advisors suggested. 41 Bruce Riedel suggests that this diplomatic outcome can be attributed to The Guns of August, a book written by Barbara Tuchman, and read by Kennedy a few months before the crisis. The book outlines how leaders during WW1 did not want to go to war, and Riedel suggests this changed how Kennedy dealt with crises, noting how Kennedy believed “the United States had to proceed by diplomacy, not by a military action that would escalate to Armageddon”. 42 In relation to de-escalation in Vietnam, James Giglio states, “[G]iven what we know about President Kennedy, it is difficult to conceive of his pulling out of Vietnam without an acceptable resolution”. 43 This was shown by Kennedy a short time before his assassination asking his ambassador to Vietnam, to “explore the possibility of some sort of deal with North Vietnam”. 44 It was foreseeable that Kennedy was looking at a negotiated outcome so that he could withdraw Americans from Vietnam. Freedman continues to argue that Kennedy was “anxious not to be seen committing US forces to combat as he was admitting an interest in negotiated outcomes”. 45 Freedman assures us that Kennedy was not looking to escalate the war in Vietnam, rather he was looking for a diplomatic solution where Vietnam could decide their own future. Kennedy’s attitude towards the Cold War was very different to his military advisors, as Teresa Thomas acknowledged that “JFK was 41 Arthur M., Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York: Fawcett Premier, 1971), pp. 691-695. 42 Bruce, Riedel, ‘From JFK to Today’, in JFK’S Forgotten Crises: Tibet, the CIA and Sino-Indian War (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), pp. 147-182. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7864/j.ctt15hvr1q.9.pdf> [accessed 5 November 2017] (pp. 180-181). 43 Giglio, p. 269.
44 Freedman, p. 9. 45 Freedman, p. 9.
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