1. LBJ:
The Great Society
and
Vietnam

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

4. “[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.

5. "Let Us Continue"
• November 22, 1963:
JFK assassinated
• LBJ promised to
continue JFK programs
• LBJ ultimately
exceeded JFK’s record
on economic, racial
equality

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

7. LBJ on the Economy: War on Poverty

8. 1964 Election:
LBJ (D) versus Barry Goldwater (R)
The Daisy Ad

11. 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

13.  1954: French lose to Ho
Chi Minh’s Viet Minh at
Dien Bien Phu

14.  Vietnam divided at 17th parallel
O North
O Ho Chi Minh
O communist dictatorship
O support from Soviet Union
O South
O Ngo Dinh Diem
O right-wing anti-communist
dictatorship
O support from US - 675 U.S.
Army advisors sent by
Eisenhower

16. U.S. Military Involvement Begins
 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 are
murdered
 JFK assassinated Nov 22

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

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

19. Who Is 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

20. Who Is the
Enemy?

22. 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

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

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

27. The Air War:
A Napalm Attack

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

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

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

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

32. 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

33. 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

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

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

36. 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
Columbia University, 1967

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

40. 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!

42. 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
Democratic Convention in Student Protestors
Chicago, 1968 at Univ. of CA
in Berkeley, 1968

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

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

45. 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.)

46. “Pentagon Papers,” 1971
 Daniel Ellsberg
leaked LBJ era docs
to the NY Times
 Docs LBJ admin misled Congress & American
people
 Reason for fighting not to eliminate
communism, but to avoid humiliating defeat.
 New York Times v. United States (1971) *

48. The Ceasefire, 1973
 Peace is at hand 
Henry Kissinger, 1972
 N. Vietnam attacks
 Most Massive U.S.
bombing commences
 1973: Ceasefire signed

49. Peace Negotiations
 US & Vietnamese
argue for 5 months
over the size of the
conference table!
Dr. Henry Kissinger & Le Duc Tho

50. The Ceasefire, 1973
 Conditions:
1. U.S. to remove all troops
2. N. Vietnam troops already in S. Vietnam
remain
3. N. Vietnam would resume war
4. No provision for American POWs or MIAs
 Last American troops left South Vietnam on
March 29, 1973
 1975: North Vietnam defeats South Vietnam
 Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City

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

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

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

54. The Costs
1. 3,000,000 Vietnamese killed
2. 58,000 Americans killed; 300,000 wounded
3. Under-funding of Great Society programs
4. $150,000,000,000 in U.S. spending
5. U.S. morale, self-confidence, and trust of
government decimated

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

56. Some American POWs
Returned from the
“Hanoi Hilton”
Senator John McCain
(R-AZ)

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

58. And in the End….
Ho Chi Minh:
“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.”

59. Lessons for American Presidents
(Until 9/11)
1. Wars must be short.
2. Wars must yield few American casualties.
3. Restrict media access to battlefields.
4. Develop and maintain Congressional and public
support.
5. Set clear, winnable goals.
6. Set deadline for troop withdrawals.