LBJ Tapes Teach Lesson in How to Lose War

www.insightmag.com ^ | Sept. 2, 2002 | Ralph de Toledano

[aristeides]

It'll be interesting to see what use Robert Caro makes of the LBJ tapes, when he gets to Vietnam and the LBJ presidency.

[aristeides]

Despite the difficulty plaintiffs in lawsuits have had getting at them, the Clinton White House e-mails probably still exist someplace.

[Bob]

As the dust settles on the last half of the 20th Century, the failed presidencies of LBJ and WJC are going to be as obvious as big ears and a bulbous nose, respectively.

Let's not leave that feckless peanut farmer off the list of failed presidencies.

[waterstraat]

I have read both books, on the transcripts of Johnson. There is no better proof that it was the vietnam war protestors who were right all along, than Johnsons very own words.

[leadpenny]

Yes, but he built houses and "won" the Nobel Prize for Peace. /s

[thucydides]

Not all of those opposed to the war were anti-american, but the left was clearly anti-american, and always has been.

[thucydides]

I am not sure the analogy to Korea holds. The North Vietnamese were essentially a Soviet operation, and there was a lot of hostility with the Chinese. It may well have been that but for the domestic left, Nixon could have reached some deal with the Chinese to dump the North Vietnamese government. After the pullout, there was extensive fighting between the Vietnamese and Chinese up on the border. I don't know the answer, but I do know that you either go in to win, or stay out.

[shezza]

It is reasonable to ask people in the military to risk their lives in the former case.

No. And God bless those who did anyway.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Your case is stronger for the post-1970 period when Nixon had his detente with China. I don't think that this applies to the 1964-1969 period when the cultural war was ramping up. If anything the chances for such an invasion then might have been greater in the late 1960s than they were when the ChiCom's overwhelmed MacArthur.

The Cultural Warriors of the late 1960s would have loved to have plunged headlong against the U.S. In any case, a small piece of real estate like IndoChina was not worth the risk IMHO. Even in the 1970s, I doubt that the Chinese would have tolerated a U.S ground invasion of the North. Nixon had little motivation to do this (regardless of what Congress said) because he didn't want to alienate the ChiComs.

[BRO68]

This is old news. The author is simply regurgitating what Halberstam wrote in "The Best and the Brightest" - what - twenty five years ago or so. That book remains the definitive analysis of LBJ's mismanagement of the war.

And by the way, Nixon began the U.S. pull back almost immediately after taking office in January 1969.

[maica]

I would not have been surprised to know that Russian flag ships were in Haiphong Harbor. The Soviet Merchant Marine was huge. Learning that British Merchant Marine vessels were trading with the North was one of those facts that hits the gut in an emotional way. My source flew recon missions out of Danang, so I had no reason to doubt him.

[Light Speed]

Hindsight is as they say....20/20

Did Lindon Johnson mismanage the war?

My answer....no!

Reason...
Johnson is handed ..handed set inmotion protocalls...,SAC..Navy..Norad etc.
The game of that time..the seperation of Russia and China.
Yes..seperation..for Russia was involved in the Mideast.
Just as today..the seperation of Eurasia from Asia in Geo/strategic thinking.
Ronny Reagan carried this to its near end conclusion...Russia was ground down financially...China was isolated and tossed a useless proxy in North Korea.
America...all she had to do..was be in the region..and the "Other Players"..were loosing much more fiscally..positionally..technologically ..than the U.S.
Its a game/war of attrition..with focused outcomes.
Look at China...they have sat on their ass since their dramatics of the Korean war.
Russia...nearly..totally gamed out of the mid -east...hell they haven't a friggin pipeline to their name in the Gulf region...even Iran cannot toss them anything.
Yes..Vietnam..a strategic piece move on the "Grand Chessboard".
The military driven mechanics of Johnsons time..gave way to Corporate power in ours....
America is kicking ass!...and She strides thru the earth in Regal power...no one...no one can stay in the arena long with Her...in competition.

Did Johnson fail.....No....Nixon....No!
They may have looked suspect in the political eye..but the "End game"..they both kept America slotted...# 1.

[DoctorMichael]

There is another subtext to this subject that seems to be hiding in plain view.................................

Nixon is always portrayed as a paranoid bastard by those in the media (Oliver Stone, Woodward and Bernstein, etc., etc.) because he employed a taping mechanism in the Oval Office.

Now what we find out out is that Johnson did the same thing.

On top of that C-SPAN and other media sources that have aired this material over the last year or so have continually billed the taped conversations as "contributing to our understanding of history" and "providing an insight into the important personalities and topics of those times", blah, blah, blah.

!!!!!!!!!BULLSHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Sorry, I just had to get that pet peeve/observation of dounble standardism, hypocrisy and media santimoniousness out)

[sneakypete]

Could our 'allies' have been providing war materiel to the VC?

I know the French were,and so were neutral countries like Sweden.

The reasons I heard to not bomb Haipong Harbor were because of the Russian and eastern European ships docked there. They were afraid of creating a "international incident".

[sneakypete]

To judge from the excerpt quoted, the author may be a little harder on the military that they deserve.

No,he's too kind to them.

With an impossible situation at the commander in chief level, with Johnson just trying to muddle through in typical liberal fashion, juggling various constituencies with no greater object in mind than the next election, what could military officers do?

They could have resigned their commissions in protest,and they SHOULD have. As a officer or enlisted member of our military,you swear a oath to be faithful to the country and the Constitution. NOT to your career. The motto of West Point is "Duty,Honor,Country". They have it right,and the senior brass that allowed this to happen had lost track of their ethics.

[sneakypete]

Had the the U.S. invaded the North, they would have been met by a million or more screaming Chinese.

And why would this have been a problem? Were we short of 30 and 50 cal ammunition?

[Paulus Invictus]

My take is that every RAT president had some major failing, some worse than others, but all were responsible for terrible disasters for the Republic.

Examples: FDR gave us WW II and the socialist programs we still are paying for. Truman gave us the UN and the non-war of Korea that cost more then 50K military lives. Carter gave us a weakened military, terrible foreign policies and huge economic problems. JFK helped jump-start Viet Nam and almost got the nation into a nuclear war over Cuba with Russia. LBJ helped us lose 58K troops in a losing effort in Viet Nam and began the ruinous welfare policies still in place. Then there was the Felon. His failures are too numerous to count, but as a traitor to the nation, he was the worst RAT of all.

[sneakypete]

I know we had the Aussies there but I didn't know of any British Troops in the South.

There were also New Zealand SAS troops fighting there. These are "Commonwealth Troops",and I guess they could be classified as British Troops in that respect.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Apparently it wasn't quite enough in Korea, so Douglas MacArthur found out at the hands of a technologically backward Chinese army.

[waterstraat]

This is old news. The author is simply regurgitating what Halberstam wrote in "The Best and the Brightest" - what - twenty five years ago or so. That book remains the definitive analysis of LBJ's mismanagement of the war.

This is not old news. This is the white house tapes of Johnson, transcribed. The 2 books published so far are new, they are not opinions, they are the actual words of Johnson, only recently available. What Halberstam wrote was an opinion, the same as the opinions of the war protestors. Yes, it turned out that they were right, but many still did not believe either Halberstam or the college war protestors.

The new books, i.e., the transcribed tapes, leave no doubt as to who was right and who was wrong. The college kids were right on the money, in each and every criticism of the war, from the Tonkin Bay incident being contrived, to Johnson not wanting to negotiate . There is no "opinions" of what Johnson thought, or did, these is the facts of what Johnson thought and did.