not hostile to Cold War neutralism”, Kennedy came to believe that the Cold War was a situation which could not be won through outright military action. 46 Kennedy’s reluctance to send more Americans to Vietnam came out of the belief that he wanted to, as Schlesinger describes, “take the hysteria out of the Cold War and get down to the business at hand”. 47 However, this doesn’t disregard how seriously Kennedy took the Cold War, but he did believe that the real battlefield was not Vietnam, but instead places like Berlin and Cuba, where a devastating nuclear war could break out at any time. 48 This view was also reflected by Khrushchev’s actions in Vietnam, as Khrushchev sensed the danger of focusing too much on Vietnam believing it was “a great trap for the USSR”. 49 Kennedy meanwhile, only wanted to help the Vietnamese through economic means and not get into a head to head war with the soviets 50 , so it is absurd to say that he would have escalated the war in Vietnam, just as the Soviets were pulling out, and with Berlin becoming the centre of attention in the timeline of the Cold War. Kennedy was hesitant about sending more Americans into Vietnam both for their safety and the fact that he didn’t believe sending more troops would solve the situation. Freedman notes Kennedy was “dubious” over adding American troops to swing 46 Teresa Fava, Thomas, ‘Quiet Diplomacy in Action: The Kennedy and Johnson Years’, in American Arabists in the Cold War Middle East, 1946–75: From Orientalism to Professionalism (Imprint: Anthem Press, 2016), pp. 109- 133. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt1ffjq60.10.pdf> [accessed 5 November 2017] (p. 111). 47 Schlesinger, p. 272. 48 Freedman, p. 7. 49 Douglas, Pike, Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an alliance (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), p. 45. 50 Schlesinger, p. 273.
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