> This is what Kennedy said in June 1965:
>
That's a typo, of course. Kennedy said that in 1956, when he was a senator. At that time there was no question of the US fighting or not fighting a war in Vietnam. JFK was speaking at a banquet in support of aid to Diem's government, which was a popular cause among Catholic politicians at the time, sort of like aid to Free Ireland. Anyway, as Chris says, this kind of rhetoric doesn't predict what politicians actually do. Look at De Gaulle's rhetoric on Algeria when he came into office.
Note: I really, honestly have no position on whether JFK would have fought the Vietnam war had he lived. He very well might have. But his private opinion when he died was almost certainly "I'll make a decision later," which means it would have been affected by conjunctural developments that we'll never have access to.
SA