition worried him. When Pierre Salinger told him of his intention to deny the Times story as “preposterous and untrue,” Kennedy replied, “The story I assume is untrue—Do they offer evidence?” Kennedy had learned the hard way that the CIA could not always be trusted, and he now wondered if the Times might be onto something.

  AFTER THE LAOTIANS SIGNED a neutrality declaration in July, Kennedy instructed Harriman to explore the possibility of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. He hoped that Hanoi and Moscow, especially after Khrushchev’s comments, might be willing to neutralize all of Indochina as a way to limit Chinese control in the region. But at a secret meeting with North Vietnam’s foreign minister in a Geneva hotel suite, Harriman and William Sullivan, his deputy, hit a stone wall. “We got absolutely nowhere,” Sullivan said.

  The alternative was to continue helping Saigon. Reports from American military and civilian officials there in the spring of 1962 that U.S. aid was turning the tide in South Vietnam made this acceptable, and even appealing. McNamara told a House committee that the administration was hoping to clean up the conflict in Vietnam by “terminating subversion, covert aggression, and combat operations.” He saw no need for U.S. combat troops. In May, at the end of a two-day trip to Vietnam, his first, McNamara, unshaven and dressed in rumpled khaki shirt and trousers and hiking boots dusty from his travels in the countryside, carried data-filled notebooks into a press conference at the ambassador’s residence. “I’ve seen nothing but pro
gress and hopeful indications of further progress,” he declared. Pressed by reporters to move beyond declarations of good news boosting Saigon’s morale, McNamara, UPI’s Neil Sheehan recorded, was “a Gibraltar of optimism.” Following him out to his car, Sheehan asked the secretary to speak the truth off the record. Fixing Sheehan with a cold stare, McNamara replied, “Every quantitative measurement we have shows we’re winning this war.” By July, reinforced by a military briefing in Honolulu that predicted a U.S. military exit one year after South Vietnamese forces had become “fully operational” in 1964, McNamara could see “tremendous progress to date.”

  In September 1962, after his first visit to Vietnam since the fall of 1961, Max Taylor also reported that “much progress has been accomplished. . . . The most notable perhaps is the snowballing of the strategic hamlet program which has resulted in some 5,000 hamlets being fortified or in process of fortification.” Dating from February 1962, the hamlets were supposedly winning the support of Vietnamese farmers by creating allegedly safe havens against the Viet Cong with South Vietnamese forces. Conversations with junior U.S. officers attached to South Vietnamese units led Taylor to tell Kennedy, “You have to be on the ground to sense a lift in the national morale. . . . I’m sure you would get a great deal of encouragement out of hearing these young officers.” U.S. embassy officials in Saigon confirmed Taylor’s impressions, reporting in September that they were “tremendously encouraged. . . . The military progress had been little short of sensational. . . . The strategic hamlet program had transformed the countryside and . . . the Viet Cong could not now destroy the program.” After receiving these reports, Kennedy told Nguyen Dinh Thuan, Diem’s cabinet secretary, who was visiting Washington, that recent reports from Saigon were encouraging. The president expressed “admiration for the progress being made in Viet-Nam against the Communists.”