Johnson by Robert Dallek, Book Report
Lyndon B. Johnson by Robert Dallek
A Book Report by Bobby Everett Smith
May 31, 2018
Spoiler Alert
Setting
White House, Washington, D.C. and around the world, 1908 to 1973
Characters
Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of U.S., and Vice President under Jack Kennedy succeeded JFK when he was assassinated. Majority leader of the Senate from Texas. Born in 1908.
Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Johnson.
John F. (Jack) Kennedy, 35th President of U.S., assassinated while in office in Dallas Texas, November 1963.
Robert Kennedy, Attorney General, Senator from New York, candidate for president, brother to Jack Kennedy, assassinated in Los Angeles, California while running for the President of the United States.
Hubert Humphrey, 38th Vice President of the United States from 1965 to 1969. served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. Candidate for President against Nixon in 1968.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Baptist minister and activist, spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his death in 1968.
Wilbur Mills, Democrat from Arkansas’s 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1939 to 1977.
Robert McNamara, Business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Known for systems analysis and computer modeling.
Maxwell Taylor, served as General in World War II and as the fifth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ambassador to Vietnam in 1964,
Dean Rusk, Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk is one of the longest serving U.S. Secretaries of State, behind only Cordell Hull.
Bill Moyers, White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years.
Barry Goldwater, United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 1964.
President Ngo Dinh Diem, Prime Minister of Vietnam in 1954
Joseph P. Kennedy, Joe Sr., father of Bobby, Jack Joe, Jr., Teddy, and four sisters. Ambassador to England in 1937
Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., Congressman from Massachusetts
Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States in 1969 and competitor for President with Jack in 1960
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., 1947 Massachusetts Senator, competitor with Jack for U.S. Senate in 1950, Ambassador to South Vietnam, 1968, Republican
Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, received sympathy phone call from Jack Kennedy when her husband was in jail in Alabama. Call helped Jack win election
- Edgar Hoover, Director of FBI, for several presidents including Jack Kennedy. Went after Communists more than gangsters
Executive Summary
Johnson was famous for what his colleagues called “The Treatment.”
“The Treatment” could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson’s offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself—wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.
Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in a Texas farmhouse in 1908. He grew up as a Democrat and became a quintessential politician serving as a member of the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, Vice President and the 36th President of the United States.
Johnson sponsored some of the most important legislation in American History, Civil Rights, Medicare, improvements in Social Security, Anti-Poverty, and other programs of his Great Society.
But he also is criticized for his execution of the Vietnam War which ended up with 58,220 American deaths in a cause that we eventually lost to the Communists of North Vietnam.
Johnson refused to run for a second term in 1968 and he was replaced by Richard Nixon, Republican.
He returned to his ranch in Texas where he died on January 22, 1973.
The Story
Lyndon B. Johnson, Native Texan
Lyndon Baines Johnson, extraordinary man, quintessential politician, was born in the hill country of Texas not far from Austin on August 27, 1908. Lyndon’s mother, Rebekah, was a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas and she and her husband, Sam, had great expectations for their newborn son.
Religion was not to play a major influence on LBJ as he grew up, but politics was. His father, Sam, was a Texas state legislator, and he allowed Lyndon to participate in discussions with friends and constituents who came to the house for political interactions.
Despite Rebekah’s attendance at the Baptist Church, Lyndon changed over to the Christian Church in his teen-age years. He was not so interested in school, and spent a lot of time with friends, drinking and carousing. His grandmother proclaimed, “that boy is going to end up in the penitentiary, just mark my words.”
Classmates, however, picked him to “one day become the Governor of Texas.”
Instead of going to college and pursuing worthy political goals, Lyndon ran away to California, where he searched for adventure. He and four friends lived a vagabond life, doing menial labor to buy food and some shelter. After a year of life in California, he returned home with empty hands and empty pockets.
Johnson finally agreed to follow his parent’s demands and enrolled in the Southwest Texas State Teacher’s College in San Marcos, Texas. His grades were not so good, but he made an indelible impression on his classmates and professors for his attitude about politics. He was always in perpetual motion, never letting up, clamoring for recognition. dressed in a coat and bow tie every day. He always looked busy.
Johnson was overbearing and self-centered, ever ready to ease his own self-doubts by telling his classmates about his virtues. He dominated every conversation in which he participated. Even so, he was popular and well-liked by friends and instructors combined. He was an unforgettable man. He entertained his classmates with political stories and imitations of amusing characters.
At college, Lyndon was a paradox, driven, grating and self-serving but warm, enjoyable, and giving. These were traits that would last throughout his life and political career. Johnson was particularly empathetic to blacks and the poor.
In August 1930, Johnson received a BS degree in Education and History. He taught high school in Houston until 1931 when he met Richard Kleberg, a politician from the King Ranch family, one of the largest ranches in Texas. Kleberg met Johnson and offered him a job as his secretary in Washington, D.C. where Kleberg was a member of the House of Representatives.
Winning in the Senate by a Nose
In Washington, Johnson worked hard for his Kleberg sponsor. With the depression in full-swing, Johnson thought of the Hoover administration as a “do-nothing” kind of government. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was right on target for LBJ and he gave the program his enthusiastic support.
Despite his identity as a Democrat, Kleberg did not agree with Johnson; he was against most every program that FDR proposed, and he promised to vote against most of them. Even though he was dead-set against it, Kleberg succumbed to Johnson’s pleading and voted for the Social Security Act in 1935.
In 1934, Johnson met Claudia Alta Taylor (aka Lady Bird). Within three months, they were married.
After three years as Kleberg’s secretary and at a time when he did most of the work of Congressman Kleberg, Johnson thought it was time for him to run for Congress himself. But first he took a job as director of the New Deal program, called the NYA, the National Youth Association. At age 27, Johnson was appointed leader of that program to help young men and women get jobs during the depression. Johnson like the job and was particularly attentive to getting jobs for young black people.
A congressional seat for the 10th District of Texas, came open in February 1937. Johnson decided to run and with a withering campaign of extremely hard work, he became a Congressman from the Great State of Texas.
Johnson was effective in helping his constituents in Texas. He helped get the Naval Air Station at Corpus Christi approved; he got federal fuds for farm-to-market roads approved; and he helped bring cheap electricity to the area through dams built on the Colorado River. Johnson became known as one of the most successful congressional supporters of FDR and his New Deal.
In 1941, Johnson gained Roosevelt’s blessing and ran for the United States Senate from Texas. Lyndon lost that election and he was kidded mercilessly by FDR. You will get another chance, the president told him, but politics in Texas is not for the feint-hearted.
Lyndon was appointed a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserves in June 1940. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) he was called for active duty and assigned to work at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington.
Johnson was anxious to experience military service and according to his biographer, Robert Dallek, he requested duty in the Pacific to participate in combat operations. He was assigned to observation duty on Navy bombers and one of the planes he was riding received enemy fire and had to make an emergency landing.
After a meeting with General Douglas MacArthur, where he described the bomber being hit by enemy fire, he was awarded a Silver Star. He was the only person amongst the crew who received that award.
After 11 successful years as a member of Congress from South Texas, Johnson decided he had a good, but not guaranteed chance to win a bid for the U.S. Senate. His main Democratic competitors were former-governor Coke Stevenson and incumbent Governor Beauford Jester. Johnson announced his candidacy at the Driskell Hotel in Austin on May 12. He immediately launched into an exuberant campaign to win the Democratic nomination in the election to be held in July.
John Connally was Johnson’s ally in campaigning for the election. They decided to use a helicopter, a rare type of aircraft in 1948 to visit most of the cities in Texas. On June 15, Johnson launched his helicopter blitz of North East Texas, visiting 118 cities and towns in 17 days. He was able to reach over 175,000 people who were interested in the election and curious about the helicopter.
Johnson worked 20-hour days during this period. He got up at 5 a.m. and went to bed after midnight. He spent more than a million dollars with $30,000 in phone bills. Coke Stevenson was a popular governor and a formidable competitor for the Democratic nomination. He hoped and expected to win a majority of the Democratic votes so that he would not have to face a run-off
The election occurred July 24 and Stevenson won 40% of the total vote leaving Johnson behind by 71,000 votes, an almost insurmountable margin, but enough to require a runoff.
The runoff was scheduled for August 28 and with unrelenting hard work, Johnson had pulled within a tie. When the votes were counted, Stevenson was ahead but by the following morning, Johnson had pulled even with him. Johnson led with a 693-vote margin with 11,000 votes yet to be counted.
Both Johnson and Stevenson knew they needed to keep a close eye on the ballot boxes to avoid voter fraud. By September 3, Johnson held a 17-vote lead over Stevenson. The biggest single shift of votes had been in Alice, Texas, a small south-Texas town in Jim Wells County, well-known for its political boss Ed Lloyd’s ability to deliver votes when they were needed. Within 24 hours, Johnson’s lead had increased to 162 votes.
George Parr, another political boss in South Texas, was from Duval County where the vote came in 3643 to 17. Stevenson was well-aware of Parr’s ability to deliver landside votes for whomever he favored in a given election.
Stevenson tried, unsuccessfully to enlist the help of State and Federal officials. On September 14, in Ft. Worth, the Democratic Executive Committee certified that Johnson had the lead for the primary runoff, with an 87-vote margin.
Johnson defeated his Republican opponent in the November election by a two to one margin. He headed for the Senate determined to be the greatest Senator from any state.
Youngest Senate Majority Leader in History
At age 40, Johnson was already well-known to most politicians in Washington due to his time in the House of Representatives. People who knew him were impressed. Meetings with Lyndon were memorable, big, tough, and exciting. They were out of the ordinary because Lyndon was out of the ordinary, bigger than life. Lyndon also had a great power to retrieve information and he did so accurately and effortlessly. He had a determination to learn and to get ahead. He threw himself into his Senate work with unrestrained energy.
By 1950 Johnson had made enough progress to run for the Minority Whip position which, with the support of Richard Russell, Senator from Georgia, he won. Johnson became the youngest Whip in party history. He was no longer a freshman Senator, he was now one of the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Richard Russell nominated Lyndon Johnson to be the Democratic Leader of the Senate, the Majority Leader. This made him the youngest majority leader of the Senate in its history.
As Majority Leader, Lyndon established a system of control over the Senate which had never been seen before. Johnson had traits of leadership not known to other Senators. He could make you hate him and like him at the same time. “He was like a greater towering thunderstorm that overpowers you,” said Senator Smathers from Florida.
Johnson was a master manipulator of Senate appointments. He controlled the calendar which scheduled bills and he appointed Committee members using his own political will as opposed to the seniority rules which had prevailed for years. He even controlled the assignment of offices and parking places at the Capitol. He was a master inside negotiator of the U.S. Senate.
Johnson suffered a heart attack in the summer of 1955. Doctors gave him a fifty-fifty chance of survival. He slowly came around but had trouble adjusting to the doctors’ orders to cut out smoking, lose weight and enjoy a period of relative inactivity. A tough prescription for LBJ.
By October, Lyndon convinced his colleagues that he was as fit as ever, and he was considering a run for the presidency in 1956.
Joe Kennedy Sr. offered to fund Johnson’s run for the Presidency if he would agree to put Jack Kennedy on the ticket as the candidate for Vice President. Johnson turned that offer down. Bobby Kennedy was furious that Johnson turned down his father’s generous offer and this was the beginning of a long-term feud between Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Johnson approached the August Democrat Convention unannounced as a presidential candidate with Adlai Stevenson in the lead for the nomination. Johnson strategized that if Stevenson was not nominated on the first ballot, he might have a good chance of getting the nomination on subsequent ballots.
Johnson was wrong, Stevenson won the nomination on the first ballot but even with Johnson’s support, Stevenson was buried by Eisenhower in the 1956 election. Johnson hoped that he would be in a good position to run officially in 1960.
Civil Rights
Domestic developments in 1956 and 1957 brought civil rights to the forefront of the political scene. This suited Johnson to a T—an issue he believed in that would bring him national recognition if he could make progress with legislation related to ending segregation in the country. Johnson knew that if he could lead a major civil rights bill through the Senate, it would be the first major such bill in 82 years. This bill would support Johnson’s presidential ambitions while passing a much-needed civil rights legislation.
Johnson still was trapped between his Southern background which supported segregation and his need for national recognition which was leaning towards integration and full rights for blacks throughout the nation.
On July 2, 1957, Richard Russel initiated debate in the Senate on the Civil Rights legislation. The goal of this Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. Most blacks in the South had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules and laws in those states since the late 19th centuries. While the states had the right to establish rules for voter registration and elections, the federal government found an oversight role in ensuring that citizens could exercise the constitutional right to vote for federal officers: electors for president and vice president and members of the US Congress.
The bill passed 72-18 in the Senate, with most of both parties (Republicans 43–0, Democrats 29–18). Eisenhower signed the bill on September 9, 1957.
The Civil Rights Bill of 1957 had little substance for advancing civil rights in the South but Lyndon thought it was a major step forward. Serious issues like the integration of schools, housing, and civil rights in public transportation still remained to be addressed and were fiercely defended by members of the deep south.
Johnson had now become the principal spokesman for the Democratic Party and he was a serious candidate for president in the 1960 election. He was now supporting passage of further Civil Rights legislation for the first time since the end of the Civil War.
In September 1957, black advocates tried to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to enforce court orders which demanded that nine black students be allowed to attend the previously whites-only high school in Little Rock. Violence slowly died down over the next few months and integration of schools in the south slowly became a reality. Johnson for the most part kept a low profile during the violence that transpired in Little Rock.
NASA
When the Soviet Union launched their space satellite Sputnik, the U.S. found itself in a number two position relative to a space-technology race with the Soviets. The question in the Senate was how to get back in a front-runner position with respect to the Communists. Democrats blamed Eisenhower for allowing the U.S. to get in front of us in the space race. Johnson identified himself as the leading member of the Senate in the stepped-up effort to get ahead of the Soviets.
Lyndon became the architect and de facto owner of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency. Johnson was responsible for ensuring that NASA would be administered by Civilians rather than by the military, a condition which survives to this day.
The Vice President at the JFK Assassination
In 1960 John F. Kennedy won the Democratic Nomination for President by a landslide. Kennedy selected Johnson as his running mate. He needed the southern vote and thought Johnson was the best person to meet that need.
Kennedy and Johnson defeated Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. by a slim margin.
Kennedy respected Johnson as a political operator and even liked his “roguish” style, but he had no intention of allowing Johnson to control his legislative agenda. Kennedy was happy to have Johnson gathering intelligence from members of the Senate, but he did not want him creating the impression with the press that he was leading the legislative activity of this presidential term. Johnson ended up leading a committee on equal opportunity, NASA, and he represented the United States on many trips abroad.
LBJ took a leading role in space administration and when the President made landing a man-on- the moon a national priority in 1961, Lyndon was in a strong position to assist the President in making that happen.
On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas with a sniper’s rifle. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States aboard Air Force One on the tarmac at Love Field. Two days later, while in Dallas police custody, Oswald himself was assassinated by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner. LBJ flew back to Washington to take over as President of the United States with Jackie Kennedy at his side.
The Great Society
Johnson decided it was in his and he nation’s best interest for him to follow the plans and polices of the Kennedy Administration. In January 1964 during the State of the Union delivery, he announced his War on Poverty where he envisioned no one in the United States would have to live in poverty; he hoped to cure and in fact to prevent poverty in this country.
Johnson had every hope that JFK’s tax cut, civil rights bill, and war on poverty would become law. As President, Johnson had a bigger toolkit of valuable things he could trade to legislators in return for their votes. He leveraged his experience as Majority Leader to make things happen as President. Johnson had no chief of staff, running his office under his hat much like the way he had run the Majority office of the Senate.
Johnson’s legislate agenda was so ambitious, it took two shifts of managers in the White House to keep up with it.
The first test for Johnson in 1964 was passing JFK’s $11 Billion tax cut. This bill passed in February and Johnson moved to focus on the anti-poverty plan. Poverty in the United States was costing the government billions of dollars per year in welfare and lost productivity. Johnson was determined to do something about that and he presented the anti-poverty legislation to Congress in the Spring of 1964.
In addition to the War on Poverty, the Great Society, Johnson was focused on the Civil Rights Bill. With his southern upbringing, Johnson seemed to be an unlikely leader of the Civil Rights reformation he pursued. Johnson believed in fairness and the segregation which was implemented throughout the South since the end of the Civil War was not fair. Johnson was determined to end segregation in the nation—he wanted integrated bathrooms, water fountains, and transportation methods. He wanted blacks to be able to eat in any restaurant and sit in any section of a movie theater, sports arena, or bus. He wanted equal pay for minorities and he wanted blacks to be able to buy houses in white neighborhoods and to send their kids to white schools. He wanted the Federal government to enforce the implementation of those changes.
By the end of April, 57 per cent of Americans favored the way Johnson was handling the Civil Rights issue. On June 10, 1964, the Senate passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a vote of 71 to 29. The law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodation. Lyndon Johnson saw this as the culmination of a lifetime in politics in support of civil rights.
On the evening the bill was signed, Johnson spoke to one of his aides, “Bill, I think we have just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.”
Vietnam War
The Cold War started with the end of World War II. The United States and allies thought that the Soviet Union and other Communist nations were determined, like Hitler, to take over the world. It started with the Berlin blockade, continued into the Korean War in the early 50’s and by 1964, President Johnson found himself facing another full-blown war in Vietnam where the Communists in North Vietnam wanted to digest the democrats of South Vietnam. Johnson was dedicated to his domestic policies of Civil Rights, lower taxes, Medicare, and strong domestic economic growth. Vietnam, in 1964, was not the major concern of the United States.
Even so, Johnson realized that he could not afford to lose South Vietnam to the Communists. He feared the domino effect which described the loss of Vietnam leading to future losses in countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. That, too, was an unsatisfactory solution to foreign policy.
By July 1964, the U.S. had thousands of military advisers in Vietnam along with carriers operating in the South China Sea. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff requested more military advisers for Vietnam and Johnson agreed to supply them.
The Gulf of Tonkin is a large body of water South East of North Vietnam in the South China Sea. The USS Maddox, DD 731, was patrolling in the Gulf on August 2, 1964, when it was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Here is the historical account of the incident:
“The Maddox fired first, issuing what the U.S. authorities described as warning shots. Undeterred, the three boats continued approaching and opened up with machine-gun and torpedo fire of their own. With the help of F-8 Crusader jets dispatched from a nearby aircraft carrier, the Maddox badly damaged at least one of the North Vietnamese boats while emerging completely unscathed, except for a single bullet that lodged in its superstructure.”
On August 4 Maddox and Turner Joy, another U.S. Destroyer, were cruising in Tonkin Gulf. A similar incident was reported but it was never confirmed that any actual combat took place at that time.
In response, President Johnson ordered air strikes against North Vietnamese boat bases and an oil storage depot. “Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America,” he said that evening in a televised address. He also requested a congressional resolution, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which on August 7 passed unanimously in the House and with only two dissenting votes in the Senate, essentially giving him the power to wage war in Southeast Asia as he saw fit.
Throughout these hectic few days, the Johnson administration asserted that the destroyers had been on routine patrol in international waters. In actuality, however, the destroyers were on an espionage mission in waters claimed by North Vietnam. The Johnson administration also described the two attacks as unprovoked; it never disclosed the covert U.S.-backed raids taking place. Another problem: the second attack almost certainly never occurred. Instead, it’s believed that the crewmembers of the Maddox mistook their own sonar’s pings off the rudder for North Vietnamese torpedoes. In the confusion, the Maddox nearly even fired at the Turner Joy. Yet when U.S. intelligence officials presented the evidence to policy makers, they “deliberately” omitted most of the relevant communications intercepts, according to National Security Agency documents declassified in 2005. “The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack had happened,” an NSA historian wrote. “So, a conscious effort ensued to demonstrate that an attack occurred.” The Navy likewise says it is now “clear that North Vietnamese naval forces did not attack Maddox and Turner Joy that night.”
Johnson remained determined not to abandon Vietnam and by January 1965, he was forced to adopt a more aggressive policy against the Communists. In February 1965, Johnson authorized “Rolling Thunder”, a sustained air attack against North Vietnam. This campaign conducted by the US Air Force, the Navy, and the South Vietnamese, lasted until November 1968.
By 24 December 1965, 170 U.S. aircraft had been lost during the campaign (85 Air Force, 94 Navy, and one Marine Corps). Eight VNAF aircraft had also been lost. Air force aircrews had flown 25,971 sorties and dropped 32,063 tons of bombs. Naval aviators had flown 28,168 sorties and dropped 11,144 tons. The VNAF had contributed 682 missions with unknown ordnance tonnages.
The entire complexion of the American effort was altered on 8 March 1965, when 3,500 U.S. Marines came ashore at Da Nang, ostensibly to defend the southern airfields committed to prosecuting Rolling Thunder. The mission of the ground forces was expanded to combat operations and, from that point onward, the aerial campaign became a secondary operation, overwhelmed by troop deployments and the escalation of ground operations in South Vietnam.
By the end of 1965 many Americans had begun to believe that we had no business fighting a war in Asia that had little potential to harm the United States directly. Even so, LBJ enjoyed a 64% approval rating and three-fourths of Americans agreed with his handling of the war in Vietnam.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff urged the president to expand military operations in Vietnam. Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, managed the war effort from his office at the Pentagon, emphasizing modern concepts of systems analysis to measure the success of combat operations. Johnson hoped for a negotiated settlement more than a military victory, but he soon realized that the Communists defenses were more determined and capable than he ever imagined. China and the Soviet Union provided North Vietnam with weapons, supplies, and military advice.
Johnson was convinced that the media hated him and wanted to bring him down. He made the mistake of surrounding himself with people who agreed with him. Many people believed they were shut off from the White House unless they agreed with the president. Military commanders were encouraged to tell the president what he wanted to hear.
By 1966 hopes for an end to conflict were rapidly disappearing. Bombings were not accomplishing their goals of depleting the enemy’s or ability to fight. Leaders in Saigon reported that a military victory for either side was not likely.
The New York Times reported on August 8, 1966 that it would take eight more years to end the war, but that estimate could be reduced to five years if we had 750,000 troops in Vietnam.
The United States would not withdraw from Vietnam until 1973, by which time a disillusioned Congress had voted to repeal the same Gulf of Tonkin Resolution it had so overwhelmingly supported just a few years earlier. Johnson refused to believe these realities. He held to the conviction that our air and ground forces were hurting the Vietnamese and they would soon capitulate at the negotiating table.
The President thought that if he spoke loud and often enough to the American people, they would believe that North Vietnam would bend to his will. Johnson’s beliefs conflicted with the realities on the ground. Even though his convictions were sincere, his attitude made him seem devious to some of his detractors.
By 1967 the military war continued to escalate and the opposition to the war in the United States continued to grow. Johnson was desperate to end the war, but he did not know how to do it, at least not on terms that he considered acceptable—preserve South Vietnam independence and bring American troops home.
Johnson could not admit that he had made a mistake in going into Vietnam in the first place and he refused to admit that his major foreign policy initiative had been a failure.
Hanoi reiterated their insistence that the U.S. halt all bombing in Vietnam before any negotiations for settlement could begin. Johnson’s military and diplomatic aids continued to tell him what he wanted to hear, “we are going to win the war in Vietnam.” The Johnson administration continued to convey that message to the American people, who increasingly refused to believe it.
At the beginning of 1968, North Vietnam unleashed the Tet Offensive, a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam.
By the beginning of January 1968, the U.S. had deployed 331,098 Army personnel and 78,013 Marines in nine divisions, an armored cavalry regiment, and two separate brigades to South Vietnam. No one – in either Washington or Vietnam – was expecting what happened.
On 18 February 1968 Saigon leaders posted the highest U.S. casualty figures for a single week during the entire war: 543 killed and 2,547 wounded. Because of the heavy fighting, 1968 went on to become the deadliest year of the war for the US forces with 16,592 soldiers killed.
On 31 March, President Johnson announced the unilateral (although still partial) bombing halt during his television address. He then stunned the nation by declining to run for a second term in office. To Washington’s surprise, on 3 April Hanoi announced that it would conduct negotiations, which were scheduled to begin on 13 May in Paris.
In 1968 Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey for president. The war raged on, but Nixon promised to bring it to a close. LBJ returned to his ranch in Texas where he died in 1973.
Rating
Four stars out of five. This is an excellent biography of a President who has survived in history as a paradox, great domestic progress including passage of he Civil Rights Act of 1964. Medicare, strong economic growth, and the passage of other progressive social programs. He disappointed himself and his followers with the Vietnam war. He refused to accept reality that we were losing the war. He left his distinguished career of service to this nation with a question mark.
I highly recommend reading this biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Recent Comments