It is true that the Democrats pressured Johnson not to run for reelection

[CatWoman]

during the Vietnam Conflict?

Has Johnson ever offered public regrets/apologies for his role in that Conflict?

[gratuitous]

1. No, I think Johnson decided that on his own

He announced his decision not to run at the end of March 1968, which caught just about everyone by surprise. The Democratic field ballooned into the sudden vacuum, drawing all sorts of folks into the race, which was foreshortened by the lateness of Johnson's announcement.

Oops, found a website! Here's the pertinent part of his speech on March 31, 1968:

"I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

"With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country.

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

It's inconceivable to think of Chimpy mouthing these words. How things have changed in just 35 years!

[CMT]

2. No

most mainstream democrats supported President Johnson. You know, it is a little known fact but Johnson was actually a write-in candidate in New Hampshire primary in 1968 while Gene McCarthy was on the ballot and Johnson actually beat McCarthy as a write-in 49-42 percent, but becuz McCarthy still got 42% against a sitting president that became the big story.

[wuushew]

3. It was Lady Bird calling the shots

she knew that men in LBJ's family died early from heart conditions. She turned out to be correct and that is why she told him to add the line "and I will not accept the nomination of my party" to his speech.

[John_H]

4. We'll find out for sure when the tapes and Caro's next volume are released

but most people tend to believe that, like many Johnson decisions, the decision not to run in 1968 was grounded both in selfishness and genuine patriotism. He was woried about his health (he'd had 2 heart attacks), probabaly realized there was a good chance his nemesis, RFK, would have handed him an embarrassing defeat in the election, and suspected that even if he got the nomination, Nixon would probably win since his approval was in the 20's.

On the other hand he understood that his candidacy would rip the democratic party and the country in two (since every decision he made about the war would be seen in political terms) and that it really would be an abdication of his duties to devote even a portion of his energies toward politics when "his boys" were dying in Viet Nam every day.

on edit: Johnson recognized and dreaded the quagmire in Viet Nam beginning in 1964.

[jiacinto]

6. The Democratic Party was ripped in two

And it didn't recover the events of 1968 until Clinton won in 1992.

[Eloriel]

8. I think it was Doris Kearnes Goodwin

who said that when Johnson saw 100,000 protesters outside his window he knew it was over for him.

Eloriel

[shance]

17. Ive heard that....

Ive also heard it was at that point that he started a shift in policy.

[shance]

5. I am continuously baffled at the blame Johnson gets for Vietnam

We were already goint into Vietnam in 52 - Eisenhower would seem to me to be the whole initiator of our proud Vietnam history.

Am I wrong?

[jiacinto]

7. You are right somewhat

Eisenhower and JFK laid the groundwork for what the quagmire Vietnam came when Johnson was in office.

[Doomsayer13]

10. many JFK lovers argue that he would've left

but we can never know. JFK also authorized the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem, the head of South Vietnam which tied us to the conflict in that there was no independent head of Vietnam anymore. We pretty much had troops in Vietnam under the guise of "military advisors" and broke the Geneva Accords during JFK's term.

[Merlin]

12. Wrong. JFK did not authorize a coup against Diem.

A critical cable was sent by Bundy to Lodge, our ambassador, in JFK's absense. When JFK was told about it hours later (he was vacationing in Hyannis), he was immediately alarmed and ordered it be withdrawn, but by then it was too late.

True, JFK's administration had ruminated for months earlier about the need for new leadership in Vietnam. But he was horrified about the Diem murders, and the manner in which the coup was carried out.

(Diem and his brother were, like JFK and RFK, both Catholics. JFK felt something of a kinship with him. He reluctantly wanted Diem out. But he wanted an orderly transition, with the Diems brought to the US with dignity.)

[Doomsayer13]

20. No doubt JFK was horrified about the murders

but White House tapes suggest that JFK did know that a coup was going to take place. Despite JFK's faith in Diem is was pretty obvious by 1963 that Diem was ineffective and unpopular. US agents in Vietnam urged new leadership and JFK reluctantly lamented but he didn't know that Diem and his brothers were going to be executed in the back of a truck in such fashioin.

[CMT]

26. the tapes show that JFK approved of the coup but

was alarmed when Diem was murdered and this haunted him.

[Julien Sorel]

9. He did an absolutely terrible job of micro-managing the war.

He would personally approve bombing targets, and listen in on the radio feed during their missions in the White House sometimes. He also refused to let the military fight to win, afraid of another Korea. So we were trapped: on the one hand, leaving would cost us face, and in the Cold War, face was everything; on the other, Johnson refused to allow us to assume the initiative. So we sat there, allowing the North Vietnamese to dictate the pace of the war. He allowed his fears to rule policy, and that's how you lose.

You might have heard of the Seige of Khe Sahn. Johnson had a scale model of the whole thing built in the White House, and he agonized over it every day. The war ate him up, ate up his presidency.

I like Johnson in many ways -- he was tremendously bright, energetic, had a genuine conscience, and was one of the greatest political in-fighters we've ever seen. But Vietnam was his low point, and would have been the low point of anyone.

[Merlin]

11. LBJ is rightly blamed for Vietnam.

JFK inherited a few thousand "advisors" in Nam, under the control of the CIA.

From the first week of his presidency (literally) the JCS pressured him mercilessly to send in combat troops. JFK refused. He and RFK had spent a month in Nam in '55 and came away with the conclusion a colonially run "mandarin" (puppet) govt would never have popular support; the Vietnamese were fed up with hundreds of years of foreign occupation.

(Further, he knew that historically Ho Chi Minh had kicked the Japanese out after the Japanese had driven the French out in WWII. Despite Ho's plea in person to MacArthur that he wanted an American style democracy in Nam, the US supported having the French come back in after WWII. They got their asses handed to them by Ho's forces at Dien Bien Phu in '54.)

But for JFK, the tough thing was to pull out, knowing it would go communist, without being blamed for "losing Vietnam" as the right had done to Truman after China. So he went along with increasing the number of non-combat advisors to 17,500, remaining under CIA command.

Finally, he decided in the summer of '63 he would play jujitsu against the Pentagon and CIA. They were always insisting things were going great in Nam. So JFK sent McNamara (Sec Def) and Taylor (JCS Chmn) on a "fact finding" mission in September. They were to report back. JFK ordered their report to be written before they left on their trip. They were to report things were going so well, we could pull out all advisers by 1965. JFK accepted the recommendations on Oct 13, '63 (National Security Action Memorandum 263), ordering the first 1,000 to be withdrawn by the end of '63 and the balance by the end of '65.

LBJ had always supported sending combat troops in. He had sided with the Joint Chiefs at each of the meetings where it was discussed. The minutes of those meetings (and recordings) are now public. (Check the JFK Library online.) LBJ and the JCS wanted combat troops and they were violently opposed to JFK's withdrawal order.

Six weeks after that order, JFK was killed. Three days later, LBJ held a JCS meeting at the WH and afterward signed NSAM 273 reversing the withdrawal order.

It's all a matter of public record.

After LBJ took over, he ran for reelection mostly on pursuing JFK's domestic agenda. Then in '65, after defeating Goldwater, the Tonkin Gulf scam was executed. Essentially we sent a team of PT boats into the Tonkin Gulf harbor to harass the North Vietnamese navy. One of them pursued one of ours and fired at it. We then claimed we were attacked by the North, LBJ immediately went to Congress and got an enabling resolution, and a few months later, the first contingent of US Marines made a famous landing at Da Nang Beach.

After a couple of years, LBJ discovered the lesson JFK knew all along. It's the same lesson Shrub never learned, but his Daddy knew in '91. It's the same lesson Ike and MacArthur and DeGaulle all knew when they recommended to JFK against sending in combat troops.

The lesson is simple:

• People hate being conquered.
  
• Weapons are cheap.
  
• Guerrilla warfare can go on forever.
  
• Eventually the conquerer will want to go home.

So that's why LBJ is rightly held to account for our immersion into Vietnam and the loss of that war.

History will hold George Bush accountable for Iraq for many of the same reasons.

[shance]

13. SO WRONG...George Bush INITIATED, Lyndon Johnson INHERITED Vietnam

Apples and Oranges Merlin.

Eisenhower was the one with which Vietam ultimately began with American involvement and thus was the initiator, and both Kennedy and Johnson caught it after years and YEARS of Vietnam.

You in my opinion judge unfairly and fail to look at the array of complexities in ADOPTING a war. It had gone beyond the point of messy, beyond entangled, so enraged and by then promoted by other Special forces, Johnson did what little in truth he thought he could, as any of us would.

Its easy for us to sit on the sidelines making grand declarations of what should have been done. Im sure LBJ would love the opportunity to speak his mind and defense on the subject, if only he were alive today.

[Merlin]

14. What???

"George Bush INITIATED, Lyndon Johnson INHERITED Vietnam"

Are you posting from a parallel universe?

[Josh]

18. He means Bush initiated Iraq whereas Johnson inherited Vietnam

nt.

[Julien Sorel]

15. It wasn't Eisenhower, it was Truman.

Look it up. I've actually pointed that out here before, several times.

In a way, I agree with you about Johnson inheriting the war, but he did choose to escalate it. The Gulf of Tonkin incident could have been treated as the irrelevancy it was. Instead, Johnson chose to use it as a pretext to escalate.

[shance]

16. Was it really Truman? We go in Vietnam back THAT far??

That I didnt know. Thats heavy. We were involved in Vietnam for over 30 years?

When exactly did our involvement begin?

[Julien Sorel]

19. In about 1949, when the French decided they wanted to

keep 'Indochina' (Vietnam). Truman started with financial support, but was sending over military advisers soon afterwards. We essentially never left after that. The three big steps belonged to Truman for getting us involved, Eisenhower for effectively nullifying the Geneva Accords, and LBJ for the serious escalation in 1964.

[Doomsayer13]

21. Vietnam goes as far back as Franklin Roosevelt

towards the end of WWII a major concern about the US administration and its allies was what was to be done about the colonies in Southeast Asia that had been taken over by the Japanese. FDR, an ardent anti-colonialist, initially tried to make France, who had prior control of Vietnam, grant an autonomous government to it's Southeast Asian colony. But France refused and claimed Vietnam in the same fashion as reclaiming lost property in a dispute and in the end, FDR consented to prolonged French control of Vietnam under the pretext that France would eventually give it up. French refusal to give Vietnam any sort of autonomy would lead to the French-Vietnam war which lasted from Truman's term through Eisenhower's term. Truman would implement the seeds of US involvment by helping France by paying for arms and also initiating the sending of US military advisors to Vietnam. Truman did this becuause of his hardline anti-communist line. Eisenhower took up Trumans banner and went further, by the time of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the US was picking up the tab for the entire French-Vietnamese war.

JFK was only a continuation of these policies, and everything came to its boiling point during the Johnson and Nixon terms.

[Doomsayer13]

22. well, "non-combat" is a tricky term

"Non-combat military advisors" is pretty much just a ruse to send more soldiers in without an official commitment. Americans were being sent home in body bags long before LBJ become president.

[Adjoran]

23. The pressure was on

but not only from the party, but from within. As posted above, the war had consumed him and was his undoing {McCarthy's insurgency was solely based upon Vietnam, he was a big supporter of the "Great Society" programs}.

LBJ was responsible for most of the escalation, although Kennedy is not as pure of hand as some would portray, and Nixon mirrored the LBJ policies, but as if drunk.

[mrbill]

24. what do chimpy and lbj have in common?

Brown & Root, now Halliburton.

LBJ had a relationship with Brown & Root going back to the beginning of his political career, right around that Duval county incident. Campaign donations, free airplane rides, the whole ball of wax.

LBJ escalated and Brown & Root got a lot of fat government contracts in Viet Nam, building bases and such.

Saw LBJ give that speech live on the tv. At the time was a draft-age male in college with dull-average grades. Thought it was going to be an important policy speech. What a surprise when he said he was outta there.

Is retrospect, maybe LBJ was saying that "homey don't play that military-industrial complex game anymore".

LBJ was a casuality of the Viet Nam experience, the stress took years off his life.

What's real scary is that chimpy doesn't give a shit.

[Patriot_Spear]

30. They have NOTHING in common...

LBJ never forgot his experieces of poverty and work from his youth, which helped to mold the policies of his adminstration. Bush is an alcohol and drug addled dilitente.

Johnson was a wiley and knowledgable elected official, who spent several years in Congress. Bush is an alcohol and drug addled dilitente.

Johnson's skill in government single-handedly paved the way for the most sweeping civil rights legislation in our history. Bush is an alcohol and drug addled dilitente.

Johnson was a man of principal and strong will, albeit misguided at times. Bush is an alcohol and drug addled dilitente.

[mrbill]

31. LBJ drove through his pasture throwing beer cans out the window.

he could handle his alcohol and didn't mind the press coming along.

on edit:typo

[kcordell]

25. More To It

LBJ was a very sick man. His health had been failing for years. I don't think he could have survived another term.

[jos]

27. Made the decision on his own

He was facing a crushing defeat in the Wisconsin primaries in two days. Although he probably could have won the nomination even with primary defeats, because most states didn't have primaries, he knew he probably faced a third-party challenge from the left in the fall if he did that. Plus his health was always a concern.

[Patriot_Spear]

28. Johnson was a product of his time...

Like Kennedy, Johnson grew up being indoctrinated about the 'threat of communism'. His policies on Viet Nam were the result of this 50 year campaign to demonize that political system.

Johnson did not make the decisions on Viet Nam alone- his advisors pushed hard for the conflict and when they started to waffle on the war, just four years later, Johnsaon was furious.

Johnson's downfall was really orchestrated at the grassroots level. Youthful party activists organized a campiagn to 'Dump Johnson', which ultimately gained support from the mainstram Dem leadership.

Johnson himself was mentally and emotionally spent from the Viet Nam policy and did not seek a second term.

[mrbill]

29. if lbj had told his "advisors" to eat shit and bark at the moon....

the world would be a better place today.

viva lbj.

[Patriot_Spear]

32. Anti-Communist zeal was a plague...

You don't understand the pervasive and relentless nature of the message at that time. It had been pounded into the heads of every offcial that there was no such thing as excess when it came to communism.

Remember, Macarthy took a nosedive AFTER he attacked the loyalty of Army. Before that most people didn't really care.

Truman, Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, etc- cold war presidents who were sold the world view that the US was in a life or death struggle with global communism. In this respect their actions while in office were totally predictable.

[mrbill]

33. viva brown & root.