It's a Generational War

This day in history - December 14, 1961

In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with the recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam wrote, "We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort."

Kennedy's chief military adviser, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow had just returned from a fact-finding trip to Saigon and urged the president to increase U.S. economic and military advisory support to Diem. The military support was to include intensive training of local self-defense troops by American military advisers. Additionally, Taylor and Rostow advocated a significant increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. In a secret appendix to their report, Taylor and Rostow recommended the deployment of 8,000 American combat troops, which could be used to support the South Vietnamese forces in combat operations against the insurgents.

Diem was murdered during a coup by his own generals in November 1963. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy was assassinated. At the time of his death, there were more than 16,000 U.S. advisers in South Vietnam. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, rapidly escalated the war, which resulted in the commitment of U.S. ground forces and eventually more than 500,000 American troops in Vietnam.

Kennedy's Security Affairs assistant, Walt Rostow, was born in City of New York in a Russian immigrant family. During World War II he served in the OSS under William Donovan. Rostow became Assistant Chief of the German-Austrian Economic Division in the United States State Department in Washington D.C. immediately after the war.

From 1946 to 1947, he returned to Oxford to teach as the Harmsworth Professor of American History. Rostow became the Assistant to the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, in 1947 and was involved in the development of the Marshall Plan. In 1958, he became a speech writer for President Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Rostow Deputy Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs reporting to McGeorge Bundy. Late in 1961 he was appointed as counselor of the Department of State and Chairman of the Policy Planning Council, Department of State. Rostow wrote President Johnson's first state of the union speech and was appointed by Johnson in May 1964 United States Member of the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress (CIAP).

In early 1966, he was named special Assistant for National Security Affairs (the post now known as National Security Advisor) where he was a main figure in developing the government's policy in the Vietnam War, and where he remained until February 1969. His pro-war and pro-free-enterprise views made him highly unpopular in the social sciences sector of the American academia that was staunchly left wing at the time. However, he was able to get an academic position at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin ... He continued to teach history and economics until his death in 2003 at the age of 86.

He received the Order of the British Empire (1945), the Legion of Merit (1945), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1969). --- I thought the sun quit setting on the British Empire.

-----Personally, I think Walt Rostow wanted wider war in Asia and JFK was just dragging his right leg shorter than the left shoe inserts. Was the 1965 "unfortunate coincidence" of US bombing north Vietnam at the same time USSR Premier Kosygin was in Hanoi an attempt to escalate war beyond Vietnam? I also believe Rostow felt the 1967 murder of Che Guevara was a victory, and sorely disappointed when Castro didn't retaliate by kidnapping US diplomats or bombing US embassies (not that the CIA didn't consider doing those things to blame Fidel). Oh, and Walt was on JFK's National Security Council during the Bay of Pigs or Cuban Missile Crisis.

(Although Walt was the son of supposedly Russian Socialist Jews, and he and his brothers named after American socialists, he behaved like a good ol' boy capitalist.)

In 2003 Victor Rostow(nephew of Walt), a Pentagon policy official served as a liaison to the Iraqi team, said its task would be to help General Garner ''turn over functioning ministries to the new Iraqi interim authority after a period of time.'' ---Well that's worked out well has it not?

The Rostow family has grown large now with sons, daughters, grandchildren, uncles, nephews, in-laws, nieces , etc. All hanging around with the World Bank, Bilderberg, CFR, CIA, etc.

Very likely 99% of Americans have never heard of a Rostow (or ilk), yet for 2 going on 3 generations they have had a major influence on steering US policy in war, economics, banking, law, art, medicine, education, and social issues. One of many families/agents serving America since the Great War, The War to End All Wars - they've done a great job, eh?

And ! wouldn't ya know it - with all that influence - 99.9 percent of Americans wouldn't know what a Rostow is; the unsung heroes of global empire.