JFK: A President Betrayed (2013)

JFK: A President Betrayed uncovers new evidence that reveals how President John F. Kennedy boldly reversed deeply entrenched pro-war government policy to embark on secret back-channel peace efforts with Russian President Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and other “enemies” of the United States. The film raises many questions as to whom his real enemies were.

It offers a poignant look at the 35th president’s desperate, solitary struggle to mitigate armed conflict and makes clear the extent to which he risked political capital—and, ultimately, his life—to pull the world back from the brink of war and possible nuclear annihilation. Featuring new, probing interviews, with advisors to Kennedy and Khrushchev.

This documentary is a meticulously well-researched portrait of a president who refused the counsel of powerful, hawkish government officials advocating for, among other things, a U.S. nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Instead, Kennedy learned to trust his gut—instincts forged by the considerable suffering he experienced during the Second World War, and tested by the early crises of his administration.

Burris Memorandum: Notes on National Security Council Meeting, July 20, 1961
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb480/docs/doc%207B%201961%20briefing.pdf

Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK Ordered a Complete Withdrawal from Vietnam:
Boston Review, September 1, 2003
https://bostonreview.net/articles/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam/

Foreign Relations of the United States: 1961-63 Volume IV: Vietnam August-December 1963
Available for Download in PDF Format
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/vietnam/frus_61-63_4/contents.htm

Foreign Relations of the United States, Vietnam v. IV, Aug-Dec'63: Taylor/McNamara Report (document 167)
https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FRUSno167.html

General Vo Nguyen Giap Knew Kennedy was Withdrawing from Vietnam
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/general-giap-knew

JFK: A President Betrayed, Review by Jim DiEugenio
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/jfk-a-president-betrayed

JFK, Vietnam, and Oliver Stone
Gary Aguilar: November, 2005
https://www.history-matters.com/essays/vietnam/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone.htm

Kennedy Had a Plan for Early Exit in Vietnam:
NYT, December 23, 1997
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/23/us/kennedy-had-a-plan-for-early-exit-in-vietnam.html

National Security Action Memoranda 263
https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKNSF/342/JFKNSF-342-007

The Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War (1971)
Peter Dale Scott
https://www.history-matters.com/essays/vietnam/KennedyVietnam1971/KennedyVietnam1971.htm