Is the current historical perception of LBJ inaccurate?

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Some indication of the character (or lack thereoff) of LBJ, is afforded by his wartime “service”. At the outbreak of WWII, LBJ was a Texas representative in Congress. He somehow used his influence to obtain a commission in the US Navy (he was awarded the rank of Lt. Commander). He showed up on the island of Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides), and took a plane ride (ostensibly to study japanese positions). For this “service” he was awarded three medals! A real POS, LBJ!
[/QUOTE]

He joined the naval reserves and was commissioned. President Roosevelt sent him on an inspection tour of Pacific bases. When he was on a base in Australia, he managed to convince General MacArthur to let him go along on a bombing run against the Japanese base at Lae, in New Guinea.

The bomber he was in experienced engine trouble and had to turn back. At the end of the bombing run, he was awarded a Silver Star, which he probably didn’t deserve, because a bunch of historians concluded he probably didn’t come under fire.

That’s one medal, not three. He then issued suggestions as to how to improve combat readiness, and went back to Congress where he chaired a subcommittee on naval reform.

62

[QUOTE=RickJay]
The contortions, contradictions and cognitive dissonance people here are willing to go through just to avoid admitting that a Democratic President was largely responsible for a catastrophic, pointless war are truly astounding.
[/QUOTE]

I have no problem blaming LBJ for “Mr. Johnson’s War”, nor do I have a problem blaming JFK for “Mr. McNamara’s War”. Nor FDR and Truman for sticking our nose in a failed colony when we should have been pushing freedom. I’ll leave Republican presidents out of this discussion, per your request. (But I have to ask how Dick Nixon’s “secret plan to end the Viet Nam War” he campaigned on in '68 worked out?)

Johnson was a terrible president (Viet Nam war, deficit spending, verbal abuse of friends/staff/family, corruption, philandering). Johnson was also a great president (Great Society and Civil Rights). There were major problems with the Great Society programs, but at least LBJ and company were trying to accomplish something positive. The Civil Rights legislation was a huge, Huge, HUGE, HUGE accomplishment. LBJ pushed for it even though he said privately that the Civil Rights laws would clobber the Democratic Party in the South for at least 20 years (Wiki, and search the page for generation). Can you imagine any other US president doing the right thing when it might cost his party one single vote?

LBJ is arguably one of the best AND one of the worst presidents in US history. Wrapping my brain around that gives me a headache. Without hijacking the thread too badly, where are the counterbalancing positive accomplishments in Dubya’s administration?

63

[QUOTE=Typo Knig]
(But I have to ask how Dick Nixon’s “secret plan to end the Viet Nam War” he campaigned on in '68 worked out?)
[/QUOTE]

It worked out pretty well, actually. He deescalated the war, he removed the soldiers, and he gave South Vietnam a chance to at least try to defend themselves (which they were both unable and unwilling to do, much to their later chagrin). How that comment stands even the slightest amount of scrutiny given the context of this thread boggles my mind.

64

I think that if it had not been for the Vietnam War, LBJ would probably have gone down as one of the great presidents regardless of his ethics or morals, what with civil rights and poverty eradication. Think of the money he would have had available to spend if it had not been for Vietnam.

65

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
It worked out pretty well, actually. He deescalated the war, he removed the soldiers, and he gave South Vietnam a chance to at least try to defend themselves (which they were both unable and unwilling to do, much to their later chagrin). How that comment stands even the slightest amount of scrutiny given the context of this thread boggles my mind.
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My (rather snarky) point was that if a presidential candidate claims to have a plan to end the war, and he actually HAD a plan to end the war, that the execution of that plan ought to have ended the war while that president was actually, ya know, IN OFFICE. Particularly since said president was in office longer than William Henry Harrison.

Getting back to LBJ, as I recall there are conversations on LBJ’s tapes where he perfectly described the problems the US was facing in
Viet Nam. Yet LBJ just could not reach out for any real solution to those problems. That failure - that repeated, extended failure - cost thousands of American lives, untold Viet Namese lives, and - least of all IMNSHO - cost LBJ a second full term in office and his place in history.

“When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging” must not have been said in the White House after 1945. It should have been.

66

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
It worked out pretty well, actually. He deescalated the war, he removed the soldiers, and he gave South Vietnam a chance to at least try to defend themselves (which they were both unable and unwilling to do, much to their later chagrin). How that comment stands even the slightest amount of scrutiny given the context of this thread boggles my mind.
[/QUOTE]
This is not good terrain for you to defend. Nixon, as far as history can tell, had no ‘secret plan to end the war.’ Another 21,000 U.S. troops died in that war on his watch - he may have de-escalated, but not that fast.

He expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos, as Little Nemo said in his historical summary, and supported (pro-U.S.) Lon Nol’s coup which deposed (neutral) Prince Sihanouk. The coup and the contemporaneous U.S. bombings of Cambodia turned the Khmer Rouge from an opposition group that didn’t matter into one that developed sufficient support to…well, you know the rest of that story.

And of course, how does the U.S. keep a war going while using less troops, in any war? That’s right, air power. (And in every war, the Air Force says: in this war, it’ll be a precision tool, not the blunt instrument of old.) LBJ had been no piker in bombing the North, but Nixon made Lyndon look like an amateur in that department, causing Lord knows how many Vietnamese civilian deaths and injuries.

If that’s “work[ing] out pretty well,” I’d hate to think of what ‘working out badly’ would have looked like.

67

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
This is not good terrain for you to defend. Nixon, as far as history can tell, had no ‘secret plan to end the war.’ Another 21,000 U.S. troops died in that war on his watch - he may have de-escalated, but not that fast.
[/quote]

I’m on a lot firmer ground than the Johnson apologists.

You don’t have to like what he did, but he gave South Vietnam a chance, and he didn’t turn the Khmer Rouge into what they were, he tried to give Cambodia a chance as well. Laos and Cambodia, even in Johnson’s time, were always a part of the wider war. At least Nixon was forthright about it.

An amateur? You must be joking. The only “indiscriminate” bombings were the ones that ended our involvement in the war, and even those were targeted. This is a fantasy. And, of course, 5 years into a war is a little late for you to become humanitarian about things. Nixon was at fault? Are you mad?

It would have looked like the Ia Drang Valley 1965, Hue, Saigon, My Lai and Khe Sanh 1968. Who was President then? Who swore up and down that he would never send American boys to do what Asian boys ought to be doin’ for themselves? Isn’t that how it went?

68

I think eventually Johnson will be moderately well regarded by history. His non-international accomplishments were significant (even if you are ideologically opposed).

The reason he will be better regarded down the road is because, unlike people of this generation, future generations will not have this personal, burning contempt for Vietnam. Sure, it will always be a failure, but in the long view of history, it will not be a permanent source of national shame. Still today, that failure is very raw. History has a way of calming passions.

I mean, really, who gets worked up over the Tea Pot Dome Scandal? Sure, we’ve all heard of it, but who just gets PISSED when thinking about it? Now, if all you have is Tea Pot Dome, you get judged harshly. But I think history will look at LBJ’s overall contribution and decide that he did more than just butcher a war.

Of course, to give the flip side argument, I think Vietnam potentially looks even worse the further we get away from remembering exactly how frightening the threat of the Soviet Union’s aggressive expansion was. Even today, people are starting to forget that the decision made in Vietnam were not made in the pristine conditions of modern times where Putin is a bully, but not invading Czechoslovakia. That could obviously worsen the impact of Vietnam on his legacy. Odd how some things fade and some things linger. The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago and we’ve already forgotten that world. Saigon fell 33 years ago, and our last presidential campaign hinged on it.

This is why I think it is absurd for historians to evaluate Bush’s place as “one of the worst presidents of all-time”. For people to get the impact of history, you need to wait at least 20-25 years afterwards to see what was important. What’s the rush? Bush will still be awful in 25 years. Some people just suck.

Johnson on the other hand, will improve the further away from Vietnam we get. Eventually the passion for even that nightmare will subside.

69

Johnson lied and forced his underlings to lie about Vietnam. He refused all offers of negotiation, and even planned a staged battle (the seige of kheSanh) to bolster his irational claims about why we had to fight the war. My brother’s best friend died at KheSanh-to justify this monster’s ego!
As soon as Khesanh’s propaganda value ceased, Johnson had the troops pack up and move-so much for the “lynchpin of democracy”.
For me, Johnson’s constant lying and medacious behavior is unforgiveable. And his cowardly abdication-“I will not seak or accept the nomination for president”-speaks reams-the bastard didn’t want to open himself to 4 years more. of course, he might have had the courage to admit he was wrong-but that wasn’t Johnson’s MO-he had no courage, being a scoundrel to the last!

70

[QUOTE=middleman]
I mean, really, who gets worked up over the Tea Pot Dome Scandal? Sure, we’ve all heard of it, but who just gets PISSED when thinking about it?
[/QUOTE]

That was all blown out of proportion. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way out to the picture show to hiss Roosevelt.

71

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Johnson lied and forced his underlings to lie about Vietnam. He refused all offers of negotiation, and even planned a staged battle (the seige of kheSanh) to bolster his irational claims about why we had to fight the war. My brother’s best friend died at KheSanh-to justify this monster’s ego!
As soon as Khesanh’s propaganda value ceased, Johnson had the troops pack up and move-so much for the “lynchpin of democracy”.
For me, Johnson’s constant lying and medacious behavior is unforgiveable. And his cowardly abdication-“I will not seak or accept the nomination for president”-speaks reams-the bastard didn’t want to open himself to 4 years more. of course, he might have had the courage to admit he was wrong-but that wasn’t Johnson’s MO-he had no courage, being a scoundrel to the last!
[/QUOTE]

While you differ with my conclusion, I think your post actually reinforces my reasoning. You have a deeply personal and highly legitimate reason for raw hatred of Johnson. I argue that when people of our era are gone or in the minority, the impact of Vietnam on Johnson’s legacy will diminish, at least partially. I’m not validating his actions or invalidating your emotions, I am just saying that I believe that when emotion is removed, a dispassionate view of LBJ will favor his presidency.

72

[QUOTE=Koxinga]
That was all blown out of proportion. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way out to the picture show to hiss Roosevelt.
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This reminds me of a quote from Family Guy where Peter Griffin is looking at a vintage porn nickelodeon.

“Ya you break all the rules, eh. Yeah, thats right, vote for Taft, you dirty girl!”

73

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
I’m on a lot firmer ground than the Johnson apologists.
[/quote]
If you’re talking about those who’d excuse or minimize Johnson’s role in our getting into a full-fledged war in Vietnam, I think you and I would agree that that’s not saying much at all.

In exactly the same way that Bush is giving the current government of Iraq a chance - by simultaneously depriving it of legitimacy and protecting it from any consequences.

Nuts to that. Cambodia didn’t need a chance on January 20, 1969 - it was already doing tolerably well, given that a major war was going on next door.

The difference was, our incursions into those countries were pretty minimal during Johnson’s Administration.

THE HELL HE WAS.

You do know why they were called the “secret bombings,” right? It’s because THEY WERE KEPT SECRET. (From everyone but the Cambodians and the VC, of course. As Doonesbury had a Cambodian saying: "Secret bombings? Boy, there wasn’t any secret about them! Everyone here knew! I did, and my wife, she knew, too! She was with me, and I remarked on them! I said, ‘Look, Martha, here come the bombs.’ ")

The ‘targeted’ part, I assume you mean.

That would in fact be a fantasy.

Five years into a war isn’t too late to not continue the war for another 5 years. Of course Nixon was at fault for his part of the war. You think Kissinger hornswoggled him into it?

Look, I’m not arguing with you about Johnson, either by himself, or comparatively to Nixon. You and I are arguing Nixon’s responsibility, period - or at least, that’s the thing you talked about what I’m disputing. Plenty of bad stuff happened after Nixon took over the war and extended it for another four years, and he wound up losing the war anyway - though Kissinger was apparently able to negotiate a decent interval before the North Vietnamese marched south and collapsed the ARVN like a rotten melon.

Yeah, cause 20,000 American deaths, who knows how many Vietnamese dead and wounded, four more years of war, destroy a second country as collateral damage - what’s not to like?

74

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Nuts to that. Cambodia didn’t need a chance on January 20, 1969 - it was already doing tolerably well, given that a major war was going on next door.
[/QUOTE]

And nuts to that as well. Cambodia and Laos were the feeders for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They refused to even police their own borders.

If by minimal you mean “quiet about it”, I totally agree.

What was “secret” about it? The incursion into Cambodia was both legitimate (as Cambodia was a tacit ally of North Vietnam) and very public. I know you remember Kent State, right? Some secret, if students knew about it.

Not so. The B-52s were aiming at targets. And it accomplished exactly what was intended, it brought the intransigent North Vietnamese back to the table to wrap the damn thing up instead of letting them vacillate for another year or two.

Now this is about all I agree with you on, but at the same time it’s easy to see why we stayed, just as it’s easy to see why we’re staying in Iraq. Doesn’t make it right, but it is understandable.

The guy who made it into the mess it became with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution- Lyndon Baines Johnson. That’s what’s not to like. Just as Obama won’t be able to withdraw from Iraq for some time because it’s a mess, so it was with Nixon.

75

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
And nuts to that as well. Cambodia and Laos were the feeders for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They refused to even police their own borders.
[/quote]
By now, we all should be clear on the distinction between “refused to police their borders” and “weren’t able to enforce the same sort of territorial integrity that European nations consider the norm.”

Yes, the VC ‘cheated’ by running the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos and Cambodia. That still didn’t give us the right to bomb the shit out of Cambodia, or to support a coup in that country that replaced a leader with at least some legitimacy with a puppet.

Cites?

Why should I even talk to someone who doesn’t know the history? That was AFTER A YEAR OF THE GODDAMN SECRET BOMBING.

Never said they weren’t. But if you drop a bomb, you don’t always hit your target. And even if you hit your target, it’s not always the only thing you hit.

True in Vietnam, true in Iraq.

Cite?

I suppose I can understand why some people will doom thousands of people rather than let anyone question their manhood, but you’re right - it’s still evil.

Why should I choose? Johnson’s escalating the Vietnam War was evil. Nixon’s continuing the war was evil.

We’ll see, I suppose. But one difference between Obama and Nixon is that I fully expect Obama will try to minimize the carnage that happens after he becomes President. Nixon didn’t give a damn how many yellow people died in his war.

76

I don’t have too much substance to add to the discussion, but anytime LBJ comes up, I like to make reference to this telephone conversation, where the leader of the free world audibly burps and makes reference to his nuts and bunghole.

77

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Never said they weren’t. But if you drop a bomb, you don’t always hit your target. And even if you hit your target, it’s not always the only thing you hit.
[/QUOTE]

Speaking of targets, in Vietnam there were restrictions on bombing targets. Pilots could not bomb within x distance of a hospital, say, or school or whatnot. (At least, there was supposed to be.) But the restrictions were for Vietnam only. In Laos and Cambodia, the restrictions did not apply, and the pilots could pick their targets at will. Laos was much more heavily bombed. Temples, hospital, schools, anything that the pilot thought for any reason could be harboring the enemy was fair game. Often, Vietnam vets will say we lost Vietnam because our hands were tied, that they were not allowed to wage total war on the North. But Laos was total war when it came to the bombing, and we lost anyway.

Incidentally, I find it an interesting note of historical irony that of the 6.3 million tons of bombs rained down on Indochina during the war, it was South Vietnam that bore the brunt, at 3.9 million tons! This from The Ravens: Pilots of the Secret War of Laos, by Christopher Robbins. (Laos was second at 1.6 million tons. By contrast, Germany took 1.36 million tons in World War II.)

78

Rucksinator, you ask "Who started the Viet Nam war?. A good question … but unfortunately, there is no answer.

The history of the Vietnam War is the history of Ho Chi Minh. During his life, Vietnam was occupied and conquered by one country after another. First the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, he fought against all of them. By the time that the Americans appeared on the scene, he was fifty years old. He had been fighting a succession of foreign armies, starting as a teenager, for his whole entire life. He went on to fight against the Americans for another ten years or so.

So. Who started it? The French, when they colonized Vietnam? The Japanese, who occupied it during WWII? The Americans, who tried riding in on white horses? From Ho Chi Minh’s perspective, it was one lifelong war against a string of enemies, foreigners trying to rule his country.

History is crazy. Ho was an ally of the US in WWII … and if Eisenhower hadn’t cancelled the proposed elections, Ho likely would have been democratically elected the leader of a unified Vietnam after WWII. So did Eisenhower cause the Vietnam war?

Go figure …

w.

79

[QUOTE=Typo Knig]
…as I recall there are conversations on LBJ’s tapes where he perfectly described the problems the US was facing in
Viet Nam. Yet LBJ just could not reach out for any real solution to those problems. That failure - that repeated, extended failure - cost thousands of American lives, untold Viet Namese lives, and - least of all IMNSHO - cost LBJ a second full term in office and his place in history.

“When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging” must not have been said in the White House after 1945. It should have been.
[/QUOTE]
True. However, we were on a (cold) war footing for decades afterwards, with high offices dominated by the WW2 generation who saw themselves as either fighting men or followers of orders. In a cold war, any “hole” feels like a foxhole, and “stop digging” was the last thing anyone in power wanted to do.

The whole era kind of created a corollary to von Clausewitz’ famous definition of war as “the continuation of politics by other means.” Politics became the waging of war by other means.

80

[QUOTE=intention]
So. Who started it? The French, when they colonized Vietnam? The Japanese, who occupied it during WWII? The Americans, who tried riding in on white horses? From Ho Chi Minh’s perspective, it was one lifelong war against a string of enemies, foreigners trying to rule his country.
[/QUOTE]
Good summary, but you neglect to note that the Chinese occupied Vietnam for the better part of a millenia, starting from a couple of centuries before the Roman Empire through the Mongol invasions (which Vietnam mostly managed to repel), then again a couple of times during the Ming dynasty, before France and Britain divvied up the Indochina penninsula. The Vietnamese have been fighting foriegn invaders (and in between, each other) since before Jesus roamed around Galilee telling everyone to be nice to each other, so of course they viewed their American benefactors to be just another in a nearly unbroken chain of self-styled overlords, while the United States feared an unholy and (and indeed, from the perspective of most of the rest of the world) unlikely alliance between the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, and a Communist-led Vietnam.

You need to bear in mind, however, that this all occurred while the strategically-critical Egypt was still an ally to the Soviet Union and India was snugging up with the Soviets for military and monetary aid. Fears of a global Communist hegomony were rampant and not entirely without basis, though the notion that historically antagnoistic nations such as China, Russia, and India would cooperate in such a union was little more than fanciful paranoia. Eisenhower’s involvement in Vietnam was limited to behind the scenes influence, and Kennedy to an “advisory” (read: covert operations and military support) capacity. Johnson, however, and contrary to the advice of every major ally and most of his Cabinet, widened U.S. involvement in an internal conflict into a war on a scale not seen since WWII, and with no clear intention or plan for extraction.

In retrospect, the Viet Minh were fighting for independence against any foreign rule by any nation, and the United States was regarded as just the latest in a string of would-be overlords. Given the tempestuous history of the United States in the Philippines even after nominal self-determination post-WWII, they may not have been wrong to believe so. Certainly the “Domino theory” (on which Eisenhower policy was based, and of which Johnson was an enthusiastic advocate) was flawed in blindness to cultural and historical divides.

Stranger