President Lyndon Johnson
Pinning Medal on Soldier in Vietnam
When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F Kennedy in November of 1963, I don’t think he had given Vietnam much thought. He had gone there as vice president in 1961, but like most of Kennedy’s advisors, he came back with a mixed message: We should take a leadership role in Southeast Asia’s fight against communism, but if things didn’t go well in Vietnam, we might have to cut our losses and get out.
Johnson’s primary goal as president was to create a “Great Society.” He had been a confidant of FDR, and admired his “New Deal” social programs, and as a long time congressional leader, he knew how to get things done. He created Medicare and Medicaid. He signed into law three civil rights acts outlawing discrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin in voter registration, schools, public accommodation and employment, a special act giving equal rights to Native Americans, and a Fair Housing Act which prohibited discrimination in housing. He signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, giving federal support for student loans, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, abolishing quotas based on race or national origin. He initiated the “War on Poverty” resulting in the Economic Opportunity Act, which created the Job Corps and the Community Action Program, designed to attack poverty locally. The act created VISTA, a domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps. He also made the Apollo Space Program a national priority, and after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, he even passed gun control legislation.
Vietnam was a different story. At the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, our support of South Vietnam was considered a losing cause. Henry Cabot Lodge, our ambassador to Vietnam, reported that General Duong Van “Big” Minh, leader of the coup that ousted Diem, had no more support among the people than his predecessor. In fact, he was overthrown within three months of Diem’s assassination. U Thant, Secretary General of the UN, recommended removal of all foreign troops from Vietnam, and transferring control of Vietnam to a neutral government. De Gaulle also recommended a negotiated withdrawal, predicting the same fate for the US as befell France at Dien Bien Phu. Even in South Vietnam it was reported that Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and also General Minh had negotiated independently with Ho Chi Minh about reuniting the country and expelling the Americans.
Kennedy had already given orders to start withdrawing troops, but Johnson cancelled the order, not wanting to negotiate from a position of weakness; he didn’t see how we could fail against such a “Raggety-ass little fourth rate country,” and as he famously said: “I don’t want to be the first president to lose a war.” Thus, Johnson fell into line behind all the other presidents since FDR in following Tuchman’s rule: “Once a policy has been adopted and implemented, all subsequent activity becomes an effort to justify it.”
After receiving intelligence that North Vietnamese troops had crossed the 17th parallel, Johnson approved sending American naval ships into the Gulf of Tonkin as a warning to Hanoi to pull back. A destroyer, the USS Mattox, was attacked on August 2, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Another attack on August 4 was reported but denied by the North Vietnamese. As a result, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President authority to defend any of our Asian allies with military force without an act of Congress.
The sponsor of the bill in the Senate, William Fulbright, was opposed to the war in Vietnam, but like others he was convinced that Johnson wouldn’t expand our role there. Also he didn’t want to embarrass the president in an election year.
Johnson’s opponent in the 1964 presidential race was Barry Goldwater, who was in favor of our intervention in Vietnam, so Johnson pretended to be more moderate, even though he had already made plans to bomb Hanoi. Goldwater’s slogan was “In your heart you know he’s right.” Johnson’s campaign responded with bumper stickers which said, “In your gut you know he’s nuts.” Johnson won in a landslide.
Johnson’s victory in 1964 gave him another opportunity to get out of Vietnam. He had a high approval rating; Diem’s government had failed, and leaders from around the world, including South Vietnam, favored our withdrawal. Instead, Johnson, on the advice of his military leaders, initiated a bombing campaign against North Vietnam, called Rolling Thunder, and began sending in ground troops, 200,000 by October 1965.
Throughout 1966 and ’67 the escalation continued. The bombing campaign was extended to include supply routes through Laos and the Vietnamese Highlands, the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” and without consulting the South Vietnamese, ground troops began the new tactic of “Search and Destroy,” where small villages thought to harbor Vietcong were destroyed. Horrific attacks were carried out using incendiary agents such as Napalm and White phosphorus. By September 1967 US troop levels had reached 500,000. As public awareness of the war grew, Johnson’s approval fell to 26%. Against all evidence to the contrary, Johnson continued to think that more was better. In a conversation with former president Eisenhower, he said, "I’m trying to win it just as fast as I can in every way that I know how".
Then suddenly, everything changed. In January, 1968, during Tet, the new year’s holiday, when many in the South Vietnamese army were home on leave, Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces staged a coordinated attack on South Vietnamese cities. The result was 45000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong killed, over 10,000 South Vietnamese military killed or wounded, and almost 10,000 American military killed or wounded. The loss of civilians was almost 40,000 killed or wounded and 500,000 refugees were created, in addition to the 800,000 refugees already homeless as a result of the war.
The assessment of the 1968 Tet offensive by US military leaders was positive. According to them, we had “won” since we scored a higher “body count” than the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces. Westmoreland, the US commanding general, declared victory, and asked for 250,000 more troops to finish the job.
This time Johnson didn’t go
along with the military’s recommendations. He had had enough. On March 31st,
he gave a speech announcing a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, and an
offer of peace talks with Ho Chi Minh. Finally he withdrew from the 1968
presidential race, and fired Westmoreland.
