ABSTRACT
A few of President Kennedy’s advisers, including Averell Harriman and Chester Bowles, argued that Kennedy should follow the same neutralization policy in Vietnam that he had in Laos. But Kennedy refused. The thin margin by which he had defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election and the possibility that he would face another Republican hard-liner like Barry Goldwater in 1964 convinced him that he could not afford to look soft on communism. He already had backed away from confrontations at the Bay of Pigs and in the Laotian compromise. He did not believe he could afford another retreat. Besides, a fact-finding commission that included Vice President Lyndon Johnson, chief military adviser Maxwell Taylor, and National Security Council member Walt Whitman Rostow returned from Vietnam to report that the war could be won. Consequently, Kennedy flatly rejected a negotiated settlement. Yet he never established a firm policy of support for Vietnam either. He refused Maxwell Taylor’s recommendation to send American troops. He remained as cautious and indecisive as he had been about Laos, improvising from day to day.
