JFK by Oliver Stone, L. Fletcher Prouty Read Free Book Online Page A

Maryland. As soon as they landed, they boarded a helicopter for the White House, where they ceremoniously gave the report to the president.
    The report of October 2, 1963, became NSAM #263 after acceptance and approval of the President and his National Security Council. That NSAM #263 is dated October 11, 1963. It is the basis for a policy decision confirming that “presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963” and to “train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.”
    The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes carried the banner headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY ’65. (Note: Any researcher who looks for NSAM #263 in the Pentagon Papers will find that it was craftily entered as its cover sheet of only three sentences on one page, and about thirty or forty pages earlier the McNamara—Taylor Trip Report of October 2, 1963, is quite craftily entered without reference to the fact that it is the true body of NSAM #263.)
    This was the official and carefully drawn policy of the Kennedy administration, as written under the eye of the President. It was no casual or overnight scheme devised for limited purposes. This policy was developed in the face of the fact that at the same time the Buddhist uprising in the country was alarming. It was the positive and well-planned policy of the President. As such, it all but telegraphed the death of John F. Kennedy before his reelection.
    In boardrooms, gentleman’s clubs, and other secluded rendezvous locales, intimate groups of High Cabal principals quietly discussed this new policy and what it would do to their carefully planned, twenty-year objective: the “Saigon Solution.” With NSAM #263 and related policy actions, such as changes in military procurement methods, it was clear that President Kennedy stood between them and their own goals.
    It was also clear that this latest “all out by ’65” policy was going to assure JFK’s reelection. He had to go. With that foremost in their minds, a gradual, firm, and positive consensual decision was reached. The present government must be overthrown. They wanted no more of Kennedy; and they could not abide the thought of a Kennedy dynasty.
    With that, a highly professional movement was initiated: Part 1 was a professional hit job by skilled and faceless killers, and Part 2 was an intricate and most comprehensive cover story that gave us such indelible bits of lore as Oswald, Ruby, magic bullet, Warren Commission, and all the rest.
    By November 22, 1963, despite the Pentagon Papers’ contrived omission of that fact of history, Kennedy was dead. By November 26, 1963, President Johnson had signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of the Kennedy policy announced in NSAM #263 and in March 1964, LBJ signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War that involved 2,600,000 Americans directly, with 8,744,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during that period.
    That was the “Saigon Solution.” That is the historical and factually biographical material of this book. As you read this insider’s account, it should be noted that it was the former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, who wrote, in the New York Times, February 2, 1983:
    I do not believe we can avoid serious and unacceptable risk of nuclear war until we recognize, and base all our military plans, defense budgets, weapons deployments and arms negotiations on the recognition that nuclear weapons serve no military purpose whatsoever. They are totally useless—except only to deter one’s opponent from their use.
     
    Amen.

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must