"Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam" by Lawrence Freedman

In his thousand-day presidency, John F. Kennedy led America through one of its most difficult and potentially explosive eras. With the Cold War at its height and the threat of communist advances in Europe and the Third World, Kennedy had the unenviable task of maintaining U.S. solidarity without leading the western world into a nuclear catastrophe. In Kennedy's Wars, noted historian Lawrence Freedman draws on the best of Cold War scholarship and newly released government documents to illuminate Kennedy's approach to war and his efforts for peace. He recreates insightfully the political and intellectual milieu of the foreign policy establishment during Kennedy's era with vivid profiles of his top advisors - Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, Robert Kennedy - and influential figures such as Dean Acheson and Walt Rostow. Tracing the evolution of traditional liberalism into the Cold War liberalism of Kennedy's cabinet, Freedman evaluates their responses to the tensions in Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. He gives each conflict individual attention, showing how foreign policy decisions came to be defined for each new crisis in the light of those that had gone before. Readers will follow Kennedy as he wrestles with the succession of major conflicts - taking advice, weighing the risks of inadvertently escalating the Cold War into outright military confrontation, exploring diplomatic options, and forming strategic judgments that would eventually prevent a major war during his presidency. Kennedy's Wars offers a dynamic and human portrait of Kennedy under pressure: a political leader shaped by the ideas of his time, conscious of his vulnerability to electoral defeat but also of his nation's vulnerability to nuclear war. Military and Kennedy enthusiasts will find its balanced consideration of the president's foreign policy and provocative "what if" scenarios invaluable keys to understanding his accomplishments, failures, and enduring legacy. Drawing on a wealth of new material (including a 25-volume official documentary history of U.S. foreign relations under Kennedy and declassified transcripts of Cabinet meetings held during the Cuban missile crisis) Freedman examines the intellectual and political contexts of the Kennedy administration, giving attention to largely overlooked actors such as Dean Acheson, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Theodore Sorensen, and Walt Rostow, all of whom influenced the conduct of the administration as it confronted military and political foes around the world. Freedman scrutinizes Kennedy's efforts to stabilize fledgling democracies and thwart communist designs in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Some of those efforts led to disaster, including Kennedy's misguided actions in Vietnam (which, the author argues, "compounded the folly of the Eisenhower administration"). Still, by the time of Kennedy's death, in November 1963, some of the administration's efforts had paid off. Freedman also documents the vital counterpoint that Kennedy's assumption was based on a faulty understanding of progress in countering the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam; the assumption of a withdrawal was based on an expectation of reasonably favorable political conditions in which to do so. Freedman grants that Kennedy might have been more inclined to resist escalation of the war in 1965 than Lyndon Johnson.

Contents
Preface: Kennedy’s Wars
Dramatis Personae
Introduction
I. The Cold War and How to Fight It
1. Liberal Anticommunism
2. Beyond Massive Retaliation
3. The Third World Alternative
4. Policies and People

II. Berlin and Nuclear Strategy
5. The New Strategy
6. To Vienna and Back
7. The Berlin Anomaly
8. A Contest of Resolve
9. The Wall
10. Tests and Tension
11. Flexible Response
12. Berlin to Cuba

III. Cuba
13. Removing Castro
14. A Deniable Plan
15. An Undeniable Fiasco
16. Still Castro
17. Mongoose
18. Searching for Missiles
19. The Options Debated
20. Blockade
21. Military Steps
22. Political Steps
23. The Denouement
24. A Crisis Managed
25. Aftermath
26. Back to Square One

IV. Alliances and Détente
27. The Sino-Soviet Split
28. Toward a Test Ban
29. The Test Ban Treaty
30. Measured Response

V. Vietnam
31. Counterinsurgency
32. Laos
33. Commitment without Combat
34. Deciding not to Decide
35. The Taylor Report
36. Decisions
37. The Influence of Laos
38. In the Dark
39. Coercion and Clients
40. Diem’s Assassination
41. Kennedy to Johnson

Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

PS
От себя лично хочу сказать, что и сейчас очень хорошо помню тот трагический день - 22 ноября 1963. Помню слезы на глазах матери и бабушки; наши соседки тоже рыдали в день похорон JFK. И было это всё в небольшом русском городке 45 лет тому назад. Такая простая правда обыкновенной человеческой жизни. Вот и решает каждый сам для себя, кому и для чего нужны эти "холодные" и "горячие" войны.

From myself personally I wish to tell, as now very well I remember that tragical day - on November, 22nd 1963. I remember tears in the face of mother and the grandmother; our neigbours too sobbed in day of funeral JFK. Also there was this all in Russia, in small town 45 years ago. Such simple truth of an ordinary human life. Here also solves everyone for itself, to whom and for what these "cold" and "hot" wars are necessary.
The peace and good luck all!