LBJ: The Great Society and Vietnam

1. LBJ:
The Great
Society
and
Vietnam

2. Lyndon B.
Johnson,
36th POTUS
1963-1969

5. “The Johnson
Treatment”
• “overpowering and
intimidating”
• Invaded personal
space
• “persuasive and
personable rather
than elegant and
charming”

6. “[Richard Goodwin, a
former speechwriter and
aide to L.B.J.] experienced
the standard Johnson
outrages: an interview
with L.B.J. as the
President sat on the toilet,
a nude policy council in
the superheated White
House swimming pool.”
Sidey, Hugh. "Was Lyndon Johnson Unstable?"
Time. 05 Sept. 1988.

7. "Let Us Continue"
• Nov 22, 1963: JFK
assassinated
• Promised to continue
JFK programs;
exceeded JFK’s record
on economic, racial
equality

8. LBJ on the Economy: War on Poverty

9. War on Poverty:
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all.
It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.”
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Medicare
• Medicaid
• Corp. for Public Broad-
casting (PBS & NPR)
• National Traffic & Motor
Vehicle Safety (Nader)
• Economic Opportunity Act
(Head Start)
• Higher Education Act
• Economic Opportunity Act
(Job Corps)
• National Foundation for the
Arts and the Humanities
• Clean Air Act
• Elementary and Secondary
Education Act
• Truth in Packaging
• Water Quality Act

10. The Daisy Ad
1964 Election:
LBJ (D) versus Barry Goldwater (R)

13. SE Asia and
the Vietnam War
 Late 1800s: France controlled
“Indochina” (Vietnam, Laos,
and Cambodia)
 1940-1945: Japanese control
during WWII
 1945: France fights to regain
control with US financial aid

14.  1954: French lose to
Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh
at Dien Bien Phu

15.  Vietnam divided at 17th parallel
North
• Leader: Ho Chi Minh
• Left-wing communist dictatorship
• support from Soviet Union and
China
South
• Leader: Ngo Dinh Diem
• Right-wing anti-communist
dictatorship
• support from US

18.  Viet Cong attack S. Vietnam
 1960: JFK increases to 16,000 “advisors”
 Nov 2, 1963: JFK supports a Vietnamese military
coup d’etat – Diem and his brother murdered
 JFK assassinated Nov 22
U.S. Military Involvement Begins

19. LBJ Sends
Ground Forces
 1964: Saigon on verge
of collapse
 LBJ remembers
Truman’s “loss” of
China  Domino
Theory
 Tonkin Gulf Incident 
1964
 Tonkin Gulf Resolution
I’m not going to be the
president who saw
Southeast Asia go the
way China went.” -LBJ

20. Who Was the Enemy?
 Vietcong:
 S. Vietnamese
communists
 Farmers by day;
guerillas at night.
The guerilla wins if he does not
lose, the conventional army loses
if it does not win.
- Mao Zedong

21. Who Was
the Enemy?

23. The Ground War
1965-1968
 General Westmoreland, late 1967:
We can see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”

24. The Ground War, 1965-1968
 No territorial goals –
defense only
 On TV (first “living room”
war)
 N Vietnam supplies Viet
Cong over the Ho Chi
Minh Trail

26. U.S. Troop
Levels in
Vietnam
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
1961 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968
U.S. Troops

28. The Air War
1965-1968
 1965: Sustained bombing
of North Vietnam
 Operation Rolling
Thunder
 Carpet Bombing
 Napalm
 Agent Orange – defoliant

29. The Air War:
A Napalm Attack

30. Birth defect victims of
Agent Orange:
Warning: Images are
disturbing.

31. The Tet Offensive,
January 1968
 Massive N. Vietnamese
& Vietcong attack in
South
 U.S. retaliates BUT…
seen as an American
defeat by the media

32. Impact of the
Tet Offensive
 Domestic U.S.
Reaction: disbelief,
anger, distrust of
LBJ Admin
 Hey, Hey LBJ! How
many kids did you
kill today?

33. “…I shall not
seek, and I will
not accept, the
nomination of
my party for
another term as
your President.”
March, 1968: Johnson announces

34. American Morale Begins to Dip
 Disproportionate
representation of poor
people and minorities.
 Officers in combat 6 mo.;
in rear 6 mo.
 Enlisted men in combat
for 12 mo.; fighting
240/365 days a year

35. American Morale Begins to Dip
 By 1970: 65,643 Army deserters;
52.3/1000
 Fragging: 3% of officer deaths
 Major drug problems:
~ 80% of the troops used drugs;
by 1971 over 30% of combat
troops were on heroin
 Anti-war underground
newspapers
 Sabotage and mutiny in Navy

36. Are We Becoming the Enemy?
 Lt. William Calley,
Platoon Leader
 My Lai Massacre, 1968
 200-500 unarmed villagers

37. The Student Revolt
• 1964: Student protest movement launched at
Berkeley
• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• October, 1967: 100,000 protesters besieged
the Pentagon

38. Columbia University, 1967
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

40. There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

42. What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and they carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Hell no, we won’t go!

44. Democratic Convention in
Chicago, 1968
Student Protestors
at Univ. of CA
in Berkeley, 1968
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

45.  May 4, 1970
 4 students
shot dead.
 11 students
wounded
Kent State University Massacre
 Jackson State
University
 May 10, 1970
 2 dead; 12
wounded

46. Nixon on Vietnam
 Nixon’s 1968 Campaign: Peace with Honor
 “Silent Majority”
 Vietnamization
 Expansion of war 
The “Secret War”
 Cambodia
 Laos

47. The War In Cambodia
• 1970: US dropped over
500,000 tons of ordinance
on Cambodia
• ~ 600,000 Cambodians
killed
• Led to rise Khmer Rouge
and Cambodian genocide,
1975-1979; 1.4-2.2 million
(20-30% of pop.)

48. “Pentagon Papers,” 1971
 Daniel Ellsberg
leaked LBJ era docs
to NY Times
 Docs LBJ admin misled Congress & US public
 Fighting not to eliminate communism, but to
avoid humiliating defeat.
 NY Times v. US (1971) *

50. The Ceasefire, 1973
 Peace is at hand 
Henry Kissinger, 1972
 N. Vietnam attacks
 Largest U.S. bombing
retaliation
 1973: Ceasefire signed

51. The Ceasefire, 1973
 Conditions:
1. U.S. to remove all troops
2. N. Vietnam troops in S. Vietnam remain
3. N. Vietnam to resume war
4. U.S. POWs/MIAs remain
 1973: Last U.S. troops left S. Vietnam
 1975: N. Vietnam defeats S. Vietnam
 Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City

52. The Fall of Saigon
South Vietnamese
Attempt to Flee the Country

53. The Fall of
Saigon
America Abandons Its Embassy
April 30, 1975

54. The Fall of
Saigon
North Vietnamese
at the Presidential Palace

55. The Costs
1. 3 m. Vietnamese killed
2. 58K Americans killed; 300K wounded
3. Great Society under-funded
4. $150 B. in U.S. spending
5. U.S. morale, confidence, trust in government
devastated

56. The Impact
 26th Amendment: 18-yr olds vote
 Nixon abolished draft all-volunteer army
 War Powers Act, 1973
 Pres. must notify Congress w/in 48 hrs of deployment
 Pres. must withdraw forces unless he gains
Congressional approval within 90 days
 Disregard for Veterans  seen as “baby killers”
 POW/MIA issue lingered

57. 2,583 American
POWs / MIAs
still unaccounted for today.

58. “If we have to fight, we will fight.
You will kill ten of our men and
we will kill one of yours, and in
the end it will be you who tires of
it.”
And in the End….
Ho Chi Minh: