No quantitative analysis here, but a decent and balanced look at Kennedy’s thinking on Vietnam in 1963, when we had more than 16,000 advisors committed but had not yet put in combat troops: Kennedy and Vietnam
A couple of salient points:
- His ruminations on a Congo intervention are particularly interesting: “I assume this probably won’t be successful. Nothing ever seems to be….”
- Concerning the Congo: “He also reiterated the need for an expert military assessment ‘of the chances of its [US military intervention] success'”
- Conclusion: “My view, rooted in the documents and tape recordings at the JFK Library, does not support the conclusions of either Kennedy advocates or critics.”
The U.S. at the end of 1960, under Eisenhower, the U.S had 685 troops in South Vietnam. Under Kennedy, at the end of 1961 it was 3,164, in 1962 it was 11,326 and in 1963 it was 16,263. Under Johnson, it continued to grow to 23,210 in 1964 and 184,314 at the end of 1965. At the end of 1968 it was at 536,040 (source: DISS — Dupuy Insurgency Spread Sheets).