What If JFK Wasn't Shot?
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What if JFK wasn't assassinated?
Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020 As the film spools forth, the motorcade is seen gliding around the corner, slowly. And the young president, John Kennedy, side by side with his wife in the rear seat of the limousine, bathed in sepia tones, in the last flush of a more hopeful era, smiles and begins to wave. We all know what happened next. Wir wissen alle, wie sich die Welt an dem Tag verändert hat, wie die Geschichte einen neuen Kurs nach dem anderen und für immer mehr folgte. Aber was, wenn es anders war, an dem tragischen Tag im November 1963? Was, wenn Lee Harvey Oswald verpasst hätte, oder seine Waffe verpasst hätte, oder ein Dutzend andere Möglichkeiten? Was dann? Was, wenn JFK nicht gestorben wäre?
Hello everybody, I'm Don Wildman. Welcome back to American History Hit. Thanks for listening. Today we are in the realm of the counterfactual, asking the burning question, what if President John Kennedy had lived? What if Dallas never happened? What if those shots had missed? Of all the forks in the road that appear on that fateful day, one of the big questions seems to be this.
Would JFK have started a war in Vietnam?
Would Kennedy have started a war in Vietnam? Many people argue this point, questioning whether he would have or would have not. But we have an excellent guest today to discuss this interesting question in the person of Frederick Logevall, historian at Harvard, a leading authority on JFK and the Vietnam War, His 2013 book, Embers of War, The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, won the Pulitzer Prize. Wow. He is currently working on a three-volume biography of JFK. The first volume, JFK, Coming of Age in the American Century, published in 2020. Volume 2 is out next year. Dr. Logevall is a former guest on American History Hit back in 2023. And here back again. Thank you very much for joining us. Oh, I'm pleased to be with you, Don. Counterfactuals, I know, can bother established historians, so thank you for indulging us today.
Well, I'm happy to do it. I should tell you right off the top that to my students I make the argument, and I should really also make this argument to my colleagues, some of whom are skeptical, but to the students I say, counterfactuals actually, if you do them carefully, and there are some ground rules, help us better understand what did happen in history. In other words, they have real utility.
How did JFK's early views shape his presidency?
It's not just a parlor game of, you know, suppose Napoleon had had nuclear weapons at Waterloo. No, we can actually learn more about what happened in history. And so they have real importance. Well, it's very poignant, actually, in the case of JFK, because he was so young. And it's interesting to question what he would have done with the second half of his life, never mind with these critical decisions. For the purpose of this discussion, which is all about Vietnam, let's walk through a bit of the timeline that many Americans, even our listeners, are unfamiliar with or forget about, which is that the American war in Vietnam was really part two of a conflict that had been going on since really the 40s.
Das beginnt wirklich von 1946 bis 1954, als Frankreich, die kolonisierende Macht in Vietnam war, die Viet Minh kämpfte, lediglich von Ho Chi Minh, für die Kontrolle von Vietnam. Das ist, wo es beginnt. Können Sie uns durch die echten Headlines an diesem Punkt gehen? Ja, ich denke, du hast die wichtigen Punkte sehr gut beschrieben. Frankreich hat sich in der 2. Weltkrieg ermutigt, die Deutschen in sechs Wochen verloren, dann hat Japan sich eingeschleppt und Indochina genommen. Frankreich wurde nach der 2. Weltkrieg entschieden, Indochina zu retten. Es wird ein Jewel im Empire sein. Und das ist das, was sie ausgestattet haben.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What if JFK wasn't assassinated?
0:32–2:09
2
Would JFK have started a war in Vietnam?
2:09–3:21
3
How did JFK's early views shape his presidency?
3:21–5:49
4
What was the significance of JFK's trip to Vietnam in 1951?
5:49–10:21
5
What role did Laos play in US foreign policy decisions?
10:21–14:48
6
How did JFK's meetings with Khrushchev influence the Cold War?
14:48–42:51