Happy Birthday LBJ
On this day August 27th in 1908 (102 years ago today) Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born in Stonewall, Texas. His father Samuel Ealey Johnson Jr. had served five terms in the Texas state legislature and LBJ served as a congressman and a senator before becoming John F. Kennedy's vice-president and succeeding Kennedy as president upon JFK's assassination. I've journalled a lot about LBJ this summer, mainly due to my visit to the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas last month.
Johnson is a polarizing figure when it comes to his legacy. On the one hand he had some amazing accomplishments in the field of civil rights and social legislation. On the other hand his legacy will always be tarnished over the quagmire of Vietnam.
Johnson overcame southern opposition and convinced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Johnson pushed the bill through the Senate and signed it into law on July 2, 1964. In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in voting, allowing millions of southern African-Americans to vote for the first time.
After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots," and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late." Johnson was the first President to arrest and prosecute members of the Klan since Ulysses S. Grant about 93 years earlier.
In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Johnson's "great society" met such ambitious goals as federal funding for education and medicare and medicaid, each quite astonishing when one considers the difficulties faced in health care reform today.
Johnson's downfall was his increasing focus on Vietnam. He firmly believed in the Domino Theory and that his containment policy required America to make a serious effort to stop all Communist expansion. At the time of Kennedy's death, there were 16,000 American military advisors in Vietnam. As President, Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. He expanded the numbers and roles of the American military following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as Johnson later admitted. It was Johnson who began America's direct involvement in the ground war in Vietnam. By 1968, over 550,000 American soldiers were inside Vietnam; in 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of over 1,000 a month.
Johnson believed that America could not afford to lose and risk appearing weak in the eyes of the world. Johnson escalated the war effort continuously from 1964 to 1968, and the number of American deaths rose. In two weeks in May 1968 alone American deaths numbered 1,800 with total casualties at 18,000. Alluding to the Domino Theory, he said, "If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco."
As casualties mounted and success seemed further away than ever, Johnson's popularity plummeted. College students and others protested, burned draft cards, and chanted, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Johnson could scarcely travel anywhere without facing protests, and was not allowed by the Secret Service to attend the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where hundreds of thousands of hippies, yippies, Black Panthers and other opponents of Johnson's policies both in Vietnam and in the ghettoes converged to protest. By 1968, the public was polarized, with the "hawks" rejecting Johnson's refusal to continue the war indefinitely, and the "doves" rejecting his current war policies. Support for Johnson's middle position continued to shrink until he finally rejected containment and sought a peace settlement.
Johnson said of his involvement in the Vietnam War as President:
“I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society - in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs.... But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."
Johnson is a polarizing figure when it comes to his legacy. On the one hand he had some amazing accomplishments in the field of civil rights and social legislation. On the other hand his legacy will always be tarnished over the quagmire of Vietnam.
Johnson overcame southern opposition and convinced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Johnson pushed the bill through the Senate and signed it into law on July 2, 1964. In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in voting, allowing millions of southern African-Americans to vote for the first time.
After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots," and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late." Johnson was the first President to arrest and prosecute members of the Klan since Ulysses S. Grant about 93 years earlier.
In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Johnson's "great society" met such ambitious goals as federal funding for education and medicare and medicaid, each quite astonishing when one considers the difficulties faced in health care reform today.
Johnson's downfall was his increasing focus on Vietnam. He firmly believed in the Domino Theory and that his containment policy required America to make a serious effort to stop all Communist expansion. At the time of Kennedy's death, there were 16,000 American military advisors in Vietnam. As President, Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. He expanded the numbers and roles of the American military following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as Johnson later admitted. It was Johnson who began America's direct involvement in the ground war in Vietnam. By 1968, over 550,000 American soldiers were inside Vietnam; in 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of over 1,000 a month.
Johnson believed that America could not afford to lose and risk appearing weak in the eyes of the world. Johnson escalated the war effort continuously from 1964 to 1968, and the number of American deaths rose. In two weeks in May 1968 alone American deaths numbered 1,800 with total casualties at 18,000. Alluding to the Domino Theory, he said, "If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco."
As casualties mounted and success seemed further away than ever, Johnson's popularity plummeted. College students and others protested, burned draft cards, and chanted, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" Johnson could scarcely travel anywhere without facing protests, and was not allowed by the Secret Service to attend the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where hundreds of thousands of hippies, yippies, Black Panthers and other opponents of Johnson's policies both in Vietnam and in the ghettoes converged to protest. By 1968, the public was polarized, with the "hawks" rejecting Johnson's refusal to continue the war indefinitely, and the "doves" rejecting his current war policies. Support for Johnson's middle position continued to shrink until he finally rejected containment and sought a peace settlement.
Johnson said of his involvement in the Vietnam War as President:
“I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society - in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs.... But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."