i said it to kenny o'donnell and charlie bartlett, we don't have a prayer of staying in vietnam. those people hate us. they're going to throw our asss out of there at am any point but i can't give up the territory to the viet cong. every word of that comes from john kennedy's mouth. that's what he said. so, my belief is that he would have gotten out. but not frontally. he was conscious enough of the problems not to, for instance, good on television and say, my fellow americans, we can't win here. we just -- no matter how strong we are no matter how many people we put in vietnam, we can't win this because -- it's not central to american security. that domino theory i once espoused, the philippines will not be threatened if south vietnam fall, which was the belief of many policymakers. so he kind of stalls through '64. when the pt boats are attacked he does not ask for a gulf of tonkin resolution help doesn't want to be given a blank check because the hawks will demand i cash it. and in 1964 he has a second summit meeting with nikita khrushchev, which was on the table, and he cuts