From the current New York Review of Books, William Pfaff discusses Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, which I recommend:

Before leaving the White House in 1961, Dwight Eisenhower had warned Kennedy of the crisis posed by the insurrection occurring in Laos, the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia. Clark Clifford attended the meeting as Kennedy’s private counsel and reported that “the outgoing President considered the fate of that tiny, landlocked Southeast Asian kingdom the most important problem facing the US.” The former president said American troop intervention might even be required—a statement in contrast with the position his administration had taken at the time of Dien Bien Phu. When Paris in 1954 had asked for American intervention, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, according to French sources, had offered the French two nuclear bombs to use as they saw fit (they refused), but the position of President Eisenhower at the time was that he would not consider an American troop intervention unless he first had congressional approval and an indication of British support.

He told his staff that “without allies and associates,” military intervention would be the act of “just an adventurer, like Genghis Kahn.” He also recalled that he had been elected to end one war in Asia, in Korea, which could have become a total war with China, at a time when the United States had allies and a UN mandate, and that he “was in no mood to provoke another one in Indochina….”

President Kennedy had repeatedly asserted privately that a guerrilla war could not be won by foreign troops, even in large numbers. Eventually foreign troops go home, he said; the guerrillas stay. No lasting “victory” is possible for the foreigners.

[snip]

With respect to Vietnam, the new President sought the advice of another eminent American soldier. He invited Douglas MacArthur to Washington. According to Robert Kennedy’s account, MacArthur said that it would “be foolish to fight on the Asiatic continent,” and that “the future…should be determined at the diplomatic table.” Kennedy’s aide Kenneth O’Donnell has added that MacArthur said to Kennedy that “there was no end to Asia and even if we poured a million American infantry soldiers into that continent, we would still find ourselves outnumbered on every side.”

General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy’s military adviser (who favored sending combat troops to Vietnam), said that MacArthur “made a hell of an impression on the President,” adding that when presented with further proposals from the Pentagon for military intervention, Kennedy would say, “Well, now, you gentlemen, you go back and convince General MacArthur, then I’ll be convinced.” Taylor said, “None of us undertook the task.”

Y’know… When even the bellicose Douglas MacArthur is saying “Don’t go there,” you probably shouldn’t go there. Oh well. Welcome to Vietnam, welcome to Afghanistan.

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