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The lesson I want to get out of this book is how you can hire the smartest people to run a country but still end up with horrible foreign and local policy because they lacked wisdom. (or understanding of how reality fights the abstract. It becomes messy, detailed & poor to map)
The establishment - its what Trump lacked and still affect the efficiency of how his government is run. The running of government requires the knowledge of so many people for so many positions. You can't "drain the swamp".
With real party men like Obama and Bush. By the time you have won the election you have a list of people for every position that you have deicide on. Usually the list may be supplied by a think tank or a party person.
Kennedy faced with same problem like Trump did not know anyone but depened on the establishment to solidify his government and the establishment through Robert Lovett brought McNamara as secretary of defence.
"Robert Kennedy with the vague suspicion that liberals would rather lose gallantly than win pragmatically."
"Defeat was never a liberal dishonor; if anything it was more of a decoration"
LOL.
"Defeat was never a liberal dishonor; if anything it was more of a decoration"
LOL.
Another criteria that seems to usually drive political appointment, is the search for a "clean one" which at times can lead to uninspiring, the inept or the most disastrous.
"Pragmatic thinking is also short range thinking. And too often panic thinking."
On the Bay of Pigs - "The chances of this operation are not greater than one out of three. This maked a highly risky operation..."
"A great dela of time and money has been spent and many individuals have become emotionally involved in its success. We should not proceed with the adventure simply because we are wound up and cannot stop. "
On moral conviction in times of strain... 
The first Asian crisis of the Kennedy administration was in Laos which was fueled like most of the foreign problems of the time by the tribal psychology of the cold war.
You are either with us or against us. The CIA systematically refused to allow a neutral collation government form which led to a civil war. Then struggled to bring peace to a mess of their creation.
Laos and the milltiary advice given to Kennedy should have started to highlight the bureaucracy and politics of his generals. .
Each branch of the military was war hungry, entirely to their own goals and did not think in broader policy terms to cooperate among themselves and the effect their actions will cause in other nations.
Luckily they found a way to settle for peace, but really should have been a warning sign. Like the bay of pigs, the wrong lessons on America intervention was taken. In determine the spirit of the land they are seeking to manipulate.
Funny enough, Kennedy like Roosevelt had anti-colonialist views against the French colonial efforts, in their war against Vietnam and Algeria.
The fall of China to communism was a big blow to US psychology, of the power of communism in international politics. While it may not seem so now with the international climate. China carried a more special place in US minds than Japan.
The fall of China sent US "mad". The country took to conspiracy, destoryed political and experts on asia class, by sowing distrust in them, in a bid to identify "weakness" and dobule agents of communism. Over a political system of a country they simply could not control.
Basically China kicked off the populism of McCarthyism and it did not leave the psychology of US for a long time, to prove beyond reason you were not "weak" on communism. USA and it officials just had to do more that whatever communists were doing.
If they were building weapons, then build more although its was strategical insignificant once a number was passed. If they had a leader who is said to have communist leanings then no quater should be given. Communism became a monolithic of a formidable enemy.
"Probably the only people who have the historical sense of inevitable victory are the Americans." They had believed that it was just a matter of one tactic or another. They had solved guerilla warfare, they needed to focus on air power, the politics was not onw of nationalism...
There was a subtle policy that the State department provided international legal covering of the action of the defence (War) department. So the state coukd not crtic the military no matter how foolish their decisions were..
Once the military advicer General Maxwell Taylor put in the call for increased military support in Vietnam and put an unfit General Harkins in Saigon, whose only qualification was loyalty to him. It turned Vietnam into a political playground with everyone having their agenda.
The incompetence of Harkins cannot be underestimated, his willing ignirance to information decisions making just provided a different picture than what was actually going on and he passed lies to government while risking his soilders lives.
"Poor Diem, he is unpopular, the Americans must give him aid. And because the Americans must give him aid, he is less popular, and because he is less popular the Americans must even give more aid. Its a downward spiral."
The criticism best labelled on McNamara is being data driven does not make you blind to bias.
You can only use data to ask the right questions and the data must be based on the right information. So intelligence no matter how great once motivated to a path can find all the wring reasons to stay there.
In the end of the Kennedy days it seems like he had realised his military was motivated to lie to him about the state of Vietnam and his campaign for "peace" would mean a less hardline approach to communism.
His death like the fall of China to Mao, tunred that swiftly around. With his men seeking to protect what they viewed as his legacy. Dobuled down on the thinking that drove them to an escalating situation they already lost control of. (Diệm death by coup)
So far the one person the author seems to have the most critical view of is Dean Rusk. Longest serving Secretary of State.
In so many words while admitting his brilliance has called him weak of character, weak on personality, weak on progressive thinking, weak on reality. A case of man moving upwards with no realness to him
"Truman may have lost China, and that has been a mistake, but Lyndon was not going to go down as a president who lost Vietnam." Should have just looked at the French and asked what makes us think we are better than they are?
Its one thing to not listen to dissent on your policy. Its another to systematically remove all who dissented from political positions without seriously considering their points. You build competent sycophants.
There was (is?) an inner powerful US government that survived & perpetuated itself by using communisim has a weapon against the government itself & everyone else. To ultimately protect itself and other administrations from its faults & continously centralise power for its goals.
From Roosevelt to Regan. (?) This seemed to be the way the government was run. And I think the issue of terrorism was and is still used in the same way.
"We are in effect giving the President warmaking powers in the absence of a deceleration of war. I believe that to be a historic mistake." On the Tonkin Resolution passed by the Senate, after the failure of a covert mission (Tonkin) turned patriotic rally point of nationalism.
"A failing of the administrations, they always thought that no one else was quite as smart as they were, that they could play games, and that no one ends knew the score."
The new modern American man was one who would not even resign for over a position that carried much weight as war that he did not agree with. Due the opportunity and power being in government gave him. No intellectual honesty.
Those committed to peace were not well organised in their dissent, impressive in thei credentials nor politicaly powerful. They were viewed to be pessimistic in a climate where everyone was optimistic and full ideas. In other words they were weak.
The war was a decent into madness. They kept moving goal posts that allowed for mistakes from; training north Vietnamese soilders to covert operations to bombings to trops to protect infrastructure to maintaining low intensity conflict (below flash point) .
Size,budget strategy and objectives were never fully defined. They went to war without coming in terms with it. By lying to themselves and the public every single step of the way.
From a limited war to a war of attrition. To the inability to accept the narrative it had to withdraw without a clear win and declare the adventure a loss.
"The thing that bothers me is that no matter what we do them, they live there we don't and they know that someday they we'll have to go away & they can outlast us."
In conclusion, it is a combination of extreme arrogance in refusal to learn the necessary lessons from their history and the history of the country (region) they were meddling with.
Plus their lack of foresight in how little decisions build up (hawk vs dove archetypes), policy in framing questions wrongly and psychology in society of America produced the men who had to make decisions.
Got an interesting insight in policy creation, bureaucracy and implementation of the American government. How its a weird combination of politics, personality and politics are greater predictors than rationality in determination of a country direction.
I see why Caro deiced to write a biography on Lyndon Johnson. He is definitely an interesting character.
He may not have dragged the country to war, I blame his cabinet more, but once he was in it, his personality let the issue be his "warerloo".
Given Nixon and Kissinger polices when they took office. His real defeat was really that of personality not policy. The war could be spinned
Kissinger really went - "No, we will not make repeat their mistakes, we will make our own mistakes and they will be completely our own. One last throw of the dice". End.
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