2. LBJ's policy
In addition to Kennedy's own private and public statements, and the policy directed by NSAM 263, the second paragraph of Johnson's own directive, NSAM 273, signed four days after the assassination, explicitly affirms the continuation of the withdrawal plan announced on Oct. 2:
The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of Oct. 2, 1963 (Pentagon Papers, NYT, p. 233).
Obviously, Johnson did not continue the withdrawal policy very long. Exactly when he reversed it is a matter of controversy, but it is certain that the decision was made by March 27, 1964: "Thus ended de jure the policy of phase out and withdrawal and all the plans and programs oriented to it (Pentagon Papers, Gravel ed., 2:196)." The first indication of this change came the day after the assassination: "The only hint that something might be different from on-going plans came in a Secretary of Defense memo for the President three days prior to this NSC meeting [on Nov. 26]." Johnson "began to have a sense of uneasiness about Vietnam" in early December and initiated a "major policy review (2:191)."
It is not necessary to agree with Peter Scott that the text of NSAM 273 in itself reveals Johnson's reversal of Kennedy's policy, thus giving the lie to paragraph 2, which purports to continue that policy. The differences between the text proposed by McNamara/Taylor, JFK's White House statement, and LBJ's NSAM 273 are worth noting, however.
Where McNamara/Taylor refer to the security of South Vietnam as "vital to United States security," Kennedy says it is "a major interest of the United States as other free nations." The syntax is sloppy here, so that "as other free nations" could mean "as is that of other free nations [besides Vietnam]" or "as it is of other free nations [besides the US]," but in either case Kennedy is clearly attempting to relativize the US commitment to South Vietnam. Further on he refers to US policy in South Vietnam "as in other parts of the world," again qualifying the commitment. These qualifications are missing in Johnson's statement, which refers exclusively to Vietnam.
McNamara-Taylor refer to the "overriding objective of denying this country [South Vietnam] to Communism." Kennedy softens this to "policy of working with the people and Government of South Vietnam to deny this country to communism." Johnson hardens "overriding objective" again to "central object" (i.e. objective), which he defines as "to win their contest" rather than as "to deny this country to communism," which was Kennedy's formulation.
McNamara-Taylor talk about "suppressing the Viet Cong insurgency." Kennedy qualifies this as "the externally stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong." This is important, since the "Viet Cong" were nothing more than Vietnamese nationalists who happened to be living in South Vietnam. They were supported by the North, but in 1963 Ho Chi Minh would have been glad to stop the "external stimulation and support" he was giving the Viet Cong in exchange for nationwide free elections, which had been promised by the 1954 Geneva Accords but never took place, because he would have won in a landslide, in the South as well as the North. The best the US could have hoped for was a coalition government, as in Laos. By limiting the US commitment to stopping "external support" of the Viet Cong, Kennedy could well have been leaving the way open for a negotiated settlement. Johnson drops the term "Viet Cong" altogether and refers to the "externally directed and supported communist conspiracy." Kennedy's externally stimulated Viet Cong insurgency becomes Johnson's externally directed communist conspiracy. The Viet Cong have been completely subsumed under a much larger and familiar bugaboo, the international "communist conspiracy." In this one sentence, Johnson has greatly widened the war, turning what Kennedy was still willing to recognize as an indigenous rebellion into a primal struggle between good and evil.
But again, it is not necessary to agree that these textual differences give the lie to paragraph 2 of NSAM 273, where Johnson vows to continue Kennedy's withdrawal policy, to agree that Johnson did, at some point, reverse the policy. This would seem to be obvious, yet we find most historians bending over backward to avoid making this simple observation. In fact, we find just the opposite assertion – that there was no change in policy. If we take NSAM 273 at face value, we must say that this is correct: Johnson continued Kennedy's withdrawal policy.
But this is not what the historians mean when they say there was no change in policy. They mean that Johnson continued Kennedy's policy of escalation. The entire matter of withdrawal is ignored or glossed over.