Dwight Eisenhower, 17 Jan 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
April 1961: New POTUS JFK asks advice from a retired five-star US Army general with 52 years military experience about Asia and communism. General Douglas MacArthur (Ret) had trained the Philippines Army ("I shall return"), was the former American viceroy of occupied Japan who humbled the Emperor, and outsmarted the North Koreans at Inchon with his own D-Day ("Take that, Ike!").
The "American Caesar" advised the [Catholic] POTUS about Asia: "Make Japan, the Phillipines, and Formosa your Red Lines. Concentrate on domestic issues [sic]."
June 1963: South Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thch Quang Duc sets himself on fire to protest the ruthless [Catholic-minority] Saigon regime: An oracle of things to come
JFK: "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one."
1967: 500,000 US Servicemebers in Vietnam: Our boys
Tuesday 5 Nov 1968: All good advice ignored, warning signs unheeded, and no lessons learned