The Politics of Deception: JFK's Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Cuba

Investigative journalist Sloyan, a veteran of the White House Press Corps, uses primary sources (including government records and recently released audiotapes) to augment the work of John F. Kennedy revisionist historians Robert Dallek and Richard Reeves. By so doing the author updates the largely laudatory in-house chronicles of Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorensen in this fast-moving narrative and analysis of what turned out to be the president's last months in office. Kennedy, not much accustomed to criticism before becoming president, manipulated the mass media as he made policy decisions influenced by his looming reelection campaign. The author benefits from both access and hindsight in demonstrating that Kennedy's tacit approval of the coup—opposed by many civilian and military advisors—that toppled and killed South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem led to America's deeper involvement in Vietnam. Sloyan also maintains that Kennedy's tactical stance toward the civil rights movement owed more to his perceived political chances in the South than to his personal commitment to social justice, and his successful handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis actually resulted from his, rather than Khrushchev's, flinching.