# Rethinking LBJ...Was He That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429 "2010-02-18T02:49:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/121 "2010-02-26T14:12:52Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > You need to distinguish between skilled and unskilled immigration. As noted above in the Alexiev article, the overall burden of low skill immigration is massive as the subsequent generations are doing worse academically. > > [http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr12.cfm](http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr12.cfm) If you can provide citations to sources other than the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Heritage Foundation I might bother reading them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/122 "2010-02-26T14:52:50Z")
Look, **Curtis,** we’ve been over the Vietnam what-ifs many times before in GD. Believe me, there is **no way** South Vietnam ever could have become stable and successful the way South Korea did. South Korea never had to deal with an analogue of the Viet Cong. The important point being not that the VC was an invincible force, but simply that it existed and would not go away and kept fighting on and **kept attracting recruits** despite being defeated repeatedly and losing men in battle after battle. The people of SV, or a critical mass of them at least, simply did not want the government they had. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/123 "2010-02-26T17:50:05Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > If we had waited only a decade or so South Vietnam could have been greatly strengthned. Already the Vietnamese army was growing more competent and defeat the North Vietnamese. Think of it as a Marshall Plan for Asia. That’s an evidence-free assertion. The evidence we have is the 20-year history of the U.S. effort to prop up South Vietnam and train its military. And that history is one of total and complete failure. > [@](#): > > No. For instance in World War II both the Soviets and the US could be considered to “win”. What does that have to do with anything? Rather than an ally, even during the run-up to the Iraq war, we quite legitimately regarded Iran as a much more potent threat than Iraq. One of the neocon theories and motivations for the war was that an easy win over Iraq would be a steppingstone to keeping Iran in line, either by invading it in turn, or by using the threat of doing so to exact concessions from it. So if the result of the Iraq war was to empower Iran and permanently remove its #1 enemy, we lost. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/124 "2010-02-27T03:58:37Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > That’s an evidence-free assertion. The evidence we have is the 20-year history of the U.S. effort to prop up South Vietnam and train its military. And that history is one of total and complete failure. Total failure? The Vietcong were no more by the end of the war and the conquest of South Vietnam was undertaken by the North Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese army was strentgthned and was gradually improving and honing their skills. Plus according to many historians if the US hadn’t intervened in Vietnam even more Southeast Asia could have gone Red. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/125 "2010-02-27T04:00:51Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Total failure? The Vietcong were no more by the end of the war and the conquest of South Vietnam was undertaken by the North Vietnamese. And this is on point how? > [@](#): > > The South Vietnamese army was strentgthned and was gradually improving and honing their skills. Plus according to many historians if the US hadn’t intervened in Vietnam even more Southeast Asia could have gone Red. Repetition of evidence-free assertions. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/126 "2010-02-27T04:14:46Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And this is on point how? Repetition of evidence-free assertions. Huh? Don’t get your first part. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong) > [@](#): > > The severe communist losses during Tet allowed the U.S. to gradually withdraw combat forces and to shift responsibility to the South Vietnamese, a process called Vietnamization. Pushed into Cambodia, the Vietcong could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits.[67]…At the victory parade, Tạng noticed that the units formerly dominated by southerners were missing, replaced by northerners years earlier.[67] Plus even during the fall of South Vietnam many units offered tough resistance as seen in the Wikipedia article. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/127 "2010-02-27T04:53:53Z")
The Viet Cong were doing just fine at the end of the US involvement. The assertion that they were near to being wiped out is just dead wrong. The Vietnamese were completely uncontent to let the tyrants who had been backed by the French continue to rule them. The government was extraordinarily corrupt and was easy pickings as soon as foreigners left, whether that was 1954, 1968, 1975 or 2010. The Vietnamese defeated Genghis Khan, and he was prepared to commit atrocities as daily policy, not the occasion aberration. Unless the conquering power is prepared to uproot all the citizens and relocate all of them as the Romans did (and the Brits tried in the Boer war), or simply to wipe them out, a war like Vietnam is not winnable. Nor was Vietnam a necessary war. Ho wanted the US as it’s primary ally, not China or the USSR. Today, with Ho’s successors, we do enormous business with Vietnam. And they aren’t flipping dominoes all the way to San Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/128 "2010-02-27T11:27:23Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Huh? Don’t get your first part. > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietcong) The U.S. defeat of the Vietcong back in 1967=68 doesn’t demonstrate the skillz of the ARVN. > [@](#): > > Plus even during the fall of South Vietnam many units offered tough resistance as seen in the Wikipedia article. Obviously not very many, because the North Vietnamese army moved south pretty damned fast, meeting far less resistance than even they had expected. At any rate, “some soldiers fought well” only means something if there’s evidence to suggest that a lot more would have fought well a few years later. If it took 20 years for us to enable a relative handful of units to fight well, that pretty much wraps it up AFAIAC. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/129 "2010-02-27T17:12:02Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > The U.S. defeat of the Vietcong back in 1967=68 doesn’t demonstrate the skillz of the ARVN. > > Obviously not very many, because the North Vietnamese army moved south pretty damned fast, meeting far less resistance than even they had expected. > > At any rate, “some soldiers fought well” only means something if there’s evidence to suggest that a lot more would have fought well a few years later. If it took 20 years for us to enable a relative handful of units to fight well, that pretty much wraps it up AFAIAC. The South Vietnamese army was slowly getting better-they were getting thousands of pieces of equipment. In fact American ground support was not necessary at all only air support. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/130 "2010-03-01T14:45:13Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > The South Vietnamese army was slowly getting better Keep on repeating it; maybe you’ll believe it. > [@](#): > > -they were getting thousands of pieces of equipment. Verifiable, but we’d given them TONS of equipment over the decades. It didn’t mean ARVN was a good army in 1965 or 1970. There’s no reason to suppose a bit more equipment in 1975 would have made them better in ways that the earlier stuff didn’t. > [@](#): > > In fact American ground support was not necessary at all only air support. Where was Air Marshal Ky when they needed him? 😃 Seriously, the North Vietnamese army didn’t win this war because it dominated the skies, and it’s not like we’d never given any airplanes to ARVN. So this is really reaching. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/131 "2010-03-01T16:17:58Z")
Well, after spending over $250 billion (and losing over 55,000 lives), I think the USA just got tired of the endless Vietnam War. Despite the fact that the Vietcong had been largely destroyed, the NVA regulars were happily taking their place. Plus, the pervasive rotteness of the Soth Vietnam Government-many of the ARVN generals were highly corrupt. In the end, NVN wanted to win, and the American public had had enough. Kinda like Afghanistan, in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/132 "2010-03-02T23:34:29Z")
**IF** Curtis LeMay is right, then LBJ is okay, and the real villain is Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/133 "2010-03-04T02:34:44Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Keep on repeating it; maybe you’ll believe it.Verifiable, but we’d given them TONS of equipment over the decades. It didn’t mean ARVN was a good army in 1965 or 1970. There’s no reason to suppose a bit more equipment in 1975 would have made them better in ways that the earlier stuff didn’t. As in the cites many ARVN divisions were capable of resisting the Reds. > [@](#): > > Where was Air Marshal Ky when they needed him? 😃 > > Seriously, the North Vietnamese army didn’t win this war because it dominated the skies, and it’s not like we’d never given any airplanes to ARVN. So this is really reaching. It’s not air power-it’s bombing the North Vietnamese army on the ground. Linebacker anyone? > [@nicky](#): > > **IF** Curtis LeMay is right, then LBJ is okay, and the real villain is Nixon. Nixon’s peace deal was basically that if North Vietnam invaded again America would bomb North Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/134 "2010-03-04T06:22:32Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Well, sure. But if the means you choose for stopping communism turns out to be an accelerant for communist-backed insurgencies, then your means and your goal aren’t matching up. It just depends on whether or not you stand to profit from a longer or a shorter war, that’s all. If you don’t understand, take another listen to [War Pigs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbxfe7DMxVo). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/135 "2010-03-05T23:00:53Z")
> [@nicky](#): > > **IF** Curtis LeMay is right, then LBJ is okay, and the real villain is Nixon. He was, though not in any sense **Curtis** might (intentionally or unintentionally) mean: Nixon used certain influence he had, even while out of office, to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks from behind the scenes, early in 1968, just so the war would still be there as an issue for him to run against in November. See [_Nixonland,_](http://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/0743243021) by Rick Perlstein. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/136 "2010-03-07T01:21:37Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > How many millions/ billions go to immigrants in California? I have no clue but this may be part of the problem CA is having? Why are we not addressing the problem? How many immigrants can a state support and stay solvent? > > We keep increasing the number of immigrants we allow into the US every year. New Zealand and other countries have tough restrictions on immigration. > > I would think the economy alone would be reason enough to shut down immigration until our economy rebounds. We could also deport all illegals back to their countries and save a ton of money. > > Why doe we want to bring so many immigrants in at a time like this? Any ideas? Do you want to over-burden all public services and all public welfare? Do you want to increase unemployment? Do you want to increase crime? Do you want to have crowding and more traffic? Do you want to have more taxes and have the government support more people? Do you want strange diseases from third world countries? Do you want to lower the average income? Do you want to have a mixed up society of many cultures and languages who wont assimilate? Do you want to crowd out our hospital ER and our schools? If so, then the best way to do it is to have lots and lots of immigration from third world countries. The 1965 Immigration bill, proposed by Teddy Kennedy, and signed by LBJ, is why California and the rest of the country is going bankrupt and why we are bulging at the seams and running out of money to support all these unskilled foreigners from third world nations . ---
**Author:** ![David\_Myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@David\_Myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Myers)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/137 "2010-09-04T01:37:45Z")
In spite of getting the Civil Rights and Great Society legislation through congress and signing it, LBJ should be considered the worst, and most evil president ever! There is a host of evidence of his graft and corruption, for anyone who wants to dig a little, which includes his keeping on his payroll, a professional hit man, Mac Wallace, who is implicated in over a dozen murders on Johnson’s orders, including a number of persons threatening to implicate Johnson in both the Billy Sol Estes scandle and the Bobby Baker Scandal (a partial palm print found in the Texas school book depository, on the sixth floor) was finally identified as Wallace’s. There is clear evidence that JFK was going to drop Johnson from the ticket in 1964 and that indictments were coming down on Johnson as soon as early December, 1963. JFK’s assassination, perserved Johnson’s reputation and made him president. He was present at the Clint Murchison meeting the night before the assassination which included, J. Edgar Hoover, a top CIA officer, Carlos Marchello (New Oreleans mafia don), Texas oil billionaire, H. L. Hunt, the Dallas police chief, the Dallas mayor, who changed the motorcade route to go right by the Texal book depository building, as well as the grassy knoll, and a number of other Texas oil “high rollers”. After this meeting LBJ came out and whispered in the ear of his mistress, Madeleine Duncan Brown, that “those son of a bitch Kennedys will never embarass me again after tomorrow.” For the full interview with Madeleine Brown, conducted by Robert Gaylon Ross on June 22, 2002, go to: > **[LBJ Night Before JFK Assassination: "Those SOB's Will Never Embarrass Me Again"](https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=15167)** > > The night before the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Dallas tycoons, FBI moguls and organized crime kingpins - emerging from the conference to tell hi Johnson was a prolific murderer and that makes him “worst president ever!” ---
**Author:** ![David\_Myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@David\_Myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Myers)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/138 "2010-09-04T09:20:29Z")
Johnson’s succession as president abruptly halted AG Robert Kennedy’s prosecution of the mafia and made Robert powerless which in turn led to his resignation six months later. The justice department’s probes of Johnson’s corruption and involvement in murder were also terminated with his ascension. The Justice department, under Bobby Kennedy had been preparing to indict Johnson and his associates for fraud and murder, as of early December, 1963. Here are quotes from a letter to Mr. Stephen S. Trott, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; from Douglas Caddy (Billie Sol Estes’ lawyer in a letter dated May 29, 1984: "My client, Mr. Estes, has authorized me to make this reply to your letter of May 29, 1984. Mr. Estes was a member of a four-member group, headed by Lyndon Johnson, which committed criminal acts in Texas in the 1960’s. The other two, besides Mr. Estes and LBJ, were Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose his knowledge concerning the following criminal offenses: I. Murders 1. The killing of Henry Marshall 2. The killing of George Krutilek 3. The killing of Ike Rogers and his secretary 4. The killing of Harold Orr 5. The killing of Coleman Wade 6. The killing of Josefa Johnson 7. The killing of John Kinser 8. The killing of President J. F. Kennedy. Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders. In the cases of murders nos. 1-7, Mr. Estes’ knowledge of the precise details concerning the way the murders were executed stems from conversations he had shortly after each event with Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace." And"Mr. Estes, states that Mac Wallace, whom he describes as a “stone killer” with a communist background, recruited Jack Ruby, who in turn recruited Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Estes says that Cliff Carter told him that Mac Wallace fired a shot from the grassy knoll in Dallas, which hit JFK from the front during the assassination." Also, “Mr. Estes desires to discuss the infamous illegal cotten allotment schemes in great detail. He has recordings made at the time of LBJ, Cliff Carter and himself discussing the scheme. These recordings were made with Cliff Carter’s knowledge as a means of Carter and Estes protecting them selves should LBJ order their deaths. Mr. Estes believes these tape recordings and the rumors of other recordings allegedly in his possession are the reason he has not been murdered. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose illegal payoff schemes, in which he collected and passed on to Cliff Carter and LBJ millions of dollars. Mr. Estes collected payoff money on more than one occasion from George and Herman Brown of Brown and Root, which was delivered to LBJ.” For the complete letter follow this link: [http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm](http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/139 "2010-09-04T18:08:00Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > [QUOTE=gonzomax] > LBJ picked his beagle up by the ears. That was a no no. It got lots of press. Who could defend him? I remember the beagle incident, but I don’t recall it taking on quite the depth of outrage that you seem too. 😛 It was probably a white liberal thing, ehe? -XT [/QUOTE] No it was a tri-colored dog lover thing that was on the front pages and in the TV news. It was covered heavily at the time. [http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/Pets/Him-Her.htm](http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/Pets/Him-Her.htm) Described here as a storm of protest. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429/140 "2010-09-05T04:51:43Z")
**David Myers** , I repeat [what **tomndebb**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12876409&postcount=412) said: do not bump old threads to make your accusations against LBJ. If you want to talk about his alleged crimes, _start a new thread_. Do not revive or hijack other discussions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rethinking-lbj-was-he-that-bad/529429.md?page=8)