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1 results

  • 3 - Continuity and Change

  • Aurélie Basha i Novosejt, University of Kent, Canterbury
  • Book:
    ‘I Made Mistakes’
    Published online:
    26 February 2019
    Print publication:
    14 March 2019, pp 57-73

  • Summary

    President John F. Kennedy was elected on a program of change. Despite his electoral rhetoric, in office, he was cautious and fiscally conservative. He felt especially vulnerable on economic issues with a nagging balance of payments deficit that threatened the role of the dollar in the international monetary system. He chose Republicans for the two agencies that had the greatest bearing on the balance of payments: C. Douglas Dillon as Secretary of the Treasury and McNamara as Secretary of Defense. At the same time, Kennedy’s interest in the developing world was different from his predecessors’ and led him to experiment with new ways of projecting US power internationally, including through building up local capabilities to fight “wars of national liberation.” His national security bureaucracy changed accordingly with the creation of a Special Group on Counterinsurgency, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Peace Corps and with a renewed focus on the US Army’s Special Forces.