LBJ and Vietnam

LBJ and Vietnam PDF Author: George C. Herring
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292749007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
“[A] compelling analysis . . . A solid addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War and a president.” —Publishers Weekly The Vietnam War remains a divisive memory for Americans—partisans on all sides still debate why it was fought, how it could have been better fought, and whether it could have been won at all. In this major study, a noted expert on the war brings a needed objectivity to these debates by examining dispassionately how and why President Lyndon Johnson and his administration conducted the war as they did. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the LBJ Library, including the Tom Johnson notes from the influential Tuesday Lunch Group, George Herring discusses the concept of limited war and how it affected President Johnson’s decision making, Johnson’s relations with his military commanders, the administration’s pacification program of 1965–1967, the management of public opinion, and the “fighting while negotiating” strategy pursued after the Tet Offensive in 1968. This in-depth analysis, from a prize-winning historian and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, exposes numerous flaws in Johnson’s approach, in a “concise, well-researched account” that “critiques Johnson's management of the Vietnam War in terms of military strategy, diplomacy, and domestic public opinion” (Library Journal).

LBJ and Vietnam

LBJ and Vietnam PDF Author: George C. Herring
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292749007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
“[A] compelling analysis . . . A solid addition to our understanding of the Vietnam War and a president.” —Publishers Weekly The Vietnam War remains a divisive memory for Americans—partisans on all sides still debate why it was fought, how it could have been better fought, and whether it could have been won at all. In this major study, a noted expert on the war brings a needed objectivity to these debates by examining dispassionately how and why President Lyndon Johnson and his administration conducted the war as they did. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the LBJ Library, including the Tom Johnson notes from the influential Tuesday Lunch Group, George Herring discusses the concept of limited war and how it affected President Johnson’s decision making, Johnson’s relations with his military commanders, the administration’s pacification program of 1965–1967, the management of public opinion, and the “fighting while negotiating” strategy pursued after the Tet Offensive in 1968. This in-depth analysis, from a prize-winning historian and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, exposes numerous flaws in Johnson’s approach, in a “concise, well-researched account” that “critiques Johnson's management of the Vietnam War in terms of military strategy, diplomacy, and domestic public opinion” (Library Journal).

Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers

Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers PDF Author: Lyndon Baines Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 936

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Book Description
The recent declassification of "top secret" Vietnam War papers of the Johnson administration provides an unusually intimate portrait of presidential decision making and fills an important gap in the literature on presidents and on the Vietnam War. For years, the Pentagon Papers served as the most influential published collection of Vietnam-era policy making documents. However, as Vietnam scholar George McT. Kahin has written, the Pentagon Papers are "generally very sketchy and inadequate with respect to the political dimension; and for the critical years, 1964–1968, the gaps are particularly extensive." Drawing upon the newly declassified documents and many other Vietnam papers, David Barrett's Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam Papers fills the need for a one-volume collection detailing interaction and confrontations concerning the dilemmas of Vietnam policy. He chronologically presents notes of meetings and phone calls between President Johnson and advisers, as well as meetings with some war critics; memoranda to and from the president; and notes and letters written by friends and associates of Johnson describing his thinking and concerns about the war. This volume offers a first-hand documentation of how and why the United States fought in Indochina in the 1960s; an introduction to the archival holdings for future researchers; and documentary evidence of the major players and their roles in making policy.

Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam, and the Presidency

Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam, and the Presidency PDF Author: David Zarefsky
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623499372
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Even those who remember hearing those words may not remember that they came at the very end of a 45-minute speech primarily concerning Vietnam. Three months into an already tumultuous year, in the aftermath of the Tet offensive and facing a deeply divided country, President Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed the nation to announce new initiatives and appeal for public support. The speech of March 31, 1968 announced a bombing halt over much of North Vietnam, a limited troop increase rather than a major escalation, and his own decision to withdraw from the presidential race. Each of these decisions was unexpected, a major surprise that stunned the nation. In Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam, and the Presidency, political rhetoric scholar David Zarefsky examines the three key announcements and how they fit together in the speech. In particular, LBJ’s announcement that he would not run for re-election gave the de-escalation measures more credibility because they could not be seen as political ploys. Zarefsky traces the development of the speech through eleven drafts, reflecting disagreements and doubts among the writers and advisers. In turn, he sets these efforts in the larger context of the Cold War and the impact of the Tet offensive. Drawing on archival sources and reflecting rhetorical insights, this book illuminates one of the most consequential speeches of the 1960s. Even though the fighting in Vietnam would continue for several more years, the course of America’s conduct in Vietnam was changed permanently by this speech.

The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson

The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson PDF Author: Vaughn Davis Bornet
Publisher: Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Presents an assessment of the Johnson administration including the Vietnam issue.

Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam

Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam PDF Author: Larry Berman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393307786
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Lyndon Johnson's war focuses on the repercussions from President Johnson's failure to address the fundamental incompatibility between his political objectives at home and his military objectives in Vietnam.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson PDF Author: Randy Schultz
Publisher: Enslow Publishing
ISBN: 9780766050112
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Explores the life of our nation's thirty-sixth president, whose administration became known for his "Great Society" politics and its involvement in the Vietnam War.

Guns or Butter : The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson

Guns or Butter : The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson PDF Author: Los Angeles (Emeritus) Irving Bernstein Professor of Political Science University of California
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019987431X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
The presidency of Lyndon Johnson was a pivotal moment in twentieth-century American history. From the decisive social programs of the Great Society, to the triumph of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, to the catastrophe of the Vietnam War and domestic unrest, it was an era of dramatic accomplishment and wrenching tragedy. In Guns or Butter, renowned historian Irving Bernstein brings those five climactic years of the sixties vividly to life, from the moment Lee Harvey Oswald aimed a rifle from the window of the Texas School Depository to the tense ballot-counting that put Richard Nixon in the White House in 1968. Bernstein's book is a narrative masterpiece, filled with sharply drawn character sketches and swiftly moving accounts of events that range from deals cut in the Senate cloakroom, to police charging after protesters on the streets of Selma, to Vietcong commandos bursting into the American embassy in Saigon. We see Johnson ordering aides Bill Moyers and Richard Goodwin to strip and join him for a skinny-dip in the White House pool, where they formulate the Great Society. And we see a tired, distracted president pacing in his bathrobe around a table model of the besieged Khe Sanh garrison, examining aerial photographs and casualty reports. Equally important, Bernstein offers a deft assessment of Johnson's successes and failures, from his legislative programs to his futile pursuit of the war in Vietnam to his failure to boost Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign in 1968. The author not only retells the maneuvering that brought the president's plans into law, he also analyzes and explains their impact, from the Voting Rights Act to Medicare. The Great Society, Bernstein concludes, was a triumph, but Johnson's attempt to have both guns and butter, to pursue massive domestic initiatives together with a bitter undeclared war, led to runaway inflation that ultimately undermined his presidency. From the dark moments after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, to the heady days of legislative victories of 1965, to the bloody crescendo of riots, assassinations, and military battles in 1968, Johnson's administration was a defining moment in modern American history. In Guns or Butter, Irving Bernstein brilliantly captures both the events and the meaning of those momentous years. Aside from its historical value, this book has major current significance. The legislative program Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues introduced in 1995 was designed to repeal the Great Society. Before doing so, members of Congress and the interested public should understand Lyndon Johnson's vision and the legislation that was enacted during the sixties. Guns or Butter provides that critical information.

Into the Quagmire

Into the Quagmire PDF Author: Brian VanDeMark
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195357191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
In November of 1964, as Lyndon Johnson celebrated his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the government of South Vietnam lay in a shambles. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor described it as a country beset by "chronic factionalism, civilian-military suspicion and distrust, absence of national spirit and motivation, lack of cohesion in the social structure, lack of experience in the conduct of government." Virtually no one in the Johnson Administration believed that Saigon could defeat the communist insurgency--and yet by July of 1965, a mere nine months later, they would lock the United States on a path toward massive military intervention which would ultimately destroy Johnson's presidency and polarize the American people. Into the Quagmire presents a closely rendered, almost day-by-day account of America's deepening involvement in Vietnam during those crucial nine months. Mining a wealth of recently opened material at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and elsewhere, Brian VanDeMark vividly depicts the painful unfolding of a national tragedy. We meet an LBJ forever fearful of a conservative backlash, which he felt would doom his Great Society, an unsure and troubled leader grappling with the unwanted burden of Vietnam; George Ball, a maverick on Vietnam, whose carefully reasoned (and, in retrospect, strikingly prescient) stand against escalation was discounted by Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy; and Clark Clifford, whose last-minute effort at a pivotal meeting at Camp David failed to dissuade Johnson from doubling the number of ground troops in Vietnam. What comes across strongly throughout the book is the deep pessimism of all the major participants as things grew worse--neither LBJ, nor Bundy, nor McNamara, nor Rusk felt confident that things would improve in South Vietnam, that there was any reasonable chance for victory, or that the South had the will or the ability to prevail against the North. And yet deeper into the quagmire they went. Whether describing a tense confrontation between George Ball and Dean Acheson ("You goddamned old bastards," Ball said to Acheson, "you remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of buzzards sitting on a fence and letting the young men die") or corrupt politicians in Saigon, VanDeMark provides readers with the full flavor of national policy in the making. More important, he sheds greater light on why America became entangled in the morass of Vietnam.

Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam

Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam PDF Author: Herbert Y. Schandler
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400856825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This book examines the events that led up to the day--March 31, 1968--when Lyndon Johnson dramatically renounced any attempt to be reelected president of the United States. It offers one of the best descriptions of U.S. policy surrounding the Tet offensive of that fateful March--a historic turning point in the war in Vietnam that led directly to the end of American military intervention. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

LBJ's 1968

LBJ's 1968 PDF Author: Kyle Longley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107193036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
Examines President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his response to the year that he characterized as a 'year of a continuous nightmare'.