This is dreck. Seriously. I'm sorry, but Oliver Stone's history has limited basis in fact and there is a big reason he fails to cite anything and doesn't bring in secondary opinions - like most historical programs. Kennedy was a good guy. Kennedy was a strong leader - but Kennedy was not perfect. I am sick and tired of Stone doing this. He did it with his last in the series with FDR/Truman and he's doing it again with Kennedy/LBJ.
Look, it's cute to pretend Kennedy would not have fought in Vietnam like LBJ - but any concrete view of this is nothing more than just speculation. You can quote any and all people who knew Kennedy, but in the end, no one really knows. It needs to be presented as that instead of glamorizing what wasn't.
The reality is, this is what Kennedy said about Vietnam two months before he was assassinated:
PRESIDENT KENNEDY. If he does not change it, of course, that is his decision. He has been there 10 years, and, as I say, he has carried this burden when he has been counted out on a number of occasions.
Our best judgment is that he can't be successful on this basis. We hope that he comes to see that; but in the final analysis it is the people end the Government itself who have to win or lose this struggle. All he can do is help, and we are making it very clear. But I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake. That would be a great mistake. I know people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even though it is far away.
Maybe Kennedy takes a different path and maybe he decides to pull out troops ... but none of us know. None us know because he died and whatever could have been wasn't.
I can't take Stone seriously because he doesn't take history seriously. He's filtering it through his views - that Truman was an awful president and Henry Wallace would've been infinitely better ... and now, if only Kennedy would have lived! No Vietnam! The New Frontier!
It's all based on his view on what life could've looked like - but that's not history.
It's just as likely, had Kennedy lived, that he continues deeper into Vietnam. He then struggles with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which LBJ worked tooth and nail to get through on Kennedy's memory and legacy. Without that push, it's either extensively watered down into nothing or sits shelved in the congress for years. Then Kennedy probably struggles getting medicare passed, since, again, this was something LBJ used Kennedy's memory to advance - along with his skill. Maybe his womanizing finally leaks, since the media is becoming an increasingly more open world - maybe Jackie ups and leaves him midway through his second term. Maybe Kennedy fails at everything, is dogged by war, a poor domestic policy and a private life in shambles.
But that doesn't need to be added into the history books because it's not history. And what Stone portrays here, and portrayed in his pierce about Wallace, is not fact - it's his opinion.
He needs to just stop. What he is doing is no different than when conservatives try to retroactively change history.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Seeing a different side of history is more than interesting. 
