Watching the History Channel about JFK’s assassination, LBJ apparently made comments expressing his fear of uncertainty such as: “Who might be next?” and “When are the missiles coming”? He felt we were on the brink of WW III. He was certain it was a Russian or Cuban plot.
Can you just imagine how George W. Bush may have reacted had he been in LBJ’s shoes? Would “W” had gone to beat up the Cubans, regardless, being the closest and easiest target. Sheesh! We all might not even be here right now! We should all count our blessings this Thanksgiving that LBJ didn’t rush to push the button on that day.
With better satellites that supposedly can photograph license plates, which I WAG is just a way of expressing how high the resolution is nowadays, has our intellegence gone brain dead in the 21st century, or what? - Jinx
Well, according to another HC programme, about LBJ and Bobby Kennedy, LBJ was extremely paranoid about commies - so I guess we should think ourselves lucky that he restrained himself. Hoover had him convinced that he had enemies everywhere, especially King and Kennedy, who were under constant surveillance.
Not so- there are numerous recordings of LBJ’s consultations with J. Edgar Hoover, and Hoover comes across surprisingly well. He was lucid, calm, rational and NOT the paranoid fruitcake his enemies often accused him of being.
LBJ was extremely suspicious of JFK holdovers in his administration, as he believed many of them were disloyal, and looking for an opportunity to desert him and endorse Bobby Kennedy. But that wasn’t paranoia, it was an accurate assessment of the situation. Many of the JFK holdovers really were disloyal to LBJ!
Some years ago, Kennedy flunky Richard Goodwin wrote a book in which he tried to argue that LBJ was insane. Part of the “evidence” was that LBJ often fumed about Kennedy loyalists spying on him and reporting to Bobby Kennedy. Goodwin would then tell all this to Bobby Kennedy, who agreed this was a sign of paranoia on LBJ’s part.
Somehow, it never dawned on Goodwin that his own behavior proved LBJ 100% correct!!
Are you saying the J. Edgar Hoover, was was subordinate to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, had his people spy on his boss? Something about that doesn’t seem right. :eek:
LBJ, now some 30 years after his death, is still a mystery. He was a vindictive, petty, mean man, who was obsessed about "losing"in Vietnam. He professed to care about the death caused by his stupid war in Vietnam, yet, he rushed to make a deal with the North Vietnamese. Evidently, he thought he could salvage his place in history,if he managed to sign a face-saving cease fire in Vietnam. I cannot imagine what his military commanders thought-here was a man telling them to fight and die, while at the same time trying to negotiate with the enemy.
Supposedly, Johnson was a pragmatic politician…how he managed to get so obsessed about Vietnma, I can’t understand.
Now to Bush: he had better decide (come January) whether his own war in Iraq is worth wrecking the US economy (and alienating most of the world). If things settle down, I’d say he is justified…if the attacks continue, then he had better decide on pulling out, and writing off our losses. Either that or risk becoming another LBJ.
I’d like to think that GWB, if he had served during the Cold War, would be a bit more moderate in his behavior than the OP gives credit for. The stakes during the Cold War were a million times greater than they are today in the war on terrorism.
Now we fret about Al Qaeda getting its hands on a tactical nuke and setting it off in one of our cities. Twenty years ago – and certainly to an extent during LBJ’s tenure – we worried ourselves sick over an exchange of thermonuclear weapons that would end life on earth.
If we turn the question around, I don’t see much reason to believe that LBJ would not have acted in much the same way that GWB has over the last few years. In my book, the Tonkin Gulf fiasco was ten times the lie of Iraq’s WMD; and I can’t see Johnson being too patient with the UN over Iraq, either.
That’s what it said on the History Channel - that Hoover spied on Kennedy and King and reported directly to LBJ. The more Kennedy said he supported him, the more LBJ saw it as proof of Kennedy’s duplicity.
LBJ left office while the negotiators were still arguing about the shape of the table. It was Nixon who kept fighting while the negotiations went on. In fact, LBJ had died several days before the treaty was announced.
And by the way, I don’t see anything wrong with that. Fighting continued in World War I until an armistice was signed by both sides, fighting continued in World War II in both the European and Pacific wars until one side surrendered, fighting continued in Korea throughout negotiations until a cease-fire was formally agreed to.
What better time to negotiate an end to the war than while the war is going on? Remember, negotiating with the enemy for peaceful solutions and an end to war is a good thing.
The country was torn apart on the issue of war. Riots, sit-ins, marches, and a high death toll for a seemingly endless war. The entire country was obsessed about the war and with good reason.
BTW, Hoover also spied on Bobby Kennedy. He had the goods on everybody.