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The notion of a lone gunman is ludicrous, the evidence clearly implicating a national security state coup against one of its own deemed unreliable. Though to some degree a cold warrior, he changed, was chastened by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and refused another. He also fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, his assistant General Charles Cabell, and once said he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds," reason enough to kill him.
Worst of all was his growing opposition to imperial wars, specifically in Southeast Asia. Though he initially sent troops and advisors, he changed, in 1961 opposing advice to send more to Laos, telling Averell Harriman, his Geneva Conference representative: "Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don't want to put troops in."
The same year, he opposed using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and once called Pentagon generals "crazy" for suggesting them, perhaps with Curtis LeMay (1906 - 1990) in mind, a zealot who wanted to nuke the Soviets while we had the edge, even at the cost of a few US cities.
Kennedy also wouldn't attack or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying throughout it he "never had the slightest intention of doing so."
He swung to peace, away from war, telling an American University audience in 1963 that nuclear weapons should be abolished, the Cold War ended, followed by a "general and complete disarmament," and America no longer using its might to force Pax Americana on the world. Shortly afterward he signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets, and in October 1963 (about a month before his assassination), he signed National Security Action Memorandum 263, calling for removing 1,000 US troops from Vietnam by year's end and the remainder by December 1965.
Douglas wrote how, as president, he underwent a spiritual transformation from cold warrior to peacemaker, knowing it put him at odds with the Pentagon, CIA, most members of Congress, and nearly all of his advisors. As a result, he understood his vulnerability, perhaps by coup or assassination, a condition he nonetheless accepted and paid for with his life.
Besides turning toward peace and more, he also signed Executive Order (EO) 11110 on June 4, 1963 to:
-- amend EO 10289 (dated September 17, 1951) designating and empowering the Treasury to perform certain "functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President;" and
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