
When an extraordinary collection of talent gathered at the Kennedy White House - samclemens
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/when-an-extraordinary-collection-of-talent-gathered-at-the-white-house/2018/05/25/d7b36dbe-43cf-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html
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Latteland
Wow! Today every invitee would face a skeptical consideration of political
views and who they supported publicly. I wonder who didn't accept the
invitation then? Can you imagine having someone demonstrating outside the
white house in the morning today and yet a guest of honor in the evening?

All that was happening after Central High in Little Rock, yet before major
civil rights legislation passed congress. My mind spins thinking about all the
things happening in the 1960's. Would Kennedy have even been able to pass
civil rights and other reforms without the experience of the later President
Johnson's legislative skills? What if Kennedy had not been killed, we had not
been drawn into an endless Vietnam war, would we have even had the fortitude
to make it to the moon?

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stevenwoo
The USA's involvement in suppressing the Vietnamese uprising against the
powers that be began with Truman (if one ignores Ho Chi Minh's plea to Woodrow
Wilson at Versailles). The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba seems pretty ill
advised as well, even though it was planned under Eisenhower, Kennedy was in
office when it was executed.

~~~
Latteland
I forgot that France lost their control of Vietnam in the 50s, right? The us
was incredibly focused on commies hiding everywhere, but they really did want
to take over the world. The Kennedy's did get us over the cuban missile
crisis, even though we went to the brink multiple times (accident or genius,
imagine if we had Trump then). I also didn't know Ho Chi Minh was active in
the 1920s - just read something about it on reddit.

There are so many cases where we supported a dictator. It's important to
remember that today's support of a dictator because we think he's better than
chaos could lead to something worse tomorrow. I think a challenge for the US
today is to help the many democracies in the south china sea maintain their
independence against the powerful China - not to hem in China, just that we
should help democracies. But I'm sure I'm hopelessly naive about these great
power games.

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indescions_2018
A Visit To Camelot, Diana Trilling

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/06/02/a-visit-to-
cam...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/06/02/a-visit-to-camelot)

