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2700 Tulane Avenue New Orleans, Louisiana 70119 June 26, 1970 Mr. Arthur- Fields G. P. Putnam's Sons 200 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016 Dear Mr. Fields: I enjoyed talking with you the other day. Enclosed is the additional biographical material we discussed. One thing concerns me. That is the general impression people have acquired -- or have been given -- that John Kennedy was merely just another escalating President and that Lyndon Johnson was simply carrying on what Eisenhower and Kennedy did. The evidence showing that Kennedy was an anti-war president and that he refused to escalate in Viet Nam -- even against the pressure of the Joint Chiefs -- is quite solid and irrefutable. However, you have to look at 1963 and 1964 research materials to find this. In recent years that bit of history has been re-written. One after the other the columnists refer to Kennedy as being -- with regard to Viet Nam -- just an early Johnson. Johnson, these people seem to believe, was merely carrying on. Even well informed commentators such as Eric Sevareid now seem to take that for granted. Recently I researched that point -- that crucial point -- again. The record is explicit and clear -- that Kennedy was stubbornly blocking any further expansion in Indo-China, that plans even were under way -- not to send a half million more troops -- but to bring home the advisors we had over there. My thought is this. We can assume that there will be attacks on the book from some quarters. This is most likely the only area left to attack because the footnotes, as you know, were confirmed separately by an objective reviewer. (Even good material was discarded when there was the slightest question about it) . The NW 12640 DocId:59167983 Page 3