It was General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander who warned of the military industrial complex in his farewell address at the end of his presidency. JFK got America involved in Vietnam by sending advisors there. Eisenhower would not get America involved in Vietnam when the French wanted us to get involved. Eisenhower also warned about universities and government working together.
I need to make a correction to what I posted. I did some research in some books I have. One of those books is "Vietnam - A Complete Photographic History". The following, except the Charles De Gaulle part, is from that book's Vietnam Chronology section.
It was Truman not Kennedy who sent in advisors to Vietnam in June, 1950. March, 1950 America made its first financial aid to pro-French Vietnam channeling it through France.
Eisenhower did not want to have US forces fighting in Vietnam since the Korean Armistice was recently signed ending hostilities in Korea. Eisenhower did give aid directly to South Vietnam bypassing France In October, 1954. US also took over full training duties of Vietnamese troops and the last of French troops leave Vietnam in April, 1956.
There were 11,000 American troops in Vietnam by December, 1962.
Charles De Gaulle who was President of France at this time warned Kennedy about Vietnam, saying it will be an endless entanglement and a bottomless military and political quagmire. This excerpt was taken from a New York Times article on March 15, 1972. Misspelling theirs not mine.
“You will find,” I said to him, “that intervention in this area will be an endless entanglement. Once a nation has been aroused, no foreign power, however strong, can impose its will upon it. You will discover this for yourselves. For even if you find local.leaders who in their own interests are prepared to obey you, the people will not agree to it, and indeed do not want you. The ideology which you invoke will make no difference. Indeed, in the eyes of the masses it will become identified with your will to power. That is why the more you become involved out there against Communism, the more the Communists will appear as the champions of national independence, and the more support they will receive, if only from despair.
“We French have had experience of it. Yott Americans wanted to take our place in Indochina. Now you want to take over where we left off and revive a war which we brought to an end. I predict that you will sink step by step into a bottomless military and political quagmire, hOwever much you spend in men and money. What you, we and others ought to do for unhappy Asia is not to take over the running of these States ourselves, but to provide them with the means to escape from the misery and humiliation which, there as elsewhere, are the causes of totalitarian regimes. I tell you this in the name of the West.”
Article excerpted from late Pres de Gaulle's memoirs recalls Paris confs with Pres Kennedy in '61; recalls stressing to Kennedy that France would cooperate with US but act in policy moves on her own accord; recalls warning Kennedy of 'endless entanglement' in Vietnam; 2 leaders illus
www.nytimes.com