In college, I took a Vietnam War history class. Now those were the days when I goofed off quite a bit, so there’s not a lot that I remember about this particular class. However, I do recall taking away one really important bit of information—that I don’t like Lyndon B Johnson. I am pretty sure that I can’t simply blame this impression on the author’s bias since I read several books on that era but honestly, I don’t know of many people/historians who agreed with Johnson’s policies when it came to Vietnam. Of course, we’re all looking back in hindsight so I think it’s important to find out who Johnson really was and to try, to some extent, to divorce his terrible decision-making regarding Vietnam from who he was as a whole.
To gain a greater understanding of this possibly-misunderstood president, I turned to the old tried and true source—the American Presidents Series. Thus, I read Lyndon B Johnson: American Presidents Series by Charles Peters (New York: Times Books, 2010). Unfortunately for Johnson, he came right after the 900-page Kennedy bio and there was no way in the world I was going to read another large book. Have I mentioned that one of the reasons that I like the American Presidents Series is due to the very manageable length of each biography? The LBJ one clocks in at a whopping 200 pages.
So onto the main event…
Little Lyndon was born on August 27, 1908 on a small farm in rural Texas near Austin. His father was a public man and was several times elected to the Texas legislature while his mother was rather well-educated, having attended college. Lyndon’s upbringing, rather cold and conditional, would color his interactions with others for the rest of his days. “His mother’s conditional love seems to have affected Johnson in two ways. First, he always worried that whatever approval he might receive could be quickly withdrawn. And second, he imitated his mother in his relationships with others, offering generous love until the recipient disappointed him and then administering to that unfortunate soul ‘the Johnson freeze-out,’ the same treatment his mother had given him” (p. 3).
Johnson attended public schools and after graduating high school, he moved out to California for about 16 months. California had been billed as the Promise Land but Johnson was quickly disillusioned and moved back home where he worked in road construction. In 1926, he attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College. “Johnson’s ambition and potential were clear to all…But, though they liked his warmth, his interest in them, and his ability to entertain, they disliked his bragging, his ‘brown nosing,’ and how ‘he’d just interrupt you’ and insist on dominating the conversation” (p. 6). He became the editor of the college paper and even had his heart broken by a young co-ed. He attended the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston and for a year, taught school in Cotulla, TX to mostly immigrant children.
After graduation in 1930, Johnson went on to teach business math and public speaking at Sam Houston High School. His stint as a high school teacher was short-lived however because Johnson’s desire to work in politics was well-known. After only a year at Sam Houston High School, he was offered the job of secretary to Congressman Richard Kleberg. He accepted the position and immediately moved to Washington DC. There were many perks to this type of job for Johnson, including the fact that he had a job at the height of the Great Depression and also the means to get to know various important people throughout Capitol Hill.
On a trip home in 1933, Johnson was introduced to Claudia Taylor (nicknamed Lady Bird) and he immediately fell in love. “He was immediately drawn to this engaging and attractive young woman. It wasn’t just her looks and personality, but she had graduated from the University of Texas with all As and Bs and degrees in journalism and history” (p. 15). They were married only months later. It was unfortunate but Johnson was fired from his job with the congressman only a couple years later. Instead he and Lady Bird headed back to Austin, Texas where he began work with the NYA, the National Youth Administration, under the Roosevelt administration. “The NYA helped poor young people by putting them to work full-time at thirty dollars per month and part-time at fifteen per month to help them stay in high school or college when they otherwise would be forced to quit by economic necessity” (p. 17).
The simple fact of the matter is that Johnson missed being in politics so in 1937, he ran for the vacant seat in Congress for his district and won. Without Lady Bird, he moved back to Washington and a year later, began a long-lasting affair with Alice Glass. In 1941, he decided to run for the Senate but lost that election and because the war was just beginning he decided to join the Army. Johnson was made a lieutenant commander of the US Naval Reserve but was never seriously considered for active duty. Instead, “the navy made Johnson responsible for expediting war production in Texas and on the West Coast” (p. 27). In May 1942, Johnson was sent to check up on MacArthur in Australia and was then called back to the United States to take up his post again in Congress. He won re-election for the next six years.
After the war ended, Johnson continued to back the administration and national defense. He won a seat in the Senate in 1948 and started on another affair, this time with Helen Gahagan Douglas, a fellow congresswoman. His career rose even higher when he was elected, just two years later, as majority whip. “The whip’s main responsibility involved rounding up votes and knowing where each senator stood when a bill reached the floor” (p. 43). In 1952, he was voted minority leader and in ’54, majority leader. Unfortunately all this increased political activity, coupled with heavy drinking and smoking, sent Johnson right to the hospital with a major heart attack on July 2, 1955.
Soon, however, he was back on the job and having to face several major civil rights issues. “What followed in 1957 was what many believe to be his most impressive legislative accomplishment, the first civil rights bill to pass the Congress since the days of Reconstruction” (p. 52). Johnson worked hard to minimize the damage of Southern lobbyists and to water down the bill until it was passed. With all this success, it seemed inevitable for Johnson to look ahead to 1960 and the presidential election. The long Eisenhower years were waning and as the majority leader of the Senate, LBJ seemed to be in a perfect position to move into the highest office in the land. The only man standing in his way was a young fellow Senator from Massachusetts who beat him in some debates down in Texas in 1960.
Kennedy went on to win the Democratic nomination and he would turn to Johnson to be his vice presidential candidate. After winning the election, Kennedy tried to give Johnson a number of jobs to keep him busy besides his minimal vice presidential duties. “Kennedy also asked Johnson to chair the National Aeronautics and Space Council and to head the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity” (p. 69). But it was no secret that being vice president was galling for Johnson. JFK sent Johnson on many trips around the world, including South Vietnam and Berlin, as an envoy of the president. Even though, Johnson performed his job with precision there were questions on whether or not he would be Kennedy’s running mate in the 1964 election. JFK finally decided to keep Johnson on the ticket.
Sadly, there was to be no 1964 election for John Kennedy. On November 22, 1963, he was murdered in Dallas and Johnson became the 36th President of the United States
aboard Air Force One. Now that Johnson was president, he immediately began bringing certain issues to the forefront. That he was so successful in passing legislation was due to the national sympathy engendered in the American public after JFK’s assassination. Johnson, in 1964, began the Great Society with the Economic Opportunity Act that attacked the War on Poverty and another Civil Rights Act with more teeth than the last one. LBJ began Head Start, Job Corp, and Community Action. I bet you’re wondering about Vietnam. Kennedy had only placed several thousand military advisors over there but on August 2, 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred and would forever change the way the fought. This incident (which was basically a farce in which an American destroyer thought it was being attacked by the North Vietnamese) forced Johnson’s hand and so not to appear to dovish, Johnson decided to send the first set of ground soldiers to Vietnam. “To demonstrate his resolve, he ordered an immediate retaliatory attack against North Vietnam and asked Congress to adopt what came to be called the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized the president ‘to take all necessary measures to repel’ and counter attacks on the armed forces of the United States and to defend the freedom of South Vietnam” (p. 93).
With the amazing success of Johnson’s legislative program and the hard line he took with the Vietcong, the American people overwhelmingly voted the Johnson/Humphreys ticket to victory over tepid Barry Goldwater and the Republicans. In fact, Johnson won by over 15 million votes. Feeling that he was made president by popular mandate, Johnson worked even harder in 1965 to push through his legislative program. He passed laws dealing with federal aid to education, Medicare, voting rights, and immigration. In March 1965, he sent the marines to Vietnam in ever-increasing numbers and by May, another 200,000 more arrived in Saigon. He also sent the marines down to Santo Domingo to help put down a rebellion.
All of this pugnacious behavior on behalf of the United States contributed to a growing cultural revolution among American youth. Changes in music, dress, and attitudes swept the nation and while once it was patriotic to fight in a war for the old US of A, it was that way no longer. In 1968, as students returned to school, protests, draft dodging, violence and general unhappiness with the situation in Vietnam was amplified and it was Johnson who they hated for it. “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today,” (p. 137) was a popular cry against the president. It didn’t help that more and more American soldiers were being sent into the jungles to die. The North Vietnamese attacked in the Tet Offensive and, although Johnson did not want to be seen as a coward, he allowed the Paris Peace talks to commence.
1968 was a crazy year. It witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy. It witnessed race riots and the institution of a Fair Housing Act. It also witnessed Lyndon Johnson’s decision, due to unexpected domestic pressure, not to run for another term. He took himself out of the 1968 election and gracefully retired with his wife Lady Bird back to his ranch in Texas on the Pedernales River. He spent time managing the ranch, writing his memoirs, and trying to stave off growing heart concerns. In 1972, he suffered another severe heart attack and by January 22, 1973, he was dead.
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