Welcome this morning to the Miller Center here at the university of virginia. Were delighted that mark and i were just saying its just great to see everybody gathered together in our beautiful williamsburg style forum room. We want to thank cspan for being with us today. And so if you enjoy this sort of like a holiday movie that you never tire seen over and over again, feel free to watch numerous times. We want to welcome everyone in person as well as those who are watching online live and those who will be watching our archive version as well as those who will watch on cspan. We are here today, of course, with my colleague, professor marc selverstone, to speak about his new book, which is titled the kennedy withdrawal. The subtitle is camelot and the american commitment to vietnam is published by harvard university, has just been published this fall, and it is available in the foir today for purchase and signing. They make a perfect holiday gift and you will even get an inscription and a signature from mark. Mark is a historian here at the Miller Center, where he also chairs our president ial Recordings Program. And im not only happy to call him a colleague, but a friend. And speaking of harvard, we are joined remotely today by our good friend, professor fred logevall. Fred, welcome who holds the lawrence de belfry, chair of International Affairs at harvard university, where he is also a professor of history. Fred is the Pulitzer Prize winning for his book called embers of war . And its subtitle, the fall of an empire and the making of americas vietnam. I highly recommend it, as well as his most recent book, which is jfk coming of age in the american century, 1917 to 1956. And you might be saying, but didnt president kennedy have another seven years on this earth . And the answer is yes. And that is why we are being joined remotely by fred, who is assiduously working on volume two of his jfk biography, which will take the president s life from 1957 until the assassination in 1963. So, fred has been so kind to generous lee. Join us today from his native land of sweden. So he is in scandinavia as we speak. I just have a few housekeeping duties for you both in person and online. If you have questions for our experts today, mark and fred, and you are person. Feel free to jot those down. I am catholic trained. So if you can make your handwriting, that would be very helpful. Dont have those cards around the room. Show you how to do polymer penmanship. But my mother would have been perfect at that, so please write those down and my colleague Alfred Reeves, who along with Christina Lopez guitar de chao and mike greco and the whole team here who make these happen. But if you wave your card at any time during our time here today, alfred will come pick those up and well leave about 20 minutes or so at the end for those. If you are online, please use your q a function. If you have a query for us and well get to as many as we can. And before i turn to mark a question i want to recognize today, those of you in the audience who be vietnam era veterans, could i see a show of hands if are. Oh, well, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for your service. My older brother is also a vietnam era veteran. I know the problems that you faced, particularly when you came home from overseas and so were so grateful for your service to our country. And it so happens in real time. This is pearl harbor day. My father was a World War Two veteran, was mustered in on december 2nd, 1941, five days before pearl harbor. And so were grateful to all of those who served and all of our wartime settings as well as in peacetime. Thank you again so far. Let us turn to a war. Vietnam. There are so many books that on the vietnam war, on president kennedy. And of course, fred has a book on the subject. What prompted you to do another book on the subject and particularly studying the withdrawal plan . President kennedy around the vietnam war. And how is it different from other books that have come before . Well, thanks for the question and thanks for creating the opportunity for me here and everybody else at the Miller Center not only to participate in this event, but really to help me write the book because without the Miller Center community, that really would have been impossible. And the book itself is a little unorthodox, as you note. There really arent all that many books on kennedy and vietnam. There are a handful of one in 85. And then a few in subsequent decades, and some of them are quite targeted. Some are thin, some are very comprehensive. What i set out to do was not to write a composite sense of account of kennedy vietnam, but really to on something much narrower, which is this withdrawal plan that was undertake and during the kennedy years to extricate the United States from vietnam. It was a plan that was first tabled in the middle of 1962 and then was developed over the course of 1963 and then my initial thought was, this would be great. What a wonderful opportunity. And it grew out of our work here at the Miller Center because as a member of the president ial program back in 2005, i participated in the conference, along with fred and several of our colleagues on this question of what was kennedys plan for vietnam in late 1963 . What Lyndon Johnson think kennedys plan for vietnam was. And did johnson do about it once johnson became president on the 22nd of november . That. So my original thought was just to write on that small little slice. But then i came to realize that to tell the story of the withdrawal plan, i actually had to backtrack and tell story of kennedy in vietnam more, more comprehensively. So i spent a fair amount of time developing what i saw as kennedys commit to vietnam. Hence that that part of the title and then carrying carried the story past three into 64 into march of 1964, when the plan essentially falls apart under lbj. And then i tack on an epilog, which addresses the the story about that planning, the narrative about that planning at the time. Late 1960s into the 1970s. But then very much so in the era of 911. And the way that conversation about kennedy vietnam became rolled into a conversation and the United States and its use of force abroad. So it became a much larger project and i would say that again, it is not really a comprehensive history of vietnam, although it covers much of the same ground. And it has to. But it is a much more targeted exploration of. His planning to withdraw the United States. So in effect its, its a study of kennedys commitment to vietnam through the lens of his planning to withdraw from it. Right. Well, fred, can we turn to you . I know its ive said im the moderator today. Ive got my two experts here. And im going to turn to fred for a conversation and questions that you might have for mark as well. Well, you never just a mere moderator, barbara, youre selling yourself much too short. Im delighted to be with all of you. And of course, in particular to be here with mark. I think mark and i might have first discussed this project on a while playing tennis together in charlottesville years ago. And congrats on the book. Its just a marvelous book. I think mark is being modest in a sense. Yes, maybe in some ways its not, quote unquote, comprehensive. But i want to tell the audience that is a its an unsurpassed examination and probably will be for some time. Kennedys policies on vietnam writ large. And i think, as mark just pointed out, he had to he had to go back and really consider policy in its entirety for us to then be able to understand what is the thinking. In late 1963, when so much is happening . And then, of course, he himself is was assassinated soon after the coup and the assassination of the south vietnamese leader. No, didnt jim, but i think i think whats so critical and why the book is so important and maybe ill ill ill just make this point, barbara, and then turn it back to you is mark and i both know and i think you know, barbara, that audiences want to know about kennedy and his role in the in the buildup in vietnam. It is the the mother of all counterattack rituals. And im sure well get to it before the before our conversation is all over in terms of what might have done but understood ending as i think people do that his death occurs at a key moment in that buildup. We need to understand what the administration is doing. We need to understand what is the what is the nature of this withdrawal plan and nobody before mark had really looked at that plan using all the Available Evidence that we now have and that is, i think, whats key about the book is that it is authoritative. Barbara, you just have a sense as you read this that here is an author who has digested not just the primary sources. Theres listen to all the tapes, but who also knows the existing inside and out. And at some its a great achievement, a tour de force, i would say. And addition to that, mark is, just a not only a Brilliant Writer who understands his material and write so cogently, but narrative prose carries you along and is very compelling. So fred mentioned mark the sources and i see our director, bill antholis, in the back of the room here today. One of the things that that bill said when he became, our director six years ago was i want to make sure that the full time faculty at the Miller Center so thats my colleague here and Mickey Russell riley whom is the cochair with me of oral history. Dan and mark are in the president s Recordings Program and our day jobs are doing our programmatic work but we are also expected to do scholarship thats based on that programmatic work and sometimes beyond it. And so bill said, i want to make sure you all have sabbatical opportunities, chairs, for example, chaired professors in the university. I know typically Henry Abraham every six semester would get a leave. Were at about every 13th semester, but still grateful for that. And i know that mark would that opportunity to go for to the Kennedy Library and delve deeply into the archive there in addition to taking his day job of working in the in the tapes. So for people who may not be as familiar mark with the Recordings Program and the kennedy tapes, secret white house tapes that he tell us about that and then tell us about using those resource sources that the Miller Center produces, but also the archives that you were able to delve into at the kennedy president ial library. Well, i would i hesitate to go further after comment from you and from. I think i would just stop there. Yes. Nice of you to be with us today. Thank you very much. But the tapes were critical to to my study and i think to the study of of kennedy and people who are studying johns and critical to the study of johnson and nixon as well. You cant write histories or otherwise of these figures without consulting them, because by and you are going to get the unvarnished unedited thoughts and there are caveats to that of these individuals in the oval office thinking through in real time not knowing how the story turns out. So to hear them policy arguing back forth with their advisors, attempting to go down certain paths that then get blocked, they need to shift gears and go down others. Its a fascinating exploration of policymaking in real. And with respect to kennedy and vietnam, there are a host of tapes that can and can use and kent germany and i as a team our colleagues on on the Recordings Program transcribed and then considered and i and ken is now doing comparable that tried to work these into our understanding of what we know about and vietnam and particularly kennedy and and the withdrawal and i had mentioned at the outset this conference that that i had attended in 2005 with fred and others our job at that conference was to bring to bear key conversations from the kennedy tapes that relate it to the question of withdrawal. And there are a few tapes in particular that were really important, most notably those from. Early october 1963 after chairman the joint chiefs Maxwell Taylor and secretary defense Robert Mcnamara returned from the Fact Finding Mission to vietnam. Come to kennedy and and present to him a plan essentially to to try to rectify many of the problems that that were afoot in vietnam at the and to encourage the gm regime to to perform better, but also to activate this planning that had been in the works july of 1962, maybe even may of 1962. Here they are in october of 1963. Heres plan, mr. President , to get the United States out of vietnam. And you could hear kennedy, his advisors talk about that in real time, not only on the morning of second when its just a handful of people, but then at a National SecurityCouncil Session later that evening, where they they consider not only the merits, the planning itself, but how to go forward and make it public. And thats really a big deal. Its one thing to talk about timelines in war, particularly in counterinsurgency. This its another thing to talk about that in a public fashion. And thats what they proposed do, largely because the administration was at six and seven about where to go. If you recall, in late august 1963, there was movement toward, a coup in vietnam that collapsed. It didnt leave the United States, the south vietnamese, in any better position. In fact, there were mutual recruitment options and the us was faced with having to live with a regime that. Gm knew the United States was willing to throw overboard and so what do you do about that . And so there was all kind of tension, their relationship and you can hear that play out in the tapes. So particularly these tapes from early october 1963, tapes that had become available in 1997 as a result of oliver stones film jfk, which exorcized the American Public, including congress, that it decided empanel an assassination records board to ferret out all of the information. Whatever we had relating to kennedys murder. And there still materials that were waiting for related to that but one of those those document collections were tapes themselves and so some of the first kennedy tapes on vietnam concerned this period in. Early october 1963, august 1963, related to the coup. And then even late october, 1963, related to the coup that really took place. But then later, after some of these more comprehensive studies of kennedy and vietnam were written, we started to get tapes from midseptember 1963. Those are the where you can hear kennedy and mcnamara, taylor and Mcgeorge Bundy kennedys National Security advisor talking, dispatching to the Mcnamara Taylor mission, what were they supposed to find . How are they supposed go about their business . What about this withdrawal plan thats been in the works . And you could hear taylor and mcnamara presenting it to jfk. We want to tell gm about the we think that this will be very helpful in holding his and holding him to account in making sure that theyre leveraged a way that they know that were not in vietnam and that if they really want to want to survive, they they better fight the war and more effectively. And its in some of those tapes, you can hear kennedy start to consider the merits of this withdrawal plan. And hes really not terribly enthused by it he doesnt think it makes a whole lot of sense on the face of it that the United States has been threatening gm for ten years with some version of that either withholding economic aid or maybe trying to get out. Its better if we just try to encourage them to fight the war better. And you to mcnamara and taylor are best positioned to help him do that. So its one of our first inklings in a chronological sense of where kennedy was and then we hear him in october 1963 questioning maybe the merits of withdrawal again and questioning the end date for an american departure, which mcnamara and taylor propose as the end of 1965. You can hear kennedy say, well, 65 doesnt work out. Well get a new. So we factor this into our analysis along with the other evidentiary evidentiary materials that we have textual sources from the defense department, from the state oral histories, other secondary sources. And we try to come up with best guess of of what withdrawal planning meant to kennedy at the time and then as i try to explore later what it meant to lbj after that time. So how many of you or have seen the interim the interview that president kennedy did at hyannis in labor day weekend, 1963 with Walter Cronkite have seen that if you have it, go on youtube and watch it and i remember it was because cbs was changing their Evening News Program from 15 minutes to 30 minutes expanding it to it is to this day and i remember watching this on youtube, bob and mark, you mentioned the the discussions not only of whether to have a withdrawal plan or when to withdrawal and how to withdraw and what to do. The publics understanding of and the famous line that i always recall from having seen this clip is kennedy saying, you know, its there in the end. And the final analysis is he often said its their war, its the vietnamese war. You know, we can help them but we cant win it for. And then i hear in my mind in 1967 and 68, his Brother Robert saying the same thing, and he would, as president kennedy said in the final analysis, their war. We can help them. We cant win it for them. And hes saying that as he prepares to run and then runs in 68, also with tragic circumstances surrounding it. So was there also, as you say, a strategy determining how to explain this to the american. How to explain the commitment or how to explain the withdrawal, both. Yeah. So so commitment is is