Johnson, Lyndon B.

Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–1973), thirty‐sixth president of the United States.Johnson was born on 27 August 1908 in the Hill Country of central Texas. His father was a Democratic politician from whom Lyndon inherited his lifelong passion for politics. He was educated in nearby schools and Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos. He then taught in Cotulla and Houston.

In the thirties, Johnson went to Washington and became an ardent admirer of FDR and his New Deal. In 1938, he captured his first elective office for the Tenth Congressional District, including the Hill Country and Austin, and was reelected several times. In 1948, he “won” an extremely close and tainted election to the Senate. He became minority leader of the Senate (1953), where he was a master congressional politician and emerged as a candidate for president.

The 1960 election was Johnson's big chance. But he believed it hopeless because he came from the South and the convention would be dominated by northern Democrats. He entered no primaries and made virtually no campaign, thereby ceding the nomination to John F. Kennedy on the first ballot. But Kennedy, concerned that his Catholicism would bring defeat in the South, offered Johnson the second place, and he accepted. Johnson's powerful campaign in the South made victory possible by a thin margin. Thus, for almost three years he served in the meaningless job of vice president, loyal, to be sure, but bored and frustrated. On 22 November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet catapulted him into the presidency.

Johnson, with his exceptional intelligence, his feel for the legislative process, and his experience on Capitol Hill, was superbly qualified in domestic policy; he was less experienced in international affairs. Among the most aggressive cold warriors, Johnson determined to halt Soviet and Chinese expansion. His key advisers, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and national security adviser McGeorge Bundy, both holdovers from the Kennedy administration, shared these views.

The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were baffled by the problem of Communist‐Nationalist influence in Vietnam. Kennedy had increased the number of U.S. advisers and introduced “Green Beret” counterinsurgency combat advisers. He had supported Ngo No Dingh Diem in South Vietnam. But Diem and his family were brutal and corrupt; the Viet Cong controlled much of the country; there was bitter Catholic‐Buddhist conflict; the Soviets and the Chinese supplied Ho Chi Minh in the North. The assassination of Diem and his brother with U.S. assent was followed by a revolving door of “governments” that quickly collapsed. There seemed no way to save South Vietnam from the Communists. A military venture appeared reckless, but the United States refused to accept Communist control of the South. The result was a limited commitment: financial support; U.S. military supplies and covert operations; and training the Vietnamese forces. This was the situation Johnson inherited.

As an accidental president obligated to complete Kennedy's legacy, he was not ready for war in 1964. He needed to legitimize his own presidency, which he achieved in November with his landslide electoral victory against Barry Goldwater.

Johnson's primary advisers concluded that South Vietnam was the linchpin of the Cold War. If it fell, the Communists would take over Southeast Asia, perhaps followed by South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Iran. This was Eisenhower's “domino theory” writ large. South Vietnam was so weak that the United States had no bargaining power with the North. To achieve peace, therefore, the United States must smash North Vietnam by bombing. The advisers did not mention a land war, but that was the only alternative if bombing failed.

This made no sense. The Communist world was divided and South Vietnam was in reality no linchpin at all. Air bombardment was little threat to an agricultural nation supplied by the Soviets. If the United States moved to a land war, Ho Chi Minh held the winning cards because it would mean guerrilla warfare. Dissenters, Undersecretary of State George Ball, Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, as well as French president Charles de Gaulle, all made these arguments, but Johnson would not heed them.

Early in 1965, Johnson started air attacks with Operation Flaming Dart, which soon widened into Rolling Thunder. In March, the Marines splashed ashore to establish a base at Danang. On 6 April, Johnson signed National Security Action Memorandum No. 328, which authorized the use of American combat troops.

Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, made enormous demands for troops; the president gave him part of what he asked. By mid‐1966, Westmoreland had 600,000 American troops with immense firepower, a huge air force, and a giant infrastructure. Johnson controlled their use, particularly the air war. The bombing had little military effect. Westmoreland waited for major battles where his firepower would prevail, but they seldom took place. Meantime the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong imposed a heavy toll in U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties.

Support for the war at home, strong at the outset, eroded steadily. Mounting casualties, lack of victory, and increasingly skeptical television coverage fed opposition. Opponents of the war staged massive demonstrations, and the Johnson administration started to crack internally.

The Tet Offensive, launched by the Viet Cong at the end of January 1968, caught Westmoreland by surprise. There were attacks on cities and towns throughout the country with many initial successes. Though American forces recaptured these places, it was at heavy cost to both sides.

Tet convinced the American people that the war could go on for years and might never be won. The Johnson administration was shredded, the peace and antiwar movements grew dramatically, conservatives in Congress ran roughshod over the Great Society, and the Democratic Party split. Johnson withdrew from the presidential race in 1968; Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated; and there were riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Richard M. Nixon prevailed over Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, in the 1968 election, with a promise to end the war with honor.

In 1969, Lyndon Johnson returned to his ranch to spend his few remaining years with his memories. He had been a bold president on domestic issues and a misguided one on the Vietnam War.
[See also Bombing, Ethics of; Bombing of Civilians; Vietnam Antiwar Movement; Vietnam War: Causes; Vietnam War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Vietnam War: Domestic Course.]

Bibliography

Lyndon Baines Johnson , The Vantage Point, 1971.
The Pentagon Papers, Senator Gravel, ed., 4 vols., 1971.
Stanley Karnow , Vietnam, A History, 1983.
Clark Clifford , Counsel to the President, 1991.
Robert S. McNamara , In Retrospect, 1995.
Irving Bernstein , Guns or Butter, 1996.

Irving Bernstein