Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia2013

Gore Vidal:
[speaking of John F. Kennedy] He got elected. I didn't get elected. Watching the disaster of his administration - and I was very fond of him and still am fond of the memory of the man. But in 1,000 days, he invades Cuba unsuccessfully and then ends by heating up the war in Vietnam. And we must put this on president Kennedy's head. He got us into it in October 1963, when he changed the 600 advisers we had there to 20,000 committed troops. And it is now part of the Kennedy legend, that had he lived, this war would not have taken place, or would not have pursued, or would not have escalated. I can promise you as much as you can guess anything, I mean, you know of a speculative nature, that he would have been as deeply in it as Johnson. With Kennedy, in the summer of '63; he had lost the students in America. He had lost the liberals. He was under tremendous pressure on all directions. He had done practically nothing as president of the United States, except maintain his image. He made some marvelous speeches of an analytical nature. There was no subject that at one time or another he did not say the wisest thing about. And no action ever followed any speech.