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Kennedy was a advocate of "Special Warfare", which is one of the reasons he endorsed the Special Force's "Green Beret" authorization. President Kennedy was a decorated war hero from WW2 (Film: PT-109), and he knew war. He also knew atomic weapons...therefore; he believed in Special Military Forces to handle wars within the age of nuclear weapons (Limited Wars). The opposite of a limited war (no nukes) would be TOTAL WAR (with nukes).

Kennedy's "Flexible Response" would be designed to handle all wars at the same time...the cold war was already on when he took office, so there was nothing to do about that war...except to stay the course...brush wars, like Vietnam, was to be handled by Special Forces men, to "fight a special war within the atomic age (without Nuclear Weapons)."

But Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963. New men took office, new Generals were assigned, and Vietnam escalated from a guerrilla war to a conventional war equipped with B-52 Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers and super-sonic dog-fights (aerial combat) between MIG-21's and F-4 Phantoms.

Maybe Kennedy's plan died when he did.

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Q: Why did 'flexible response' fail to stop the Vietnam war?
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