Lbj Vietnam Quotes

It might interest you that just as the U.S. was ramping up its involvement in Vietnam, LBJ launched an illegal invasion of the Dominican Republic (April 28, 1965). (Santo Domingo was Iraq before Iraq was Iraq.)

In April 1967, Johnson had dispatched General Creighton Abrams to Vietnam as Westy’s deputy. Abrams, a famous tank commander in World War II, had more combat experience than any other officer in the upper ranks of the US military, and some saw his appointment as a hint that LBJ was not entirely satisfied with Westy’s progress.

Westmoreland’s body counts were bogus. He believed them—he was not the first general to welcome statistics he wanted to hear. But, in practice, there was every incentive for field commanders to inflate or even invent body counts. It was how their performance was assessed, and it became one of the greatest self-reporting scams in history. The absurd body counts and kill ratios were proof of his leadership. Westmoreland sold them to LBJ, who in turn presented them as fact to the American people.

The absurd body counts and kill ratios were proof of his leadership. He sold them to LBJ, who in turn presented them as fact to the American people.

Finally, let us heed the words of perhaps one of our greatest generals and Presidents, Dwight David Eisenhower  who warned us of the ‘dangers of the military /industrial complex’ but also warned the unrestrained Allen Dulles, then DCI, that ‘your CIA will create a Legacy of Ashes throughout or American history’.  What made Eisenhower great?                  He took us literally out of a failed Korean War initiated by Truman and refused to enter another war –Vietnam War, (unfortunately ultimately initiated by JKF and LBJ.)

America’s last step into the Vietnam quagmire came on November 22, 1963, when Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as the thirty-sixth president of the United States. Unlike Kennedy, Johnson was no real veteran. During World War II he used his influence as a congressman to become a naval officer, and, despite an utter lack of military training, he arranged a direct commission as a lieutenant commander. Fully aware that “combat” exposure would make him more electable, the ambitious Johnson managed an appointment to an observation team that was traveling to the Pacific. Once there, he was able to get a seat on a B-26 combat mission near New Guinea. The bomber had to turn back due to mechanical problems and briefly came under attack from Japanese fighters. The pilot got the damaged plane safely back to its base and Johnson left the very next day. This nonevent, which LBJ had absolutely no active part of, turned into his war story. The engine had been “knocked out” by enemy fighters, not simply a routine malfunction; he, LBJ, had been part of a “suicide mission,” not just riding along as baggage. The fabrication grew over time, including, according to LBJ, the nickname of “Raider” Johnson given to him by the awestruck 22nd Bomber Group.

On November 26, 1963, President Johnson had signed National Security Action Memorandum, 273, which was in diametrical opposition to JFK’s NSAM 263. While Kennedy’s body was still warm in his grave when LBJ’s signature changed future US direction in Vietnam, NSAM 273 had, incredibly enough, actually been drafted on November 21, 1963, while Kennedy was still alive. The memo was written by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy (more on him later). Why would such a memo have been created, when it contradicted JFK’s policy and certainly would not have been signed by him? LBJ let it be known early on that he wanted to “win” in Vietnam, and had no intention of following Kennedy’s plans to withdraw completely by 1965.

The story of how this postwar consensus broke down—starting with LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his prediction that it would lead to the South’s wholesale abandonment of the Democratic Party—has been told many times before. The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, riots, feminism, and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of Newt Gingrich, gay rights and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.

By the 1950s, most Republicans had accommodated themselves to New Deal–era health and safety regulations, and the Northeast and the Midwest produced scores of Republicans who were on the liberal end of the spectrum when it came to issues like conservation and civil rights. Southerners, meanwhile, constituted one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful blocs, combining a deep-rooted cultural conservatism with an adamant refusal to recognize the rights of African Americans, who made up a big share of their constituency. With America’s global economic dominance unchallenged, its foreign policy defined by the unifying threat of communism, and its social policy marked by a bipartisan confidence that women and people of color knew their place, both Democrats and Republicans felt free to cross party lines when required to get a bill passed. They observed customary courtesies when it came time to offer amendments or bring nominations to a vote and kept partisan attacks and hardball tactics within tolerable bounds. The story of how this postwar consensus broke down—starting with LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his prediction that it would lead to the South’s wholesale abandonment of the Democratic Party—has been told many times before. The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, riots, feminism, and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of Newt Gingrich, gay rights and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.

Why were hippies such a threat, from the President on down to local levels, objects for surveillance and disruptions? Many of the musicians had the potential to become political. There were racial overtones to the black-white sounds, harmony between Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. Black music was the impetus that drove the Rolling Stones into composing and performing. The war in Vietnam we escalated. What if they stopped protesting the war in Southeast Asia and turned to expose domestic policies at home with the same energy? One of the Byrds stopped singing at Monterey Pop to question the official Warren Report conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a “lone assassin.” Bob Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home album features a picture of Lyndon Johnson on the cover of Time. By 1966, LBJ had ordered writers and critics of his commission report on the JFK murder under surveillance. That research was hurting him. Rock concerts and Oswald. What next?

The significance of LBJ's personal traits accounted for the growing belief, especially by anti-war activists, that Vietnam was "Johnson's War." His critics are correct in pointing to the role of these traits and in arguing that Johnson, commander-in-chief until 1969, possessed the ultimate power to stem the tide of escalation. He was the last, best, and only chance for the United States to pull itself out of the quagmire.

II

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Equally confounding, in 1968, a year marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy and the peak of American casualties in Vietnam, with over ten thousand deaths that year—“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?” was a chant making the rounds at rallies—the U.S. stock market seemed an untroubled oasis, climbing to new highs.

mercy.

veteran